Another one for the geek squad

[Christopher Quast]

One day my computer runs great and the next day it is slow, what is going on? We have DSL and the computer is a Dell Inspirion 5305 if that helps, Is there something free to download toremedy this?

[wishing for walleyes]

Shoot me an email and i will send you a little program i have that will help speed up your pc.I will not be able to send it untill after 5 pm today. danbicknase @ charter.net

[upnorth]

Something else to consider is how much traffic is on the internet at the time you are surfing, that is if your slowdown is internet. You can also try checking on your temporary internet cache, you want some so that the pages load faster, but too much and it slows things down. I would start by cleaning it all out with a free app call ccleaner, it is a freebie off the web that you can find with a quick web search.

[fishermatt]

If you have Macafee virus scan, there is a bug with certain versions that hose up your PC while Macafee is downloading updates from the internet. It causes your CPU to spike. When it's running slow, do Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then choose Task manager. On the Processes Tab, look for Vshield.exe or similar process that is taking up lots of CPU. If you see that, you'll know you have this bug and need a newer version of Macafee.

[BobT]

If that's the case, the bug has been in the program for quite a few years. When I was using McAfee, it would consume resources so bad my mouse quit working while it updated. Part of my problem was my system but it still affected my new system to some degree.

Bob

[upnorth]

I can't say a whole of good things about Mcaffee.

[lotsofish]

What kind of slow down are you having? Is it an internet problem only, or does the whole computer slow down. Here's the easiest way to find out. If you notice it's getting slow, try to open a different program, such as Word or Excel. If it takes a long time to open and slows down your computer even more, it has nothing to do with your internet connection. If it loads like normal, then there is something causing your internet to slow down.

Try this out first and let us know.

[Christopher Quast]

Hey wishin I tried to send you an email and no go for some reason, Thanks to the rest of you is there something I can try temporarily?

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

If you have Macafee virus scan, there is a bug with certain versions that hose up your PC while Macafee is downloading updates from the internet. It causes your CPU to spike. When it's running slow, do Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then choose Task manager. On the Processes Tab, look for Vshield.exe or similar process that is taking up lots of CPU. If you see that, you'll know you have this bug and need a newer version of Macafee.

Mine runs this update at about 10:30 PM each night, which is prime time for trying to surf the net. Is there a way to change the time of the updates with McAfee??

[wishing for walleyes]

Dont put any spaces when you type my email in.Or give me your email and i will send it to you.Also when you recieve this program it is an exe file.If you have an antivirus it may not let you open it because its an exacute file.2 weeks ago my girlfriends daughter came back for a visit from college.We had bought her a dell laptop 3 years ago and the thing was running super slow.I put the startup manager on there and found over 30 programs running silently and using up her memory.It was so slow that while typing in excel she would have to type very slow because her letters were slow to respond.It took 1 minute with this program and she was able to type away.

[upnorth]

Originally Posted By: fishermatt

If you have Macafee virus scan, there is a bug with certain versions that hose up your PC while Macafee is downloading updates from the internet. It causes your CPU to spike. When it's running slow, do Ctrl + Alt + Delete, then choose Task manager. On the Processes Tab, look for Vshield.exe or similar process that is taking up lots of CPU. If you see that, you'll know you have this bug and need a newer version of Macafee.

Mine runs this update at about 10:30 PM each night, which is prime time for trying to surf the net. Is there a way to change the time of the updates with McAfee??

[Whoaru99]

Personally, I've very leery of any programs that claim to speed up your computer...unless they're spyware removers.

Try some of the on-line speed tests that can be found at DSL Reports HSOforum. Trying the speed tests may help isolate if it's an internet/isp problem, or something on your computer.

Also, like others have said, open Task Manager with ctl alt del and look at the Performance tab to see overall CPU usage and then the Processes tab to see what program is running high CPU. By clicking on the CPU header, you can sort them in ascending/descending order.

[Nick Kuhn]

Also, like others have said, open Task Manager with ctl alt del and look at the Performance tab to see overall CPU usage and then the Processes tab to see what program is running high CPU. By clicking on the CPU header, you can sort them in ascending/descending order.

More than likely a slow down would be easier to pick up in the memory usage column. Firefox 1 had some problems with memory leaks, so if you kept your browser open long enough it became unbearably slow.

speedtest dot net will run bandwidth tests for your ISP, and it keeps your history (based on IP) so you can tell if it's the ISP or not. I'm not sure of any free memory or CPU based benchmarks to run to check if it's your system or not. 3dMark is GPU based and will bring any system without a good graphics card to a crawl.

[Iceboy]

You could try this:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

It cleans up a lot of stuff and I have never had it cause any issues on either XP or Vista.

For virus protection, AVG Soft's free basic edition works great and is way less intrusive/resource intensive.

[Marmot]

I'll second CCleaner. It cleans up a lot of temp files and registry fragments.

I also run AVG, SpywareBlaster, and Adaware on my Vista machine. Super Ant-spyware and Avast are also good. These are all free.