[BabyG]

Hi all!

My Mom is running Win98. Her computer is running really slow. Has been for a while now, but getting worse by the day.

Her System info is:
Processor: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 8 997
Math Support: On Chip
BIOS: American Megatrends 08/22/01
Bus Type: PCI,ISA,USB,AGP
Ports: 1 Parallel, 1 Serial
Memory: 256 MB (38% Utilized)
Total Physical: 256 MB
Total Windows: 2096 MB
Free: 2025 MB
Used: 70.7 MB
Floppy Disk: 1.44 MB
Hard Disks: 37.28 GB
Free: 29.63 GB
Used: 7.62 GB
Multimedia: Sound, CD-ROM
Video: 800x600 in 64K Colors, NVIDIA RIV

Operating System

Windows: 4.10 (Build 2222)
DOS: 7.10
Net Clients: Microsoft Family Logon
Microsoft Network

This may be too much info or not enough. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Thanks,
BabyG

 

[telecom69]

Hi there, 3 questions that will help us here,is the computer dial-up or broadband?, has she got ad-aware installed?, has she got spy-bot installed?

 

[flavallee]

When was the last time that the temp files were deleted?

When was the last time that spyware/malware was detected and deleted?

When was the last time that the Recycle Bin was emptied and Disk Defragmenter was run?

How many programs are loading during startup and running in the background?

If you click the link below and read some of the articles there and follow the instructions in them, I'm confident that your mother's computer will run better and have less problems.

 

[BabyG]

Hi, Thank you for your replies.

telecom69:
Her computer is on dial up. Yes she does have Spybot S&D. I'm not sure what ad aware is, so the answer to that one is "Beats me!" )

flavallee:
She keeps up regular maintenance on her computer. She deletes her history files, her cookies, and her Temp Internet files, and empties her trash, about once a week. And defrags about ever two weeks or so. She runs scandisk every few weeks. She has Spybot S&D, and I S&D'd a few days ago. Additionally, she has Norton Antivirus which is set to monitor continously, and Live Update, which automatically installs all updates so her definitions are always current.

Now the startup programs is quite another issue. She SO has way too many programs running when Windows launches. However, I'm not sure which ones I can safely disable without messing with the way her computer is "supposed" to start up.

Does this help narrow down the possibilities?

Thanks again for your help,
BabyG

 

[telecom69]

Hi BabyG, Im surprised you have never heard of Ad-Aware,its a well known all over the world spy-ware remover and its free to download here http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ download it and you may well be surprised at what it finds lurking in your computer, let us know later what you think Of course the very fact that she is on dial-up will account for a lot of the slow running especially at peak times,evenings and weekends,over here in the UK it can take up to an hour sometimes to even get onto the Internet....You could remove a lot of the programs from the start menu I suppose,that she might not want running by going into Start/Settings/Task bar and start menu/Remove and then removing everything that she might not be using immediately on start-up,(it will not delete the programs,just remove them from the start menu) anyway see what you think,look forward to seeing if there is any improvement, Incidentally thats a brilliant site to visit as mentioned by Frank above,there is a wealth of information on it that will probably help you too take care and have a good day

 

[flavallee]

With Windows 98, you want to keep ScanRegistry, SystemTray, and the antivirus program checked and enabled. Most of the others can be unchecked and disabled. This does not uninstall them. It just merely prevents them from loading during startup and running in the background. Read here and make use of the Pac's Portal site.

 

[BabyG]

You all are the greatist group!

Thank you guys so very much. With all your collective suggestions & help, my Mom's computer is running almost like it used to. And my Mom is a very happy camper, and she says to tell you all Thank You, Thank You!!

See y'all next time. Untill then take care,
BabyG

 

[NiteHawk]

If you want us to take a look at what all is starting at boot up time, you can post an HiJack This scan log and get an analysis of what to stop loading ag boot-up.

Go to http://tomcoyote.org/hjt/ or http://lurkhere.com/~nicefiles and download HiJackThis. Use Winzip to unzip it, then install and run it.

NOTE: HiJackThis.exe file SHOULD be installed in it's own folder. Before downloading create a folder and name it HiJackThis then d/l HiJackThis to that folder. To run double-click the HiJackThis.exe file.

The reason for it's own folder is because HiJackThis will create not only log files, but a backup of whatever it removes so you can restore if necessary. If you d/l HiJackThis to your desktop and run it from there you will have log and backup files scattered all over your desktop.

To run, click the "Scan" button. When it's done the "Scan" button changes to "Save Log". Save the log file it creates (it should open in Notepad at that point). Copy and paste the results in your next post. Most of what it finds is harmless, so do not do anything yet. Someone will be glad to help you sort out any of the not so good items that may be in there.

IF you get an error saying msvbvm60.dll is missing,
Download and run the MS visual basic 6.0 runtime files

 

[flavallee]

BabyG:

Follow NightHawk's advice and post a HijackThis log. This'll tell us what's running in the background, and if there's any "nasties" that need to be gotten rid of.