I've had my Dell for a number of years now (oh, 3? 4? I can't even remember). It has progressively run slower and slower, I'm assuming due to all the photos I've uploaded and programs I've added over the years.

Recently however (as in the last couple days) it has started locking up. In other words, all my open programs (be it one, or more) all freeze. The computer runs at 100% and either one of two things will happen:

-one or more programs will not respond (so I have to force quit out of them), OR,
-they all go back to normal after a period of time

Just in the last 5 minutes it has locked up just as many times. Its VERY frustrating!!

I've run ad-aware, spybotS&D, and Norton. I actually ran norton last night, starting at about 9 or 10 p.m....it was STILL running this morning at about 6:30 a.m. when I got up...and it locked up so I had to quit out of it.

Any ideas for what I can do to heal my sick comp?

10/30/2006 8:48:24 AM

At this point either bring in one of the guys here or take it to Mitsuba and he'll let you know what the problem is.

Mitsuba (829-0294). Cost you around $40 if it's not hardware.

10/30/2006 8:50:23 AM

I'm not in Raleigh though...

10/30/2006 8:51:58 AM

my recommendation is to change your name to JCheetah

10/30/2006 8:56:57 AM

lol, why?

10/30/2006 9:02:07 AM

slow name:slow computer :: fast name:fast computer

10/30/2006 9:12:59 AM

haha...gotcha. well if it was as simple as that, I'd be all for it!

10/30/2006 9:15:21 AM

how much free space do you have on the hdd? have you ran a disk cleanup and defrag lately?

10/30/2006 9:28:54 AM

comp says it doesn't need a defrag, and I did the cleanup a few weeks ago

used space: 23.8 GB
free space: 32 GB

10/30/2006 9:58:41 AM

backup all of your stuff and reformat.

10/30/2006 10:08:54 AM

How much RAM do you have in the system? If it isn't at lesat 512, go buy some and you'll see a huge (25-50%) performance increase.

Btw, where are you located? You might get lucky and find a TWWer who can diagnose / fix it for $20/hr or so.

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

10/30/2006 10:31:18 AM

512 RAM

And I'm in the Outer Banks

10/30/2006 10:35:16 AM

clean out the dust with canned air (or fix anything that could cause your computer to overheat), install more memory, run something like ccleaner to clean up old install files and to clean up the registry, uninstall all programs you don't use, run scandisk, run defrag, clean up your startup folder/reg entries to keep it to just essential programs loading at startup, run antivirus in safe mode or during bootup, etc.. etc... last resort: backup all of your stuff and reformat.

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 11:21 AM. Reason : .]

10/30/2006 11:20:55 AM

thanks

10/30/2006 11:21:48 AM

HELP COMPUTAH

10/30/2006 11:33:43 AM

yeah make sure you run those spybot etc in safe mode, because the difficult malware (and often times most detrimental to your computer) will stay on unless you disable system restore and run it in safe mode.

10/30/2006 7:39:46 PM

the ccleaner helped! I'm going to continue to problem shoot, but my computer is already a little happier. Thanks

10/31/2006 7:28:33 AM

if you aren't running ntfs (yes, some of the first xp machines shipped in fat32) convert it

start -> run -> cmd

in the dos window type convert c: /fs:ntfs

reboot

[Edited on October 31, 2006 at 10:08 AM. Reason : then run disk defragmenter over night]

10/31/2006 10:08:15 AM

what's ntfs and how do I check to see if I'm running it? **blush**

10/31/2006 10:45:12 AM

right click on the c: drive and go to properties, it'll be listed under file system, either FAT32 or NTFS. NTFS is a new(er) file system that is more reliable than File Allocation Table 32bit.




Also, turn off allow indexing. No useful benefit unless you search your hdd often.

10/31/2006 11:43:11 AM

ok I'm already running NTFS...but I turned off the indexing (as suggested)

thanks!

and wow...that's a lot of free space!! (seagate huh?)

10/31/2006 12:10:30 PM

that's a random google image

10/31/2006 2:51:51 PM

Also TweakNow RegCleaner
http://www.tweaknow.com/RegCleaner.html

10/31/2006 5:25:13 PM