Benoit wrote:
>My laptop (IBM Think Pad. T41) got very slow.>>
There are probably as many possible reasons as there are computers in this
world.
Here's my 10-point list of the most common causes.
1. Not enough RAM to run whatever is loaded.
2. Hard Drive running out of space.
3. Too many background programs running or conflicting.
4. Something is taking up resources---open Task Manager and check that
System Idle is about 95-99%. If not, see what is consuming CPU. Check the
memory column for anything taking up more memory than Explorer.
5. Corrupted or overloaded registry. Restore registry if you have ERU
registry backups (this nearly always restores performance). Try System
Restore if it will go back far enough (it hardly ever does). Registry
cleaners are little better than useless--don't rely on them.
6. How long since the Hard Drive was reformatted? They don't last forever.
Crud accumulates slowly over the years and eventually gums up the works, no
matter how careful you are. Reformating and reinstalling everything works
wonders if all else fails, and may be the quickest solution in the end.
7. Boot time is a good indicator of computer health. Ideally it should
be under 35 seconds from power on to desktop first appears. 60 seconds is
OK. Over 90 seconds means there are serious boot problems which will
affect general performance.
8. Check performance in Safe Mode and see if that's much better. If not,
the problem is at a fairly low level (ie may be with whatever is loading at
bootup--faulty or corrupted hardware drivers are possible causes. Only
essential drivers load in Safe Mode, so this can help eliminate some
possibilities.)
9. Disable all non-essential Services. Particularly Indexing Service.
10. Check that there are no uncompleted tasks in printers. Some printers
can suck up resources if they are trying to complete tasks which no longer
exist or you thought you had cancelled.
Don Penlington
From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery, and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html
PCSOFT maintains many useful files for download
visit our download web page at:
http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml
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