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Qusetions about reformatting...

post #1 of 6
7/20/06 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
Hey all,
Well Im back with another question, you guys have been so helpful in the past so I've got another one for ya... Recently my computer has been running a lot slower than normal... longer boot up times, when no applications are open my computer is still somehow working really hard (the harddrive light is on, the fan starts going and the task manager is showing that it is working pretty hard), and overall its just going much slower than usual. What do you suggest I do? I searched the forums and it seems like reformating is what is most recommended. How does this work? Will I need to reinstall everything? What about my norton subscription, will I have to repurchase it even though I am only half way through my subscription? I backed up my files on an external hard drive so can I back up programs as well so I wont have to reinstall them? I do have a recovery disc from hypersonic should I use that? What are your recomendations? The computer was purchased in August of 2004 and I have been running it without reformating or anything since I purchased it.
Your help and suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated!!!!
Thanks!!!
-John
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post #2 of 6
7/20/06 at 4:08pm
Why don't u first find out the offending process that is running in the background and see if u can shut it off or remove it completely?

When u notice your laptop slowing down and the harddrive start to run on endlessly, bring up your Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and sort it by Memory Usage.

The service or process(es) that would be causing the slow down wil likely be in the first 3 or 4 entries after you sort by Memory Usage .

G/L
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post #3 of 6
7/20/06 at 6:09pm
Check out the task list here, and see if you need to disable any:

http://answersthatwork.com/

Check out these services lists:

http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm
http://www.z123.org/techsupport/xpservices.htm
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post #4 of 6
7/20/06 at 8:07pm
yeah, i'd say to check out the processes that are running, check for spyware/adware that might be slowing down the system. if you still have a good bit of slowdown and nothing bad is going on, i would suggest a reformat. 2 years is a decent amount of time without a format (my desktop i think went about 4 years before kind of slowing to the point where it took about 15 minutes to boot (something was wrong with it and it wasn't a virus or adware), but when i tried to reformat and reinstall, it failed, and it's been inactive since)

anyway, i'm not sure about how the norton subscription works, but it is very handy that you still have the restore/recovery disk. it will help immensely if you eventually do reformat.
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post #5 of 6
7/22/06 at 12:28am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the help! I did the answersthatwork.com thing and it seems to have helped a bit. Any additional sugestions anyone?
Thanks,
-John
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post #6 of 6
7/22/06 at 7:31am
clean out spyware, then clean out your registry? ccleaner is free. right click my computer and select manage and go to services and stop some bloat services from starting up automatically. you can even stop windows notifications and indexing, to cut it down to the bare minimum. check google to be sure what is safe to stop first. also defrag and if necessary put in more ram.
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