PC Woes... please help!

[dvince2]

Hey everyone... here's my issue.

My dad has a HP pavilion thats about 6 years old (p4 2.53 GHz, 1GB ram). Recently, the computer has been slowing down to an almost unusable speed (it takes about 1 min to boot up, then another 10-15 to be "useable"). There's only needed programs on startup (antivirus, etc.), and the computer was wiped and XP reinstalled less than 6 months ago, so its not the Windows Half-life syndrome (It's also frequently spyware checked, defragged, etc.)

And, with the exception of the harddrive, I know its not a failure of something hardware wise, as I run Ubuntu off a second harddrive on the computer with no problems what-so-ever.

So i've narrowed the problem to one of two things:

1. Antivirus. He presently has Norton Internet Security 2007. Could this be causing the slow down? If so, what is a good PC antivirus I can look at getting him for x-mas?

2. Hard drive. Is it possible that the hard-drive is going? Is there any way I could verify this?

Any other ideas would be great too... thanks!

 

[yellow]

Just a note on where you posted this:

Mac Forums > Apple Software > Windows on the Mac

Not exactly a Windows on Mac question, eh?

 

[dvince2]

Couldn't figure out where else to put it.

 

[TheVandit]

i had precisely that problem a couple of months ago...


i got round it by buying an imac...

 

[dvince2]

Unfortunately, my dad hasn't been convinced of that yet haha...
I'm quite happy with my macbook, but I'm just trying to get his computer back to a working state.

 

[RickT67]

START ---> RUN... and type in msconfig

Go to the start up tab and uncheck everything, reboot. It should start faster. After that, you can add things back and figure out what is bogging it down.
I have to do that to my wife's machine every now and again, and she gets a little miffed when my iMac boots with no issue and I can run Leopard, XP, Ubuntu and Kubuntu (at the same time) with VMWare....heheeheh

 

[Stampyhead]

He presently has Norton Internet Security 2007

I ran into issues with this program while trying to troubleshoot a friend's PC. She wasn't able to open any files from her geneology program, but once we turned off NIS 2007 they opened just fine. I know this isn't the same problem you're having, but you might want to try turning off and see if things improve. I can't really recommend a better one as I don't use a PC very often and am not up on the latest antivirus scams, I mean applications.

 

[keysersoze]

I can't really recommend a better one as I don't use a PC very often and am not up on the latest antivirus scams, I mean applications.

I can. I use Grisoft's AVG (free!) version and it has a much smaller footprint then Norton. The OP should try turning off Norton (Norton has some other weird name for it, like unloading the service or something like that); just right click on the task bar icon and 'unload'. And see if that improves performance at all. If you can narrow it down to being an antivirus problem, then there certainly are alternatives.

 

[mshepherd]

check to see if svchost.exe is eating up all of your cpu. That's a windows updater bug.

 

[killerrobot]

1. Antivirus. He presently has Norton Internet Security 2007. Could this be causing the slow down? If so, what is a good PC antivirus I can look at getting him for x-mas?

I would double down on the bet that it's Norton. That (anti)virus program is a system resource hog and takes forever to startup off of a shutdown. It does so many scans it ridiculous.
Once I switched to a new antivirus program - I went with Kaspersky- and now my PC starts up in no time at all and runs like its new out of the box. Once my subscription is up, then I'll probably switch to AVG because its free.
I'm happy to see that Dell and other manufacturers aren't offering Norton anymore as their trial antivirus software.

 

[Consultant]

Unfortunately, my dad hasn't been convinced of that yet haha...
I'm quite happy with my macbook, but I'm just trying to get his computer back to a working state.

What does he use it for? Browsing, emailing? Just hand him your computer and say, you can use my laptop while I take a look at your computer. (Maybe make him an account on your MacBook and put the apps he normally use in the dock first).

 

[dvince2]

Thanks everyone.
I turned off Norton, and it did seem..in lack of a better word... snappier

well...this makes my x-mas shopping a bit easier

 

[keysersoze]

Thanks everyone.
I turned off Norton, and it did seem..in lack of a better word... snappier

well...this makes my x-mas shopping a bit easier

That's good to hear. If you want to try out AVG, you can download it here:

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/downloads-products/us/frt/0?prd=aff

And again, its free!

 

[AlexisV]

Run Spybot.

Run Adaware.

Run HiJackThis and post the log at a PC sucrity forum: http://www.castlecops.com/forums.html