biffdotorg
Active Member
Ok, here is my $.02 on this, and take it for what it's worth. From my 20+ years of experience selling and servicing computers, throwing hardware at a sluggish computer is a bandaid and not solving the true problem. (although it may fix it, and here is why)
Computers hardly ever get slower due to hardware problems. Except for those very few times with a hard drive starts getting some bad sectors, or it is horribly fragmented, it is hardly ever a hardware issue. If you never loaded anything, or surfed the internet etc, that computer will run as fast as the day you bought it years later. And a quick format and reload on the existing hard drive or replacement would prove that. People are always amazed at the speed of their 4 year old computer after a quick lobotomy.
All of the above suggestions for using malwarebytes in safe mode etc, are excellent suggestions. They are updated more frequently, and will catch things that AVG, Norton Kaspersky may not. They are not replacements, they are in addition to. I also use one other bit of freeware called Super Anti Spyware which one of my engineers lead me to. This one will catch stuff that Malwarebytes cannot.
There again, run them in safemode and be amazed at the results!
My explanation that throwing more RAM and a new SSD is a bandaid, but will work. Keep in mind, we don't want the problem to just be accelerated by more memory or a fast hard drive. We want to eliminate it. If you go buy that new SSD, what will be the first suggestion? Backup your junk, put the new drive in and install Windows from scratch. Well, you could have done that by one of the suggestions up above without the expense of the new SSD!! You know that I totally wack my drive clean every 6-8 months just to clear crap. So yes the SSD is faster, but the process of reloading from scratch did as much if not more in performance. So try the cheap option first.
In sales, I never talked folks out of more RAM or a faster HD. Because I knew it would make the experience with their day to day apps better as well. Just understand, that the process of cleaning and maintaining is just as important.
It sort of like adding a cold air intake and filter to an old truck, when just cleaning the air filter would have done almost as much good. But the filter got changed in the upgrade process too. (maybe that's a bad analogy)
Last note, use the free editions of these tools to be sure they do what you want. If they work, some support through purchase keeps them upgrading and making them better. Most are fairly inexpensive. Before loading a new tool, do a quick google search to see how many people are fighting to figure out how to remove them. This is a sure sign of a very bad piece of malware that cannot be removed easily. These are the ones that you click on by accident, and now it takes a PHD to get it off the damn computer!
Good luck, buzz me if you have questions.
Computers hardly ever get slower due to hardware problems. Except for those very few times with a hard drive starts getting some bad sectors, or it is horribly fragmented, it is hardly ever a hardware issue. If you never loaded anything, or surfed the internet etc, that computer will run as fast as the day you bought it years later. And a quick format and reload on the existing hard drive or replacement would prove that. People are always amazed at the speed of their 4 year old computer after a quick lobotomy.
All of the above suggestions for using malwarebytes in safe mode etc, are excellent suggestions. They are updated more frequently, and will catch things that AVG, Norton Kaspersky may not. They are not replacements, they are in addition to. I also use one other bit of freeware called Super Anti Spyware which one of my engineers lead me to. This one will catch stuff that Malwarebytes cannot.
There again, run them in safemode and be amazed at the results!
My explanation that throwing more RAM and a new SSD is a bandaid, but will work. Keep in mind, we don't want the problem to just be accelerated by more memory or a fast hard drive. We want to eliminate it. If you go buy that new SSD, what will be the first suggestion? Backup your junk, put the new drive in and install Windows from scratch. Well, you could have done that by one of the suggestions up above without the expense of the new SSD!! You know that I totally wack my drive clean every 6-8 months just to clear crap. So yes the SSD is faster, but the process of reloading from scratch did as much if not more in performance. So try the cheap option first.
In sales, I never talked folks out of more RAM or a faster HD. Because I knew it would make the experience with their day to day apps better as well. Just understand, that the process of cleaning and maintaining is just as important.
It sort of like adding a cold air intake and filter to an old truck, when just cleaning the air filter would have done almost as much good. But the filter got changed in the upgrade process too. (maybe that's a bad analogy)
Last note, use the free editions of these tools to be sure they do what you want. If they work, some support through purchase keeps them upgrading and making them better. Most are fairly inexpensive. Before loading a new tool, do a quick google search to see how many people are fighting to figure out how to remove them. This is a sure sign of a very bad piece of malware that cannot be removed easily. These are the ones that you click on by accident, and now it takes a PHD to get it off the damn computer!
Good luck, buzz me if you have questions.
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, I mean like this ( - ) close.
