computer gurus, need some advice

[phatdaddy]

my computer has been acting sluggish, taking along time to load, etc. i know i probably need to clean it up. do ya'll know if any of those "clean my computer" sites work? i used one on my last computer and all it did was give me more pop-ups from their site. or tell me what i can do myself to get the deadwood out.

thanks

[spareparts]

i use spybot, AVG, and malwarebytes with good luck
go to cnet.com and read the reviews, pay attention to the directions and don't click on any of the extras, only click on the stuff you want, they make it confusing to figure out whats an add and whats the real thing

[spareparts]

oh, and clean your cookies and downloads out.

[roffey]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

my computer has been acting sluggish, taking along time to load, etc. i know i probably need to clean it up. do ya'll know if any of those "clean my computer" sites work? i used one on my last computer and all it did was give me more pop-ups from their site. or tell me what i can do myself to get the deadwood out.

thanks

if you are using XP you can go to my computer and left click on it. Now on your C drive right click and select properties. From the general tab try disk clean up, this may take a while. Once the system has cleaned up some files and emptied the deleted files go to the tools tab and defragment the drive. This will most likely make a huge difference.
For XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8 you can click on start then type in "MSCONFIG" and hit the enter key. Go to the start up tap. From here you can select what programs you don't want to run at startup. You can deselect almost all programs. All you really need if the virus protection. Some programs will start when you click on them or when you need them to start and not just run in the background. If you find you have stopped a program you need, just run MSCONFIG and select it... there are lots of things you can do to speed up the system, if this does not work I have more to give you... Good luck.

[roffey]

.... and speaking of virus protection I use "AVG free" from www.download.com. I am a PC tech and as such can remove 99% of the virus that I catch and know what sites to go to and where to stay away from. I have found McAfee and Norton to slow down your system big time. If you have these programs and want them off do a search on "Norton removal tool" or McAfee removal tool" run the removal program and load AVG, keep in mind it's free and you get what you pay for.

[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by roffey

if you are using XP you can go to my computer and left click on it. Now on your C drive right click and select properties. From the general tab try disk clean up, this may take a while. Once the system has cleaned up some files and emptied the deleted files go to the tools tab and defragment the drive. This will most likely make a huge difference. For XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8 you can click on start then type in "MSCONFIG" and hit the enter key. Go to the start up tab. From here you can select what programs you don't want to run at startup by clicking on the check mark box. You can deselect almost all programs. All you really need is your virus protection. Most programs will start when you click on them or when you need them to start and not just run in the background. If you find you have stopped a program you need, just run MSCONFIG again and select it... there are lots of things you can do to speed up the system, if this does not work I have more to give you... Good luck. .... and speaking of virus protection I use "AVG free" from www.download.com. I am a PC tech and as such can remove 99% of the virus that I catch and know what sites to go to and where to stay away from. I have found McAfee and Norton to slow down your system big time. If you have these programs and want them off do a search on "Norton removal tool" or McAfee removal tool" run the removal program and load AVG, keep in mind it's free and you get what you pay for.

Everything that Roffey said, plus go online, do a search and get "Eusing Free Registry Cleaner". It's free and when it runs it will first make a backup copy of your registry, (so that if it makes a mistake you can restore your registry back to it's original configuration), then it will search your registry for all files, folders, start menu items, etc. and anything else that is no longer on your computer but is still in your registry. (Basically, when you start your comp, Windows looks at your registry and tries to load whatever is there. But if they are dead end files it takes time for windows to try and load them and then go on to the next file, etc.) By cleaning up your registry you speed up that process. This is my go-to registry cleaner. It's fast, effective, safe, and free. What more do you want in a program? Oh, and the user interface is sweet...very intuitive, very user friendly.

Oh, also, if you don't want to take up disk space for your antivirus checker/cleaner, you can go to Trend Micro and get Housecall http://housecall.trendmicro.com/. This is an online antivirus program from one of the leaders in business antivirus programs. It's free and when you run the program it will install a small cookie onto your computer to enable it to launch when you click on it... but it keeps all the virus definations and the main program on their computer where they are safe from hackers. It will scan your comp in several different ways, depending on what you select, kill or quarentine any virii it finds, and it runs in the background so you can continue doing whatever it is you are doing on your computer at the time. It only runs when you manually launch it, so it's not taking up memory or bandwidth.

[phatdaddy]

thanks guys, i will try some of the above. i already use avg and did a scan, eliminated cookies and that helped a lot.

thanks again