Slow Computer HELP!!!

For the past few weeks my pc has been running really slowly!!! It shouldn't though I have a Creative DSL router and a Dell Dimension 4600 with a 2.8GHZ processor so its fast enough BUT REALLY SLOW!!!!

I installed microsoft anti-spyware beta and deleted all the kazza stuff and now theres no known spyware or viruses. Theres very little on the computer, no games or anything, mostly just files and music which takes up 460.80 MB. It says the available phsical memory is 240MB. But the total physical memory is 512 MB.

Whats slowing down my PC?:bnghd:
Is it the music or adware or something?
BTW: Limewire is installed, would that make a difference?

Hi Atomix
I notice you have broadband and like music. Have you exceeded your download limit for this month?
A lot of ISP's will do what's called 'throttle back' your connection speed until the end of the calender month, and then restore your original connection speed on the 1st of the next month.

Also, the programs you mentioned are full of hidden .
Just a thought,

Sanc'.

sanctum,

that is good info. I was not aware....

Atomix,

if it is not just slow web, perhaps you are about out of space on your c drive? If so you could clean out your temp files.

Or perhaps you could just clean out your prefetch file

My ISP doesn't have a download limit i don't think, and if it does theres no chance I've exceeded it. Kazza i deleted ages ago and removed the hidden that never leaves with it (dont you just hate that) and I deleted all the spyware in limewire. Its not just the internet going slow but the computer itself.

Thanks

Thanks for the advice guys

I deleted my prefetch files. Will anything blow up if I delete my temporary internet files? Because there just some pictures of a printer.

Its still running quite slow, maybe I'll just copy my music onto discs?

My new problem:

copying my music

Originally posted by Atomix
Thanks for the advice guys

I deleted my prefetch files. Will anything blow up if I delete my temporary internet files?

No, it wont blow up. Clean the temp' files and then restart (offline) and defragment the C drive, and any other drives...your C drive may be partitioned so you could have a D drive too on the same hard-drive.

Anyhoo, defrag' your H/D (this could take hours). I hope this helps.

Sanc'.

Another thing you might want to check is the running processes on your task manager (Ctl alt Del). I know of a couple peeps who had svchost.exe eating up 99-100% of the processor slowing things down to a crawl.

If you do have an svchost.exe eating up your processor, a quick Google search shoulld provide some remedies.

I have had the same problem as you with the computer not recognizing physical memory. Did you install more yourself or have you not touched the guts of the computer at all?

If you can, look at the RAM in the slots and make sure every pin is aligned with the tiny metal shoes inside the slot. Sounds complex I know but really it just takes 10 seconds and you only have to eyeball it. That's probably why it's not recognizing the RAM.

Microsoft anti-spyware doesn’t catch everything
You need more than one spy where cleaner try spy bot, aware southeast
There are no anti-spywate that is 100 % affective you’ll need several anti spyware software programs

You may want to check the amount of cookies on your drive.

As stated earlier try defragging, get rid of all the junk files. ( I use evidence eliminator) You have scanned for viruses and spyware so that is good. Also how much ram does your computer have and hard drive space? Detailed specs would help.

You could still have virus or spyware lurking, just because a virus scanner reports it as clean doesnt mean it actually is. There are a number of programs that are usefull if you think you may have a virus. Do a google search for "HijackThis" and run that program. It will give you an output of what is currently running on your machine and what runs at the startup etc. Autoruns/TCPView are also usefull for finding viruses etc, found at www.sysinternals.com. Autoruns is like Hijack this but looks in more locations for programs that run on startup on your machine, and tcpview shows you exactly network activity is occuring on your computer.

Might also be worth downloading CWSshredder (found at the same place Hijack this, google it ), this kills off a very nasty piece of spyware that injects itself right into your dll files and slows down the computer a lot. Maybe even try Rootkit revealer from www.sysinternals, will let you know if there is anything nasty lurking around hiding its processes from the Windows API.

Good luck!