Okay, how do you optimize a system without screwing it up? I currently have 38 processes running, and I know they aren't all necessary or probably even desired. The problem I have is I don't know which processes do what, for the most part. Kill the wrong process and you fuck up your system. Also, there has to be a way to stop these unwanted processes starting in when you boot the machine. Anyone know how to do this, or any good software that will streamline it for you automatically? I went round and round with a virus this last week and finally expunged the little fucker, but in the process I managed to end up with a broke-dick-dog copy of IE7 that doesn't work right and everything else is running like molasses. (I use Mozilla for web browsing, but IE is good for some stuff, and the only thing you can use for MS updates. And it pisses me off when a piece of core software like that clearly isn't running right!!!)
Go to run type 'msconfig' then go to the 'startup' tab and untick anything you dont think you need. Most desktop computers will be fine with all of that crap turned off, although some peripheral stuff might have to be manualy started. Warning... it is possible to fuck up your PC in msconfig, if you do something really daft. So dont blame me if you accidentaly break the thing
Lots of good websites that tell you what processes are what. A google should tell you, or you can check out one of the specific web sites, like this one: http://www.processlibrary.com/ In general, you should avoid killing SYSTEM processes unless you know specifically what they are - that can screw your computer. However, ones under your username are usually ones you've said it's OK to run, as secondary apps. I lot of them are load management modules - for example, quicktime and adobe will load partially in memory in the background to increase your response time when you want to run those apps.
Thanks guys. The processlibrary website is pretty good. I just killed a bunch of shit on startup and am already seeing a big improvement. Thanks.
And things continue to get stranger. This morning my wife said the computer suddenly started 'talking'. She said it sounded like it was picking up a weather broadcast, or something like that. I think I'm going to start unplugging the bitch and locking my bedroom door at night... The computer that is, not my wife...
Speakers can occasionally pick up hints of radio broadcast. Good ol Class B interference rules and all.
Go into Windows Services and disable anything you don't need. I suggest googling which services you can safely disable without messing up your computer. Clean up your computer with a good anti-spyware product. Remove software/delete files that you don't need. Defrag your drives. Getting a good registry cleaner or general tune-up package would help too. I use Registry Mechanic, it's good to clear out rubbish that you don't need or don't even know that it exists, which helps speed the computer up a bit.
I've already disabled a lot of stuff in the startup, but I may go even further with it. Ever since I installed Nero and defeated that shitty ass virus, the computer has been acting a bit wonky. Makes me think that in the process of the battle it got bogged down with shitloads of unnecessary BS.
Here's one for you: A couple of years back, I was having a real problem with slowdown. I'm really particular about running Spybot and Ad Aware once a week, and my virus scan runs daily at 3am. I also tweak once a week in msconfig, just to be sure. Even after I'd done all of that, I was still seeing my processor pegging at 100 percent when I checked the Performance tab in Task Manager, and I just couldn't figure it out. I installed this: http://www.programurl.com/cleanit.htm It goes one better than Window Washer and finds leftovers in files that you might not think to look for. (It's free, too, BTW) It runs on startup. The first time I ran it, it found 50 meg of stuff that Window Washer didn't find. Right after that, my CPU was cruising at about 3 percent with no apps running. Now, every time I start, the thing finds a couple of meg of crap clogging the system up, and I've never had a slowdown like that since. It's worth a try. One caveat: While the file you can download above is a legitimate application from Silmaril Software, it shares the name of a virus that popped up in 2003, and there are a couple of virus scanners that will flag it. AVG has been updated to make the distinction, as has Norton, Spybot and AdAware.
Well, I got home last night and installed cleanit, but I think the biggest difference was that I defragged the hard drive last night. This morning the computer was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster. That might have been it.
Well, let me amend my last. Everything is running fast now except the internet. It's just on this computer, I'm pretty sure, because my laptop is working normally when hooked up to my home network. Okay, so now image-intensive sites like Netflix and such are taking so goddamn long to load up that it's virtually unusable. Any hints out there? I'm about at my wits end with this fuckin' machine.
Does this happen under both firefix and IE? Clear cache and set to a smaller size (try 25MB). Under firefix this is under tools, advanced, network. Under ie this is under tools, general, browsing history, settings. Try disabling all browser helper objects. this is under tools... add-ons from either IE7 or firefox. You may have some sort of anti-spyware/adware that's checking everything that's not from the target domain to see if it should be displayed by comparing against a file on their server. This could actually be slowing things down. These are typically installed as add-ons.
