| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Slow computer Thread poster: Tansy Tazewell
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Tom in London wrote:
You should have at *least* 20% of your drive as free, unused space.
If you haven't, there's a risk that at some point soon, your hard drive will crash.
I don't think I need to add what the consequences of that would be.
Why would that be? Of course having some empty space is always recommended, but a couple of GB (not Gb) should be easily enough.
On a 500 GB disk, 20% is 100 GB... it would be absurd to leave 100 GB empty to avoid a "crash". And there are 1 TB (maybe 1.5 or 2TB, I don't keep up) desktop drives on which your rule would suggest 200+ GB of empty space.
In any case, the drive won't crash from being too full. The OS might, and indeed it could very well slow down if you fill up the drive completey to the point where there are only a couple of MBs left. I'm not sure if the OS cannibalizes the space reserved for the swap file in such cases, which could lead to a slowdown. Anyway, even if you run out of space and the computer does crash (very unlikely) it's nothing a reboot and some good old fashioned deletin' can't take care of.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:21
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Not taking issue | Sep 11, 2009 |
The main thing is to always have a recently made full bootable clone.
No further comment.
Now read the top line of this message again.
| | | | Luca Tutino 
Italy
Member (2002)
English to Italian
+ ...
| How to clone? | Sep 11, 2009 |
Hi Tom
Tom in London wrote:
The main thing is to always have a recently made full bootable clone.
I guess this is not the same as copying all files - Can you please share some suggestions on bootable clone creation methods?
Luca
[Edited at 2009-09-11 22:30 GMT]
| | | | Luca Tutino
Italy
Member (2002)
English to Italian
+ ...
| More things to be careful about | Sep 11, 2009 |
According to my experience:
- A Symantec (Norton) Antivirus or protection system is by far the most common cause for slow computers. I finally managed to replace a Symantec suite with another product on my 2 years old computer, and its speed, reliability and RAM exploitation performances improved about 30%!
- No matter how large is your Win System HD (partition), once you go beyond 55% of its capacity its speed and overall performances will start to slow down. At 60% yo... See more According to my experience:
- A Symantec (Norton) Antivirus or protection system is by far the most common cause for slow computers. I finally managed to replace a Symantec suite with another product on my 2 years old computer, and its speed, reliability and RAM exploitation performances improved about 30%!
- No matter how large is your Win System HD (partition), once you go beyond 55% of its capacity its speed and overall performances will start to slow down. At 60% you start to reboot more often, at 75% things get pretty dramatic. This can be especially annoying when you have a very large HD, which can give you the illusion to have a lot GB to go. On the other side using a non system HD to full capacity does not pose any special problem. (Abundantly tested up to 98%.) [For FarkasAndras: this is a constant experience of intensive PC user since 1986. I know t is hard to believe that this might be true on a new 500 GB HD as much as on my 10MB in 1991. My impression is that it is due to combination of Win methods for handling large size media, compression of so-called obsolete files, virtualization of certain parts of the system during runtime, automatic RAM swapping procedures (even with a lot of free physical RAM), and time/procedures needed to reach the decreased available free space. Also defragmentation seems to became less and less effective the more your HD is full.]
- For the evaluation of performance of a "PC-owner system" in relation to the PC age, 1 year of computer life can be considered equivalent to about 15 to 17 years of human life: 5 years = 75 to 85 years ... This should also account for the performance increase you should experience during the first 2-3 years in ideal conditions. I never tried reformatting, but it looks like going back to labor stage, without the advantages of a new body.
- Doubling your memory (from 1GB to 2GB) can be very helpful, but it will not make a big difference if you do not take into account the above factors.
- Do not clean the registry. Any registry cleaner progrma will end up asking you a large number of questions that you can only reply by guessing, and the result will most probably be the loss of some important sw usability.
[Edited at 2009-09-11 22:57 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| I found out NORTON was responsible for a similar slowing down, switching to AVAST for example has so | Sep 11, 2009 |
Tansy wrote:
I have noticed my computer slowing down recently. The main things I notice is that it is slow to start up and it can take approx. 30 seconds for the screensaver to disappear when I've been away from my desk and press any key to resume work. This morning I also had problems starting it up at all as not all the icons appeared fully on the desktop and outlook got stuck downloading mails. I had to switch it on and off 3 times before it started up normally. The computer is about 5 years old and has lots of programs on it but there is plenty of space on the hard disk. I defragment regularly and have an up-to-date virus scanner (Norton 360 which also has automatic PC optimisation functions). Is there anything I can do to generally clean it up a bit?
| | | | | First of all follow Tom advice before doing anything! | Sep 12, 2009 |
Five years for a computer is quiet old ...
Maybe you have too much old stuff and get rid of them will give your computer a new live...
The best thing for you!
On the other hand, if it crashes in the middle of a translation...
An other tip to clean your computer : empty regularly your browser (cache, cookies) and believe me it will not slow your browser ...
The only thing is that you will have to log in for ProZcom, after doing it (no big deal).
Good luc... See more Five years for a computer is quiet old ...
Maybe you have too much old stuff and get rid of them will give your computer a new live...
The best thing for you!
On the other hand, if it crashes in the middle of a translation...
An other tip to clean your computer : empty regularly your browser (cache, cookies) and believe me it will not slow your browser ...
The only thing is that you will have to log in for ProZcom, after doing it (no big deal).
Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | SUJATA GUPTA
India
Local time: 11:51
Member (2009)
English to Hindi
+ ...
| How to make it faster | Sep 12, 2009 |
Dear Tancy , Hi,
There is no single rule to make your computer faster, i think you have to do three four operations to make it faster. 1.Try to distinguish between the important and very important and as well as very useful stuff in your hard disk . 2. you will find that many important stuffs are there but generally you are not utilizing it from long , try to remove that type , afterwards when it will needed, you can download according to your requirement. 3. after removing unnecessary st... See more Dear Tancy , Hi,
There is no single rule to make your computer faster, i think you have to do three four operations to make it faster. 1.Try to distinguish between the important and very important and as well as very useful stuff in your hard disk . 2. you will find that many important stuffs are there but generally you are not utilizing it from long , try to remove that type , afterwards when it will needed, you can download according to your requirement. 3. after removing unnecessary stuff , transfer all the important stuffs to D:\ , E:\ , or F:\ , drive of your hard disk . and now finally format your C:\ drive from Bios setup . If you are not expert don't do it , take someone's help. after installing the fresh operating system ,install motherboard software for sound and network
I hope you will notice that your computer will be much more faster.
Regards ,
Sujata
India
[Edited at 2009-09-12 04:40 GMT]
[Edited at 2009-09-12 04:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:21
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Easy in Mac, don't know about PC | Sep 12, 2009 |
Luca Tutino wrote: Hi Tom Tom in London wrote:
The main thing is to always have a recently made full bootable clone.
I guess this is not the same as copying all files - Can you please share some suggestions on bootable clone creation methods? Luca [Edited at 2009-09-11 22:30 GMT]
Luca - I use the Mac OS and this is a very simple process but not so simple, I think, with Windows.
If you go here and look through software whose name contains "clone" you may find a good solution:
http://www.versiontracker.com/windows/
Or hopefully other colleagues will be able to suggest the best way.
The important thing is that it should be a *full bootable* clone to an *external* drive i.e. if your main computer drive crashes, you can reboot from the clone on the external drive
I looked through a few and found this one http://www.farstone.com/software/driveclone.htm
But I'm sure there are others.
[Edited at 2009-09-12 09:43 GMT]
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| have someone... | Sep 12, 2009 |
... to format the HDD and reinstall the system and the software from the scratch
It will take much less time than chatting here...
I do it every two years (along with the hardware upgrade). I used to do it myself when it was Windows 3.1... now I call professionals. While they service my main PC I work on my notebook and thus earn to pay for the service.
After you have everything back in place change youк at... See more ... to format the HDD and reinstall the system and the software from the scratch
It will take much less time than chatting here...
I do it every two years (along with the hardware upgrade). I used to do it myself when it was Windows 3.1... now I call professionals. While they service my main PC I work on my notebook and thus earn to pay for the service.
After you have everything back in place change youк attitude to the PC.
- Consider it a living being and never overcharge or overstuff with rubbish.
- Disable autorun function globally (in the register).
- It is you tool, BTW. Tools must be kept in order.
- Use any alternative browser, not IE, and set protection to the maximum. Disable by-default execution of downloaded files.
- Install a good antivirus (not Norton, which is too heavy for the system and too 'apprehensive' to all events).
- Never use systems folders to store YOUR files. (Forget about 'My_Documents' and other such folders that are potential objects of attacks by default. Store you files on a different drive — different letter. This involves some manual changes of default associations.)
- Never install 'offerings' from questionable sites 'just to see what will happen'. believe me nothing good happens.
Generally, imagine PC is apart of you body. You will never stick you fingers into power outlets or take anything, if you do not know the consequences... ▲ Collapse
| | | | | drive cloning | Sep 12, 2009 |
The best options
- Free: DriveImageXML. Just google it. Free for personal use, a freelancer's computer being a borderline case I guess. Needs some computer skills but it works well and it's free. I used it successfully to migrate to a new hard drive.
Paid: Acronis true image and Norton Ghost. These two are the most popular/best paid tools.
Perhaps the also free clonezilla is worth a look too.
| | | | | MalwareBytes' efficiency confirmed! | Sep 14, 2009 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Two apps from http://www.malwarebytes.org/ might be useful. The program Anti-Malware picked up some stuff that my antivirus program didn't. And StartupLite can be used to disable certain programs that start up when Windows starts.
Samuel,
Thank you for the MalwareBytes link: works really great! Indeed, it has detected some 5 pieces of malware that neither my Windows Defender nor daily-updated Avast could find, and noticeably increased computer performance! Thanx again!
Vlad
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I second JPW's recommendation, CCleaner is one of those essential apps that everyone should download when they get a new PC, along with Search & Destroy and VLC and stuff like that.
Incidentally, the C used to stand for Crap when the programme first came out
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Tansy Tazewell
Germany
Local time: 08:21
Member (2008)
German to English
TOPIC STARTER | Some improvement! | Sep 14, 2009 |
I ran CC Cleaner and Advanced System Care which found a few things Norton hadn't found and I have disabled my screensaver (had no idea that a screensaver isn't a good thing!) and I have seen some improvement already - in particular programs are starting more quickly.
By the way, my hard drive is at least 70% free and I do have an external bootable hard drive clone with automatic daily backup - so I should be ok if things ever go severely wrong!
I have printed all the su... See more I ran CC Cleaner and Advanced System Care which found a few things Norton hadn't found and I have disabled my screensaver (had no idea that a screensaver isn't a good thing!) and I have seen some improvement already - in particular programs are starting more quickly.
By the way, my hard drive is at least 70% free and I do have an external bootable hard drive clone with automatic daily backup - so I should be ok if things ever go severely wrong!
I have printed all the suggestions for future reference and may well come back to some of the others - so many thanks again to all who replied! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Anja C.
Switzerland
Local time: 08:21
German
| TuneUp Utilities | Sep 15, 2009 |
TuneUp Utilities is my favourite all-in-one optimization tool. It's not freeware, but definitely worth its price. They offer a free trial version (30 days).
[Edited at 2009-09-15 20:34 GMT]
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