Cleaning up and older computer

[MuleShack]

I've got a deal with a lady where we are swapping some services and part of my end involves writing a business program for her and cleaning up her older computer.

This thing is slow as molasses and hasn't had any maintenance done on it since when it came out of the box in 2002 maybe?

It is running windows XP. It has so much old stuff on it along with some stuff that I dont even recognize. I would imagine there is spyware on it and the like and I dont think there is any viruses on it. She does have a norton product installed.

So the question is: Would you just reformat the drive and start from scratch or would you try removing these programs one by one and then when done do a defrag? I'm thinking the later would be the easiest as long as the programs are not currupted and will uninstall. Any thoughts?

The only variable now is that there is a DVD drive and a CD drive but the doors wont open so i'm assuming the drives dont work. So i guess she would have to get a new CD or DVD drive before I could do any formatting but i'm sure that wont be an issue if it is needed.

The computer itself is some sort of a HP.

[upnorth]

If you can't get the drive bays open, format and re-load of windows may not be possible. Do the lights flash on the drives when you restart? Another thing to try is go into my computer and right click and select eject if it can open that will open it.

If you are going to try to clean up instead, CCleaner, then malwarebytes would be a good bet to get rid of spyware and malware. That and an updated Anti Virus. Then start on the applications. After all that run CCleaner again to get rid of remnants of junk that can get missed.

[Jim Almquist]

I had a friend that had a super slow computer and it was loaded with games causing it to run like it was infected so removing junk can speed things up.

[MuleShack]

Thanks guys,

I'll try to do the clean up first and see how that goes. If worst comes to worse, then i'll talk her into getting a new Cd/DVD drive and install that. Then do a reformat.

Once I remove all the un needed stuff and clean up any spy/malware then i'll do a registry flush and see how it goes.

[lotsofish]

If it's from 2002, it's probably a <1.8ghz P4 or slower Celeron, with 256mb ram or less. It's never going to run XP "fast" as compared to newer computers. If you reformat and put on a vanilla XP install, it will run reasonably well. Just stay away from memory hogs like MSN/Yahoo messengers, Norton or other software you don't need that likes to start when you turn on the computer.

If you're open to alternatives, Puppy Linux will run really fast on that computer. All most people need anyway is a web browser and office software (get the version with OpenOffice, which is most like MS Office.)

For the DVD/CD drives, try the paper clip method and see if there is something stuck in there.

[MuleShack]

I guess I forgot to provide the update.

First off, I was able to open the drive doors using explorer and then navigating to each drive letter and clicking eject...so those work if i need them.

All i had time for last week was un-installing all the unneeded junk, then doing a system clean up and then a defrag on the drive. After that I ran malware bytes and then used a registry cleaner and it found over 1600 errors that were cleaned up. Didn't have any time to test it, but just navigating around in the end was much faster.

This week I have to set up (or should I say try to) a network between her pc in the office and the laptop in the house. This should be a good one... The problem I ran into last week was that I was having problems getting the laptop to connect wirelessly to the router. She has some broadcom program running the Lan and wireless adapters so windows cant help with the problem. So I think I'm going to have to remove the broadcom management program and let windows manage the adapters so that the network can operate properly.

[upnorth]

Quote:

She has some broadcom program running the Lan and wireless adapters so windows cant help with the problem. So I think I'm going to have to remove the broadcom management program and let windows manage the adapters so that the network can operate properly.

Letting windows do the job on the networking is usually best. I have had issues that when using the vendors software to manage wireless networks.

[MuleShack]

Ok,

PC seems to be doing MUCH better after the house cleaning and wipe down.

After further investigation it is running office 97 with windows XP...it was older than she told me.

Now the problem I am having is with her laptop. It is a Inspiron 1501 with the same set up...Office 97 stuff with Windows XP. As far as I can tell the 1501 came out in 05 or 06 so not sure why she is using 97 software?

I did the same clean up on the laptop (Uninstall Junk, System Clean up, registry cleaner, Defrag and malware remover).

Now I'm trying to set up the network having a problem with the wireless adapter.

6 months ago she was able to get wireless from the house and the router is in her shop/office which is about 90-100' away. Even when it was receiving signal I was working in the shop next to the router and it was only showing about 60% signal. The goal is to hook one of those mini dish antena's up to the laptop in the house to better pick up the signal from the shop. They are supposed to increase signal distance by 300% and it would plug into the LAN port or USB port. (She didn't order it yet so I dont know how it would work) Does that simply divert the signal to the eternet adapter and bypass the wireless then? if this is the case then I wouldn't need to mess around with the stuff below\/ \/. Thoughts?

In earlier post I explained that there was some broadcom management software running both wireless and network adapter and that was interfering with the wireless settings and I could see the network but not get it to sign in.

So I removed the management software package and did the restart thinking that windows would pick up the adapter and then assign the right drivers to it ect. Well it did but it wouldn't find any networks at all. It is turned on in the system settings etc. The channel is set to 6 which is the same as the router, but there must be some other settings that are preventing it from working. I had removed the drivers in one of my latest moves and then was going to use the utilities disk to try to reinstall with default settings but ran out of time today again. After I did remove the adapters windows installed something called a Pnp connection in place of the regular adapters?

Am I on the right track here or is this one just easier to copy the drive onto a back up and then format and install from scratch? The error message I kept getting was that there was missing software for the adapter to run correctly or somethign to that effect.

A side note to all this is when I plugged the laptop into a hardwire connection to the router it downloaded service pack 3 and then restarted and then installed 6 updates to the service pack. Not sure if this would hinder the wireless adapter or not.

By the way, i'm no tech, I know enough about the PC's and how they run to be dangerous but i'm just doing this for a barter deal. And she tells me she wont be getting a new computer for a while yet.

[upnorth]

1st thing I would do is go into device manager and find out what kind of wireless network card she has and go get the drivers for it from the manufactures site. Then install them. Sometimes windows drivers for devices can mess things up. Most of the time they do work but not always.

I have no idea of about a local to the pc wireless booster, never seen or heard of them.

[MuleShack]

This was about as dumb as they come.

When the admin password didn't work initally, the phone company walked us thru the router reboot and changed the channel from 11 to 6.

So when I was doing the wireless set up on the laptop I would always change the channel to 6 to match the router. After 6 hours of frustration installing, changing, removing etc...

I finally told her I cant figure it out...I could see the adapter with a signal but it wouldnt connect. Then I said we can try one more thing. I changed the channel in the router back to 11 and then changed the wireless adapter to 11 and by george it was working.

I told her she should bill the phone company for that

We're probably going to get a booster antenna from hawkins and install on the shop and hook it to the router. that should get enough signal to the back side of the house.