So I've come to the people of RM for help!

I contacted Pitt's Technology Help Desk and they even sent this guy over to look at it. Basically, all he could recommend was to run Disk Defragmenter weekly. I already run Symantec weekly. (I have no choice in that, I had McAfee buth at Pitt they force you to get rid of all other virus software and use only Symantec. So based on Symantec I am virus free, but I'm not fully convinced.) So I run Disk Defragmenter, have no viruses, and my computer is very slow. Also, Disk Defragmenter takes only about 2 minutes to complete where he said it should take at least an hour, so I'm not sure what's up there.

And,
It is specifically bad when I run Firefox. It takes about 5-10 minutes to really get going, but then once loaded, Firefox runs smoothly.
Recommendations?
Thanks guys

You say it is slow. How is it slow?

How much RAM do you have
What is your operating system and its lastest version
Is it slow to boot up?
What services kick off when you boot up?
Is it slow loading FF
Is it slow loading pages from the internet
Is it slow loading other programs (word etc)
Is it slow reading files from disk
Is there a lot of disk activity running?

Basically, people need more data to help. I have ideas based on the info you've provided but I'd feel comfortable with more info

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did you get malware from my rickroll?

A few other notes that might lead to the problem:

I have a DVD in the drive mostly the whole time i'm on the computer. I just thought of this now, would that slow it down? I'm not running the movie or anything, it's just in the CD drive.
Windows explorer is always running as a process, I'm not sure if that's normal.

Maybe it thinks he is Richard Gere

its always nice when a computer and its user finally synch


what you might want to do, when you first boot up, and start FF, go to task manager and look at the processes running and sort by memory usage.

also, windows explorer is running? do you mean explorer.exe? if so, thats your tool bar so it should always run

also, if you have both antiviruses on there it could be a conflict happening. while you would think that having two antiviruses would be double the protection, i have found it to be double the headache

thank you, and I already run CCleaner!

ha ha ha...

but once I sort the processes by memory what will that do? I have a lot of processes running at once (around 70) but most are around 1000-100KB of usage, with FF being around 10000 if I run it.

you can start narrowing down what is what

the larger the number the more memory its using and the slower it may make your computer.

so look at the process that is running and google its name to see what it is and what its doing. you may be able to weed out what is doing it

I can't think of any reason to have more than 20 or 30 processes running. You've probably got a dozen programs that start a process on startup that are totally unnecessary to be running unless you're actually using that program. Clean out your startup in msconfig.

How do you know what to take out and what to leave in?

since vista is the OS in talk here, it may be tough to decipher what is what, hence why i said earlier to google all the processes to see what is what

Peeps has got this but I would like to add that you may want to look at what add-ins are running with FF. Try running it in safe mode and see if it loads faster.

I don't know much about Vista. I skipped it and will go to Windows 7.

Your hard drive space seems more than adequate. 70 processes, that sounds whack. Again, I don't know Vista but that's an awful lot of stuff to have loading on a boot up.

I wouldn't boot up with any external hard drives (usb) or with the dvd in your drive. The computer will check these and that will take time. But your problem is mainly with FF

Regarding RAM. Vista can hold more then you have. I'd get another 2 gig if I had your system and enough $. Make sure it matches what you already have. RAM will absolutely affect FF and it's add ons. Hell, it affects Vista. You can't have too much RAM.

Sorry if this rambles. I'm fried from work

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i have 41 processes running

i have norton 360 also, wireless, yahoo, ie, ff, email, limewire, my printer, ulead

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Okay thank you.

Also, the processes I have running are about 30 listed under Pete and 50 or so listed under SYSTEM or LOCAL. Should I have 30 total, or 30 under Pete? Basically, am I still too high, or is it about right?

and still, does hard drive space affect how much RAM I have, or can RAM not change based on the amount of Free Disk space on my PC?

your computer can use your hd space as extra ram if its set up that way.

local and system processes are normal, but seriously, just google the processes running. shouldnt take more than 40 minutes if you have 70 of them

Right, which is why it's better to have more system RAM because using the HD for memory is slower than active RAM. The more RAM the faster the system. It's probably the most significant thing you can to do improve performance if you have a limited budget. Getting a good video card with it's own processor (GPU) is a good idea but I'm sure that came with your system already. Vista is a memory hog so no matter what this ends up being, budget to get more RAM. You'll be surprised how much faster you'll be.

Peeps is right. Get a notebook. Google the processes. Write them down. This way you'll have something to reference quickly when you do it again. - which you will need to do because in 6 months you'll be looking at this again - it's a feature of Windows! You need to know what's running on your PC. Also, if you disable a process, you can make note so you know what to re-enable if something starts acting screwy

gotta run or I'll be late for work

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