Posted: 10/23/2012 8:24:47 AM EDT
| My computer started running slow lately and it is getting worse. It thought there might be a virus, so I did a Symantec virus scan and found nothing. I did the same with Microsoft's virus protection and found nothing. I then noticed that my D drive is about 90% full. Could this cause the computer to slow down? |
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Quoted: My computer started running slow lately and it is getting worse. It thought there might be a virus, so I did a Symantec virus scan and found nothing. I did the same with Microsoft's virus protection and found nothing. I then noticed that my D drive is about 90% full. Could this cause the computer to slow down? D: drive getting full would only slow it down if you installed Windows on the D: drive. (Unusual, but not unheard of.) Computer slowing down is also a sign the hard drive is failing. How old is the computer, what are the specs? SATA or IDE drive?
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Ccleaner as said. Install, check everything and run that bad boy. Seatools. Download the windows and dos version, burn the dos version to a CD. Run all the tests. If it fails...restart with dos version in cd drive. run long test...it'll fix issues with the hard drive. If it can't fix them and does find issues, well...back up your stuff and start looking at getting a new HD and installing a new OS. |
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I love a fresh install of windows. If you do this...go through all updates...every last one of them. Then reboot and check for more updates...do this until there are no new updates. Then...find a disk imaging software application and create an image of your hard drive.
Now, if you ever decide to wipe again, you'll save hours of installation and update time. I have a PC with XP and about 4 months ago, I had to wipe it clean. I had the disk image and was able to start back with a fresh copy that was updated all the way through Service Pack 3. Do you realize how long it would take to intall XP from scratch, then update all the way to SP3? Half a day at least... 
I still had over an hour of windows updates to do after SP3, but after doing so, I've created yet a newer image. So the next time I wipe, I'll start out at about 4 months ago...and so on...so forth. |
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HP has built in utilities to run HD and memory tests (F2 at the startup splash screen maybe?). Run those and see if they all pass.
CCLeaner (be sure to do the registry check) and defrag as mentioned before. Uninstall all the HP bloatware. (Note: Do some research on this as HP likes to hide drivers in some of those programs) MSCONFIG if you know what you're doing, otherwise, don't. If a desktop, blow all the dead bugs and dust out. (Do this outside) |