New computer problems

You’ll have to check out all the processes running on your computer then. I found that some certain anti-virus programs like NAV have processes that take up a lot of memory running in the background. Also, programs like MusicMatch can also take up memory in the background when booted up.

The only things that should be running in the background when booted up are your firewall and anti-virus and MS Office. Anything else, remove it from the startup and/or delete it.

If this is a new laptop, I’m assuming it’s a P4? If so and it’s running slow then there’s something not right even at a low 256Mb of RAM.

This neat llittle program will report all the applications running on your system. It runs in the background and allows you to accept/reject programs/processes from starting. I’ve kept my systems clean with it for years. The second one allows you to manually select/deselect the programs that load at system startup.

mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml

Well, Windows can take a couple of minutes to get its act in gear even after everything appears to have started up and loaded. I’m fairly certain it has to do with searches and timeouts related to networking. However, 4-5 minutes is a bit long.

HOWEVER, since the ONLY problem you have reported is related to double clicking the icon which opens your network connection, then I would suspect your computer is fine, and that the devil lies in the networking details. Good luck sorting it out. After many frustrating hours, I gave up on trying to sort out Win Networking issues I’ve had.

… okay so it seems to be a problem with the internet software only. I use ADSL from Hinet without any software. I just klicked on the IE, it detected proxy settings automatically and found internet. Maybe uninstalling the whole Hinet software would help.

Attention: this advice will only be helpfull if only the internet software makes problems.

But I had myself problems with bad internet access software, uninstalling it sometimes does not help. A reinstall of XP is necessary sometimes, but NO repair, this does almost never help.

By the way: formatting HDD is alwys good when you reinstall XP, it is a clean start. But save your personal data before that. If you boot with the XP CD (CD in drive during power-on) you have the option to format the drive. You must delete the old parition, create a new one and format. Sounds complicated, but XP setup makes it easy.

formating is erasing everything. Reinstall is just writing over the existing stuff and maybe keeping some old sh…t

well just use msconfig to figure out wich programms are run at startup.
even office should not be autostarted.
what interface do you use to connect to the net?

You should really do a CLEAN install of Windows XP, and then partition yuor harddrive so that dowloaded files and files that have not been virus scanned as kept on a sepearte partition to Windows and the various programs you run.

Also, you may well have antivirus software, but make sure it is fully up to date, and run a scan in both active and safe modes. Also, download the free version of Adaware, as spyware can sometimes wreak havoc with you computer.

I had the same problem as you, but I was infected by a virus that could only be fixed by a sepearte tool from www.symantec.com. Depending on how recent the slowdown was, go to that site and look for the latest high distribution viruses. Download the individual virus removal tools for each virus and run them one by one in safe mode.

Like mentioned earlier, it could simply be a ram problem. I have 1gig Ram on a high speed P4, but because of Norton Antivirus and the like it takes the PC ages to fully start up. Don’t click on I-Explorer, just wait a few minutes.

You may also have a tonne of stuff running in Windows that will slow your PC a lot. Go to a great website, TweakGuides, and look at the section on tweaking Windows XP for greater performance.

You could also find MemoKit (or MemoKill) which is a great program that runs in the background to free up ram, and it identifies those programs that really guzzle your system memory. There is also a program called tweakxp which is good, and helps modify windows if u r afraid to use MSConfig and Administrator settings. There are various ways to obtain thes programs, such as free trials and others that I shall not mention…

Good Luck

:s take the laptop down to HP on XinYi because i’m still, 3 months later, having the same, stupid problem. they get on it right away…tested the hardware etc… came out to ask me just what the problem is. i turn off my computer to let it re-boot to show them just how long that stupid icon takes to open, and what happens? VOILA!!! the bastard opens lickity-split. try to show him two more times, and it’s opens in a flash. now i’m back home and it’s giving me the same problem!!! what IS that!!!

i also asked them if they would be able to change my DVD player to a combo CD-RW.DVD player and they said it would cost 9,000. anyone know where i could get it done cheaper? it’s not removeable.

I also forgot to tell them that i find the keys on te keyboard too stiff… any tips on how to rememy that by yourself?
thanks :wink: