Hey guys. my computer started getting slow about 2 months ago.. There will be a 7-10 second delay when opening a program from start menue.
3 second delay opening it on my desktop as a short cut.
And almost 1 minute delay for the pop up window to save pics ++++other stuff when saving from a website.

I have a dual core 2.4, 2gb ram, a 6100 onboard nvidia chipset.
bought back in 2008.
I just formated and installed win7 and its still doing it.
is my stuff to old and overworked?

 

Mr.Stanman your system configurations are good and its not overworked one or any thing etc.,
Your system might have been filled with un-necessary programs and make sure that there are no useless programs in your system if so go to control panel and clear them.
and
I suggest that the formate is the best option for this solution but you already have done it so go through your antivirus and let it be updated and scan the whole system once and then you clear all the temporary files in the systems.procedure for clearing temp files
win+R
type "temp"
select all files
shift + del
close

and the same procedure follows for %temp% files too.
you are also asked to clear "prefetch" files from windows folder in os drive

If all these bores you or takes much time you are advised to just download "CCleaner" software and perform run

else you can downoad the tune-up utensils and perform the action.

 

and make sure that your OS drive is atleast 20-25% free

 

You could have a aging HDD gumming up the read/write times,the board itself is ageless at least so far as is humanly perceivable.

Either break the bank for a SSD or a 7200rpm hybrid drive and watch the dinosaur run like never before.

 

Hey guys. my computer started getting slow about 2 months ago.. There will be a 7-10 second delay when opening a program from start menue.
3 second delay opening it on my desktop as a short cut.
And almost 1 minute delay for the pop up window to save pics ++++other stuff when saving from a website.

I have a dual core 2.4, 2gb ram, a 6100 onboard nvidia chipset.
bought back in 2008.
I just formated and installed win7 and its still doing it.
is my stuff to old and overworked?

You probably have a virus or spyware that is doing things while you are trying to work. There are literally hundreds of thousands of computers that have been infected and are being remotely controlled to do things the owners never realize.

A zombie computer, or “drone,” is a computer that has been secretly compromised by hacking tools which allow a third party to control the computer and its resources remotely. When the zombie computer connects to the Internet the remote hacker can clandestinely make contact with the computer to mine data from it or use it for any number of purposes. Communication between the hacker and the computer travels through back channels of the targeted system, keeping these processes hidden from the owner.
The hacking tools used to establish hidden control in a remote computer are referred to as a rootkit. A rootkit isn’t considered malware, as there are legitimate uses for rootkits in networking. However, rootkits can also be used to target random computers on the Internet. Once a computer picks up a rootkit, it becomes an “unwilling accomplice” of the hacker, blindly following instructions, leading to the name “zombie computer.”
A hacker has full access to data and resources on a zombie computer. The infiltrator can copy, infect, corrupt or even erase the entire hard drive. He or she can also install tools that will report everything typed into the zombie computer, including usernames, passwords and financial data like credit card numbers and bank accounts. This private information can be used to commit fraud, identity theft, or can be sold or traded to others.

You need to have your computer cleaned up and the registry cleared. Probably will work like new after that.


General ref on slow computer causes:

http://www.ralphthegeek.com/causes.htm

 

Same thing happened to one of my old laptops, nothing fancy, HP 1.6GHz, 512MB, 100GB HD. I just reformatted the hard disk, reinstalled Win XP and it's like new again.

 

He's using a freshly installed OS so it's unlikely to be a software problem. My guess is overheating leading to CPU throttling.

It could be due to general dust buildup or your heatsink could be loose, not unheard of especially with the push-pin coolers intel uses. Take the side panel off and see what dust is in there (don't use a vaccum cleaner, they can cause static discharges).

If the inside looks clean give the cooler a gentle wiggle and look for any loose or broken push pins (assuming you have a cooler that uses them).

 

I just formated and installed win7

Very important point, and my preferred method but, I've heard of "boot sector" viruses. Is this something to consider?

 

Download this AVG Rescue disk:::
,,,,
http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd
...
Then write the ISO-Lynx disc to a CR-RW.
Put the ISO-Lynx Disc in your "Bootable CD Rom Drive" Restart your computer and scan your computer.
Just follow the menu prompts...
Let us know how many malicious critters you find....
..
Oh yea, prepare to leave the computer scanning for a few hours at least (it sometimes takes a while to get through all the muck).
..
Dataman19

 

He's using a freshly installed OS so it's unlikely to be a software problem. My guess is overheating leading to CPU throttling.

It could be due to general dust buildup or your heatsink could be loose, not unheard of especially with the push-pin coolers intel uses. Take the side panel off and see what dust is in there (don't use a vaccum cleaner, they can cause static discharges).

If the inside looks clean give the cooler a gentle wiggle and look for any loose or broken push pins (assuming you have a cooler that uses them).

That's what I was going to say. I noticed before that when I leave my laptop on the bed (restricted air flow) , running some resource heavy program, it gets really hot (DUH). When it gets really it gets really slow, just like OP described. So that's one of the things I check now when I have slow computer issues - is it hot? getting enough air flow? fan still working or too much dust?

 

I'll suggest that your HDD is on it's way out.

Magnetic media has a useful life of about five years. After that, the stored data has degraded so much that it becomes difficult to read, and the HDD has to try repeated seeks to read/write/verify the data. If your virtual memory file is located in a weak area, your system will spend a lot of time waiting for the drive to read/write data.

You'd think that reading and re-writing the data would take care of that problem. However, there are certain areas of the platters that your drive's electronics don't write to once it's been shipped from the factory. It used to be that you could access every bit on the platter, but that went away with IDE (integrated drive electronics).

Utilities like Spin-Rite are very helpful in that they can help locate areas of the drive that are going bad. Windows comes with CHKDSK.EXE; it's rather rudimentary, but running it with the /R option will cause it to scan every cluster on the drive, and try to recover data from problematic sectors.

Here is a helpful page:
http://www.labnol.org/software/test-hard-drive-for-problems/17430/

It points out some free utilities to use, and links to a site where you can listen to sounds of various hard drive troubles.

 

Dust buildup on CPU heatsink fins will do this. Modern processors are designed to not fry themselves to death if cooling is restricted. Instead the system will slow down horribly to keep the processor from cooking.

Laptops suffer from it after 2-3 years of use.

This was my laptop. As seen on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop

Image page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L...internal_heatsinks_in_2.5_year_old_laptop.jpg

 

also with the windows 7 installation disk you can run a memory(RAM) check. also stress testing with prime 95.

also links
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html <<(how to run memory test)
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html << hwmonitor (temperature sensors)
ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v277.win32.zip << prime 95 ( stress test )