Soaring Quail

Thank you, I'll try all of those out, and get rid of what I don't need. I didn't really think my computer was running slowly from all the programs though because it started acting that way before I got them all. I'll try all the suggestions then I'll report back. and really thanks if it weren't for the suggestions I really wouldn't know what to do.

Oh I'm also not sure if I'm booting it in safe mode or not or how I know if I am.

Soaring Quail

In the task manager I don't see columns when I click view, just Refresh now, update speed, large icons, small icons and details.

Pietzki

oh, ok - I think it's details then...strange, mine says 'select columns' but that is probably because I'm running xp pro, yours might be xp home...
if you can't find any way of adding a column called cpu time, just watch task manager for a while and let me know which process has the highest number in the 'cpu' column (on average, i.e. over time).

and have you defragged your harddrive yet? download this program and run it if you haven't: http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/ (it is faster than windows' standard built in defrag tool)

also, what's the ford motor company stuff? is that something you need? if not, uninstall it...

if I were you I'd also get rid of the msn toolbar..useless junk in my opinion. just like google & yahoo toolbar.

(sorry if I'm repeating myself, just trying to figure out what else it could be..)

also, is there any other weird stuff going on? when did your pc first start being so slow (did you install something recently before that)?

Soaring Quail

Sorry I'm not very good at this but how do I uninstall the ford motor company thing, I was never really sure what it was and it's not in "add or remove programs.

I found the cpu time thing in the task manger so I'm just letting it run right now and I uninstall the msn toolbar

I downloaded that defragment program you suggested before and have been using it. Also I don't recall doing anything different with my computer before it started acting weird.

Pietzki

look for any folder with the word 'ford' in it in this folder C:\Program Files
It probably contains an uninstaller, called uninst.exe or uninstaller.exe or something along those lines (before you run this though, just check that you're sure it is the right folder. see if you can find anything in there like a readme file or anything that explicity says 'ford motor company').

make sure that you leave the pc alone when you do this, just start it up and wait half an hour or so, and then go into task manager and report back with the two/three processes with the highest cpu time showing (you don't need to leave task manager running, it will collect those statistics automatically so you just need to open it to view them...)

Soaring Quail

I found the "ford motor company" file. When I open it there's a folder called calibration files, which is empty and one called IDS which has many files in it. In IDS theres Data, Flash, Icons, mcp, Runtime, SPA, System, TSB, and XMLFiles.

The closest thing I found to an uninstaller was in ford motor company> IDS> Runtime> install3rdparty> DAO> DISK1 then something called UNINST IntallShield Deinstaller Stirling Technologies, Inc. Also sorry for the very late reply.

I checked the things with the highest cpu time and it says system idle process is 1:11:15, system is 0:01:36 and the rest are 0:00:50 or lower after running for about forty minutes.

Pietzki

ok, i'd give that uninstaller a go if I was you, as long as you don't use any program related to ford..

as to the cpu time, there's nothing eating up your processor's capacity, so I am baffled as to why it should run slow...Give me an example - what is so slow about it? What do you usually do before you notice that it slows down?

Oh, and in task manager, go to the 'performance' tab and let me know what it says under page file usage (this tells you how much of your RAM is being used at any given time).

And by the way, what are your system specs? (if you don't know, go to control panel>performance and maintenance>system and in the general tab, look at the specifications where it says 'computer'. Post those here..

Soaring Quail

Guh..so many problems

Well I tried the uninstaller and it keeps saying "Unable to locate the install file, will not continue".

To explain how slow it is, often if I maximize something in the taskbar it doesn't come up very smoothly, on average it's taking my computer between 10-15 minutes just to start up, which is nowhere near as long as it took when I got it. I'm not even really doing anything to make it run this way, say I'll have itunes open and nothing else, it can't even play a song properly it's running so slowly. There's no way I can watch a movie or anything unless maybe it's loading completely first without it being choppy (even over half loaded and such).

In the task manager, the PF usage seems to be between 478Mb and 490.

For the systems specs I can't get there. I've got Control panel> system> general tab if that's what you mean. Then there's the ram and stuff.

797Mhz, 896 Mb of RAM

I'm not really sure if that's what you wanted, just let me know and I'll try and find it.

GameMaster

Ooooh. Seems to me that your Hard Disk is dying.

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dznutz:

Pietzki

I'm starting to think the same thing....it must be hardware related. Can't think of anything else it could be. SQ, your pc specs aren't brilliant, but shouldn't make xp run anywhere near that slow. I'd take it to your local pc shop and get them to have a look at it.