im trying to sort out my parent's friend's laptop... it takes ages to boot and takes ages to do anything.

i cleared out its virus vault (had literally thousands of viruses!?)

removed around 40 spyware problems and a trojan... but its still running really slow (but significantly quicker than before)

ive got rid of a lot of startup processes, and checked all of what is running, but windows is still lagging like a beeyatch. why?

any help would be really appreciated!

thanks

Specs?

erm, its really old... but it used to work fine.

just waiting for it to load and ill post them >.<

Haha, well if it's really old, then of course it's going to be slow - because all the updates you install and what not slow it down a hell of alot.

Stick linux on it

Well, one thing that tend to work is the classic format (I know that it's more like avoiding the problem than fixing it, but hey, usually it works).

Also, you said it worked fine before, and that it was slow now. Then you removed some spyware, which made it "significantly quicker than before". Maybe this is actually the speed it was running on before, so that you now have, in their eyes, fixed it.

EDIT: Also...

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Originally posted by M73A
im trying to sort out my parent's friend's laptop

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Originally posted by Nathan
Stick linux on it

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nah its still taking ages to turn on and clicking start you can go make a cup of tea and itll be done by the time your back... it was REALLY slow before. lol

specs:
Intel celeron 2.60ghz
224mb RAM
XP SP2 Home
28gb hdd

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Originally posted by M73A
224mb RAM

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Wow, that's certainly an old one... but it still passes the recommended XP requirements, so that shouldn't be an issue. How much free space is there on the HDD? Also, while this won't likely fix anything, you should throw SP3 on as well.

What processes are running? A huge number, and anything "dodgy" on the list? And I assume you already checked what automatically runs at startup using Autoruns or something similar?

EDIT:

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Originally posted by Nathan
Upgrade now, if you want any speed increase

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lol well, what is REALLY strange, i've left it for like five minutes whilst on here.... everything has started up and it seems to be wqorking alright.

but why does it take around 10 minutes to boot? my older desktop has similar specs and doesn't take THAT long, and all this thing is loading (besides system things etc) is avg security centee and a dsl agent thing.

EDIT:

i've gone through all the processes and startups.... removed all the dodgy stuff and some malware and shit was found by spybot, that got rid of a few too. now all thats left is avg stuff, toshiba stuff or windows stuff...

ah i cba with sp3, that will cripple the little thing haha.

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Originally posted by M73A
lol well, what is REALLY strange, i've left it for like five minutes whilst on here.... everything has started up and it seems to be wqorking alright.

but why does it take around 10 minutes to boot? my older desktop has similar specs and doesn't take THAT long, and all this thing is loading (besides system things etc) is avg security centee and a dsl agent thing.

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quote:

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Intel Pentium 300 MHz
30 MB free hard drive space (for installation)
256 MB RAM

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ah, those minimum specs of avg are very interesting!

time for some experimentation!

oh yeah, 40% / 11gb free space just to add that in.

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Originally posted by M73A
ah, those minimum specs of avg are very interesting!

time for some experimentation!

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So it doesn't meet the RAM minimum requirement, you should perhaps look for another anti-virus program (did he recently upgrade from AVG7 to AVG8? That might affect the speed as well? What version of AVG is on atm?)

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its avg 7.5 atm. they used to have an older vrsion i think.

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Originally posted by M73A
its avg 7.5 atm. they used to have an older vrsion i think.

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Originally posted by Vilkku

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Originally posted by M73A
its avg 7.5 atm. they used to have an older vrsion i think.

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Did a quick google and 7.5 have the same requirements.

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If you're using 7.5 it won't have the updated virus databse? So you may still have virus's

At uni, whenever my friends came to me with problems like this, I'd have a look, get rid of some viruses or whatever was slowing it down, but it would still be slow. I'd tell them it would be easier to just format and start over, so they asked me to backup some things and reinstall Windows It's the easiest alternative and they never usually had much to backup

Formating is a good solution, but it feels like giving up

Disable everything from booting up. If it still takes ages to boot up then you still have dodgy Services  and / or drivers.

Try disabling undeeded Services, as they take just as much to boot up as your "boot items" and drivers get loaded up before you even see the Windows GUI, so if that part is taking ages, id go through your drivers list and update them / remove virus drivers .

And id recommend Avira over AVG. it has far lower system requirements
(Computer: Pentium or higher, at least 133 MHz
Operating system: Windows 2000 (SP 4 recommended) / Windows XP and XP 64 Bit (SP 2 recommended) / Windows Vista 32 Bit and 64 Bit
RAM: 192 MB / 512 MB RAM for Windows Vista
40 MB free memory on the hard disk (more if quarantine is used)
100 MB temporary memory on the hard disk
Administrator rights are required for the installation)
And is more powerfull(But just use it temporarly to get rid of rouge viruses). Also try out SuperAntiSpyware (Its freeware).

Ifall that doesnt work, then its time to format

ohh i cant be bothered with formatting it, they will have lost the drivers disc and then theres trying to activate windows.... the stickers on the bottom but ive tried it with another computer and even though i installed xp home the home serial fromt he sticker woudln't work? strange!!

i might just leave it how it is now,. once its turned on it doesn't seem to be THAT bad, they can't really complain. they should buy a new one haha

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Originally posted by mattisdada
Formating is a good solution, but it feels like giving up

Disable everything from booting up. If it still takes ages to boot up then you still have dodgy Services  and / or drivers.

Try disabling undeeded Services, as they take just as much to boot up as your "boot items" and drivers get loaded up before you even see the Windows GUI, so if that part is taking ages, id go through your drivers list and update them / remove virus drivers .

And id recommend Avira over AVG. it has far lower system requirements
(Computer: Pentium or higher, at least 133 MHz
Operating system: Windows 2000 (SP 4 recommended) / Windows XP and XP 64 Bit (SP 2 recommended) / Windows Vista 32 Bit and 64 Bit
RAM: 192 MB / 512 MB RAM for Windows Vista
40 MB free memory on the hard disk (more if quarantine is used)
100 MB temporary memory on the hard disk
Administrator rights are required for the installation)
And is more powerfull(But just use it temporarly to get rid of rouge viruses). Also try out SuperAntiSpyware (Its freeware).

Ifall that doesnt work, then its time to format

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