[exparisstevie]

Hi,

I've been steered to this forum by Nick at Spywarewarrior. After ruling out malware as a cause of my systems problems.

Basically, problems have been ongoing for over a month (can't isolate any new software installed at the time) - no new hardware added.

Think we've just identified that spybot's tea timer was causing conflicts so have removed that. Also, Stardock/Objectdock is now deleted due to weird behaviour.

Issues;

This machine (new box - Acer travelmate 2420, 1.5ghz, 256mb ram (at least 70mb free at all times) 40gb HDD, struggles when using USB to connect to the net - very very slow. Same connection, different machine - uber fast!

If using wireless to connect - will stay online between 1min and 1hour - then disconnects and needs restart to get a signal.

Windows itself feels clunky (this was a brand new machine in June) - it has a lot of preinstalled acer stuff on it - (don't know what I need and don't so have left all active on machine)

Start up is when you see it struggle with getting itself together (mind you my old box took nearly an hour to boot and that issue has not been solved so this one stil seems good even though I know it should perform better)

Don't know what other information or logs I could provide to help troubleshoot - happy to provide any information that I can.

Hope someone can help

Steve

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How much ram in the other machine?

[Retired Tech]

How much ram in the other machine?

[exparisstevie]

Hi,

Other box is 512mb ram. This one only 256mb, but is showing bewtween 70-100mb free all the time (acer has an auto ram optimizer thing that shows free ram)

[Retired Tech]

You can click start then run, type msconfig then press enter, click start up, click disable all

Then replace the ticks for the firewall, anti virus and any anti spyware programmes you have, click apply and reboot

Then

Items in blue which are underlined are clickable to give more information about the process

Click start then run, type prefetch then press enter, click edit then select all, right click any file then click delete, confirm delete

Click start, all programmes, accessories, system tools to run disc clean up, then from system tools, run disc defragmenter.

Click start then run, type sfc /scannow then press enter, you need the XP CD and Windows File Protection will show a blue onscreen progress bar, when the bar goes, reboot

Download and install Tune Up 2006 Trial

Run Tune Up Disc Clean Up

Run Tune Up Registry Clean Up

Click Optimize and Improve to run Reg Defrag, which will take a few minutes and need a reboot. You should disable the antivirus programme to run this

Check the anti virus is running after the reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to optimize the computer, select computer with an internet connection from the drop down menu, this also requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to accelerate downloads, select the speed just above your actual connection speed, this requires a reboot

After the reboot, click optimize then system optimizer to run system advisor


However, 70MB is not a lot for free ram memory

[exparisstevie]

Thank you so much for your help (your replies are lighting fast!!) - i'll get on with your instructions right away.

Yep - I know 70mb is not bags of free RAM and plan to install another ram stick next month (really cheap - £30 for a 512mb stick for this Notebook) - only made the point that I had free ram to rule it out as a cause of my issues for now - I know i'll notice a huge improvement when I add the new stick. Actually have a question about that - When I get the new stick - will I be able to keep the one already installed as well? (they'll be different sizes and probs different manufacturers too...

Once again thanks for your help (loving this forum already) - I imagine i'll be asking you about the old box soon cos it still takes an hour to boot up (restart or cold start) at the mo it's running a checkdisk and has been for 24hrs - it's still only 50% done. Did a burn in test on the HD the other day that passed - so will probs pick your brain about that one soon.

Anyway - I digress - for now i'll follow your instructions for this box.

Thanks again


Steve

[Retired Tech]

As long as the Ram Memory is compatible, same speed etc, then the largest stick goes in slot 1 and move the current one to slot two

[exparisstevie]

Hi Keith,

First off - i'd like to thank you for all of your help. Everything seems faster! - Now that all of the acer stuff is deactivated - obviously the ram optimizer they use isn't working - but the one in tuneup is showing 146mb free!!

The system has never ever been this fast (even right out of the box!!)

query re that software - is it worth getting the license and running it for all of the options contained in it - do you use it merely for the functionality already used and not for anything else??

Never used anything like that before and am very impressed. Also impressed with the speed and level of your help today - thank you so so much!

With ref to the ram optimizer within tuneup (just tried it to see if it did the same as acers version) would you recommend using it or should i turn it off ( I know XP has it's own tools for this and don't wanna cause conflicts - the acer version said that it worked "alongside the Inbuilt XP optimization process" - is this the same or will it cause me issues?

I really can't thank you enough. You're an absolute star.

With ref to the other box can I post my probs with that one in the same thread or should i start a new one? - I cannot post a thread actually from that machine as it's still doing the checkdisk thing (55%) - stage 4 - but would really appreciate your input on it as I have tried lots and lots of forum support for that one and noone has every managed to make a dent on the problems with it. I think the process we just went through with this box would help - but at the end of the day - it takes an hour to boot so it'd be a nightmare to follow that process (that was around 15 reboots and would take over a day of constant attention!)

Sorry to witter on.


Steve

[Retired Tech]

Tune Up are OK with you using one license key to install it on any machine you use, so if you have more than one machine, dividing the cost makes it a not too expensive outlay for the results it produces

Posting a new thread would give the benefit of everyone looking at it, rather than here where the thread has answers already

Tune Up has auto memory optimization, so no need to do anything other than check it is running, and that the amounts to recover are feasible

[attachment=10436:attachment]

The boot up on the other PC should improve as you work through the things you did on this PC

Thank You for letting me know how it went

[exparisstevie]

Hey Keith,

Will start a new post for the old box as per your instructions.

I will always post a thank you for any advice I get and from anyone kind enough to help me.

I would have done this regardless - but see it as a real prerequisite now as I am currently studying at the malwareremoval uni. As well as that I like to be thanked when I help people too (I work as tech support for apple) - it costs nothing to be polite and to praise those who make your life easier (especially those like yourself who are helping on forums and generally do so out of kindness and not for monetary gain.)

Probably a cheeky question here but i'll ask it anyway (maybe i'm just cheeky) but how did you start to accrue the skills that you have? - I asked the same question of those who helped me at spywarewarrior last year and ended up starting their affiliated uni program at malwareremoval. I'd really like to learn as much as I can and put the knowledge to good use.

One more question for you - I've recently been asked to trial linux ubuntu as part of their 'dualboot' trial program but am a touch nervous of it. Is it possible to get support for ubuntu 6.06 on this forum too? - I'd feel more comfortable doing the trial if I knew I had the level of support that has been afforded me today.

Really can't thank you enough for all of your help. Once again sir - you are a diamond.


Cheers


Steve

[Retired Tech]

how did you start to accrue the skills that you have

Google and plagiarism



Linux is covered under other operating systems, you may want to ask any questions you already have for that to see how you get on