Help diagnosing a family members slow PC

saulat_99

New Member
Wondering if I could have some help looking at a family members computer. I am not familiar with this processor or brand. It is an everex and I have had no luck figuring out the button to enter the BIOS. They said it is running slow and I have not yet searched for viruses, the anti virus is out of date by the way lol. It is running Vista home edition which is part of the reason for the slowness I think. This is my first experience with Vista. Here is the specs. Yahoo chat, weather, windows sidebar, open office, and norton start up in the tray. The media card reader is not on the tower either. Should they switch to XP? Would a RAM upgrade help or is the processor just not good enough? I'll do some tests for spyware and viruses along with switching some of the programs to not start up. The specs I got from the everex website. Thanks.

SPECIFICATIONS
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic
Display: 17" CRT (1280 x 800)
Processor: 1.5GHz, VIA Esther Processor (128KB L2 Cache, 1.5GHz, 400MHz)
Memory: 1GB DDRII 533MHz SDRAM (2 DIMM Slots, 2GB Maximum capacity)
Hard Disk Drive: 80GB SATA (7200rpm)
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM/DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
Graphics: VIA Chrome9™ HC IGP (64MB shared memory, 128MB Maxumum shared memory)
Audio: VIA VT1708A Vinyl High-Definition Audio Codec (Analog: 24-Bits Max Resolution, 192kHz Max Sampling; Digital: 24-BIts Max Resolution, 96kHz Max Sampling)
LAN: (1) 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet
Power Supply: 300 Watt Total Peak Power (switched, 100-127V~6A, 200-240V~3A, 50-60Hz)
Measurements: 15.6 ” x 6.7” x 14.3” (H x W x D)
Weight: 70.4lbs
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
Edit: Never even mind what i said about malwarebytes, vista is your main issue here due to just the utter garbage specs.

For one id say your "slowness" is just the utter crap specs of the machine, the VIA Esther should be running XP, no way that vista should even be on a machine with that low of specs(Integrated graphics and only 1GB memory, plus a horrible cpu, sounds like something that came outta walmart...) Switching to XP would be a start... but that thing is pretty crappy...
 

bomberboysk

Active Member
What the hell is that lol.

Via C7, a cpu from like 2004 thats slower than a pentium 4 clock for clock. So imagine a 1ghz or so pentium 4(or a 800mhz pentium 3 as the p3 was faster clock for clock than a pentium 4). They are still used in alot of the super low end budget pc's like walmart sells at the lowest end.
 

yuki953

New Member
Processor: 1.5GHz, VIA Esther Processor (128KB L2 Cache, 1.5GHz, 400MHz)
Memory: 1GB DDRII 533MHz SDRAM (2 DIMM Slots, 2GB Maximum capacity)
+++++++++++
VISTA!!!!!!!!!!!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THATS WHY!!!!

1gb memory on vista? lolz i coulda sword a laptop company (not saying names) was sued tonz cause they build vistas with 1gb memory... they just cant run with that
 

Bodaggit23

Active Member
1gb memory on vista? lolz i coulda sword a laptop company (not saying names) was sued tonz cause they build vistas with 1gb memory... they just cant run with that

Home Basic Requirements:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
512 MB of system memory

Home Premium / Business / Ultimate Requirements:
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory

The machine should run fine with 1Gig of RAM. That cpu is seriously lacking though.

Since the Antivirus is out of date, it's most likely a virus causing the problem, along with all that crap running at startup.

1. Get new Antivirus software. AVG is free here: http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-V...l-10044820&subj=dl&tag=button&cdlPid=11014801

2. Check this tutorial out:
http://www.techpavan.com/2009/03/16/slow-system-slow-windows-xp-performance-solution/
 

saulat_99

New Member
Haha thanks. Yeah, found 107 infected objects with malware and couldnt get combofix to run. I think it may be a 200 dollar computer. I am going to recommend going to XP and upgrading the RAM along with getting an anti virus. Probably do the windows updates too but its taking sooo long. I know vista takes a lot and I was amazed that Vista came bundled with the PC. Its my girls Aunts computer but yeah. Thanks!

:)
 

saulat_99

New Member
Is it worth upgrading to 2 gig of RAM with that processor??? I am not sure of the relationship between processor speed and RAM and at what point they stop helping if the other isn't good enough.
 

saulat_99

New Member
Bodaggit --- Thanks, seems like a good tutorial.

I think that they are on a budgit so I am just going to have them get XP and the free anti virus.
 
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