Upgrading my Grandmothers computer.

Zeuz

Member
I could easily tell that my Grandmother needed more RAM, as when she opened Farmville it maxed out her 2 x 1 GBps DDR2 RAM when loading her farm. (This is the only game she plays)

Her CPU has no issues, only maxing at about 60% usage.
She also has some old Nvidia GPU, but I don't think its that important for what she does.

I was just wondering if simply upgrading to 4 GBps of DDR2 RAM will help her performance?
 
What operating system does she have? How old is this system? System could just need a general cleanup.
 
She runs Windows 7. I've cleaned the computer up to my best ability, using CCleaner and defragging her hard drive. I didn't get around to cleaning inside her case though, I will if more RAM is needed. Her farm takes over 2 minute to load and her RAM is maxed out the whole time. This system has to be about 5 years old.
 
Is she on high speed internet? But she should have at least 4gb on windows 7. Another possibility is that she has too many programs running on bootup, which is most likely. If she has nortons or mcafee antivirus uninstall it and download Avast free as it will free up some ram that way. But as I said before, it very well could be that there are too many programs loading at bootup. Run the msconfig utility to verify what is running at bootup and uncheck any not required.
 
Yes, she has high speed. She also has almost no programs on bootup and only uses 150mb on idle (right after startup) and also can boot the computer surprisingly fast despite the age. (1 min 30 sec and you are able to use the web browser from the computer shutdown) I will upgrade to 4 GB as you stated. I know her motherboard model, so I am able to find out what ram will work. Thank-you John.
 
only uses 150mb on idle

I don't think that figure is accurate. Nonetheless, if it's pegging out the existing RAM at any point it will start swapping to the HDD, which makes things painfully slow.

1 min 30 sec and you are able to use the web browser from the computer shutdown
I wouldn't really call that fast. Even on a DDR2 system there is a lot of time that can be cut out from that.

Here are most modern systems:
 
I know its not extremely fast, but compared to my old system which took around 3 minutes to boot, it felt fast. That computer in the video boots extremely fast, my personal computer boots in under 20 seconds with my new SSD. Also 150mb may be a bit low, but I didn't watch it for to long, I know for a fact it did sit around 200-300mb mark.
 
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only uses 150mb on idle

I can't see this happening to be honest. Get a screenshot of task manager right after boot. What antivirus program does she have? What web browser is she using? She might have a bunch of toolbars in the browser that needs to be removed.
 
I can't see this happening to be honest. Get a screenshot of task manager right after boot. What antivirus program does she have? What web browser is she using? She might have a bunch of toolbars in the browser that needs to be removed.
I actually can't recall her having an anti virus installed. Like I said this computer is easily over 5 years old and she only uses facebook and only has issues trying to load her massive farm on farmville. Ill be sure to download her one when I install her new RAM. As for the picture, she lives 2 hours away, so when I go there in a month I doubt I'll remember to screen shot it. The 150mb idle was a mistake on my part, and you guys are more than likely right, like i said above;
I didn't watch it for to long, I know for a fact it did sit around 200-300mb mark.
The reason she got me to check her computer in the first place, is because her Google Chrome wasn't working properly, so I had to uninstall and reinstall and it ran fine. I also tried Firefox to see if it ran any better, but it was worse. Also there weren't any toolbars, only thing running on her browser was adblock. The 150mb idle was a mistake.
 
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Well, she still could have malware/adware on her system causing the slowness, especially if she isn't running any antivirus program. You'll need to run the following when you get there just to be sure.

1.

Please download AdwCleaner by Xplode onto your Desktop.



•Please close all open programs and internet browsers.
•Double click on adwcleaner.exe to run the tool.
•Click on Scan.
•After the scan you will need to click on clean for it to delete the adware.
•Your computer will be rebooted automatically. A text file will open after the restart.
•Please post the content of that logfile in your reply.
•You can find the logfile at C:\AdwCleaner[Sn].txt as well - n is the order number.

2.

Please download Junkware Removal Tool to your desktop.

•Shutdown your antivirus to avoid any conflicts.
•Very important that you run the tool in this manner:
Right-mouse click JRT.exe and select Run as administrator
Do NOT just double-click it.
•The tool will open and start scanning your system.
•Please be patient as this can take a while to complete.
•On completion, a log (JRT.txt) is saved to your desktop and will automatically open.
•Post the contents of JRT.txt in your next message.

3.

Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and save it to your desktop.
  • Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
  • At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to
    • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
    • and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • then click Finish.
  • If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. Please keep updating until it says you have the latest version.
  • Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
  • When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
  • Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
  • A log will be saved automatically which you can access by clicking on the Logs tab within Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

If for some reason Malwarebytes will not install or run please download and run Rkill.scr, Rkill.exe, or Rkill.com. If you are still having issues running rkill then try downloading these renamed versions of the same program.

EXPLORER.EXE
IEXPLORE.EXE
USERINIT.EXE
WINLOGON.EXE

But DO NOT reboot the system and then try installing or running Malwarebytes. If Rkill (which is a black box) appears and then disappears right away or you get a message saying rkill is infected, keep trying to run rkill until it over powers the infection and temporarily kills it. Once a log appears on the screen, you can try running malwarebytes or downloading other programs.

Please post the log that Malwarebytes displays on your screen.

4.

Download OTL to your Desktop


•Double click on the icon to run it. Make sure all other windows are closed and to let it run uninterrupted.
•Click on Minimal Output at the top
•Click the Quick Scan button. Do not change any settings unless otherwise told to do so. The scan wont take long.
◦When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are saved in the same location as OTL. Just post the OTL.txt file in your reply.

Then post the logs from the following 4 programs.

1. Adwcleaner
2. Junkware removal tool
3. Malwarebytes
4. OTL
 
Ill be sure to refer back to this page and follow through with all of this when I go back, It could be much sooner than a month. I will even screenshot task manager for you. Do you recommend I do this before the RAM upgrade or can I just upgrade and do as you stated? (Not the screenshot of course)
 
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Adding the RAM will likely speed up the scans a bit so you'd want to do that first.
 
Thanks a lot guys, Ill post my results on this thread, in the next month or so. Also, would it be worth buying her a new HDD and genuine Windows 7? I believe a scammer made her pay for Windows and took the key a few years ago.
 
Hdd should be fine. As long as she isn't getting a message saying windows is not genuine then it should be ok. Wouldn't buy 7 at this point anyway. When windows 10 is here.
 
She does get messages, but only on start-up. No pop-ups while the computer is running. I believe my brother disabled them years ago, so I assume its fine for her.
 
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The nongenuine message isn't a popup. It would be showing it down in the bottom right by the clock.

Would look like this.

nongenuine.png
 
Yes, it does show that, but there is also a pop-up on start-up telling you that Windows isn't genuine as well.
 
She has been running it for over 5 years without any issues. So, until she does, I'll wait on that. Unless I'm unable to upgrade it without genuine Windows. But, then I could just reformat the un-genuine windows back on to the machine? I don't see why she really needs it.
 
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