tech help please!

[markE]

i recently got broadband on my laptop at home for the first time. trouble is the whole pc seems very slow and often programmes come up with the programme not responding tag. i don't think its a virus as nothing is detected by my software.
the only thing that i can think is that it may be something to do with automatic updates - my pc is 5ish years old so obviously there is some catching up to do?

any ideas would be greatfully received.

[Ean]

Can you expand a bit on the innards of your laptop? What processor have you got, how much Ram, what OS, etc (or failing that what model Laptop it is, so's I can Google a bit).

Which programs don't respond? Or is it whatever's running at the time?

When you say broadband on your laptop at home for the first time, do you mean that it's never been connected to the internet before?

[Radish]

I don't know if this is your problem (I'm no tecchy) but we had a problem when we first connected our laptop via wireless broadband, the virus checker programme thing (see, told you I'm not a tecchy) was taking pretty much 100% of the run time trying to do stuff. I think it was confused. It checked everything a million times over resulting in loads of programmes not responding things. Anyway, in the end I think we had to take everything off and re-install it all, minus the offending paranoid virus checker (but plus a new one).

[Ean]

I was heading in a similar direction. He says his Laptop is about 5 years old, so chances are it doesn't have a multi-core processor, so an anti-virus running in the background is going to drag everything down to a crawl now that all the information coming in through the broadband needs checking too.

[markE]

hi guys,

haven't got all the info in front of me coz i'm at work.

we just got broadband with tiscalli with the norton antivirus they recommend .. previously we were just on dial up at home.
i'm using windows xp on a hewlett packard pavillion

thanks

[Ean]

Are you up to date with the XP Service Packs? You should be up to SP3 now.

Check the settings for Norton. It might be that it's set for something along the lines of "scan at startup" or a similar name, which means it'll hog your system while it needlessly (if you schedule it to run once a week or so) scans your entire drive every time you turn the machine on.

Also, if you're using a firewall built into Norton, make sure you disable the Windows firewall (assuming you have SP2 or above, otherwise, see above), as they don't play nicely together.

[vickyp]

Norton is notorious for slowing down systems. I'd have a look to see if you can either adjust the settings like Ean recommends or use another piece of software instead.

[markE]

hi guys. still struggling i'm afraid.

i now have service pack 3 .

not really sure how to disable the widows firewall. when i go in through control panel/settings it says it is off. however security centre says it is on and i can't find a way to turn it off.
i went on the help page on norton and it did recommend turning windows firewall off.
don't really want to get rid of norton as have subscribed for a year as part of the tiscalli package.
couldn't find anything on norton that said scan at startup or anything that i recognise as being similar.

thanks for your help so far

[Ean]

Hmmm, might have to dig out the old PC for this one...

It's possible that it's just the regular ticking away in the background of Norton that's causing the problem, AV programs are particularly bad when it comes to hogging resources.

[Assmask]

There are two things you need to do in order to maximise what you are using.

a 5 year laptop is never going to run at any decent speed, you'd be lucky even to get it running as fast as it was when it was new (no idea why this is but sadly component performance does degade with age). Using Norton will kill it, simple as that. You really need to remove that form your system, which is easier said that done as it's an insidious little bastard and no mistake.

The best thing you can do for you PC is to rebuild it. If you're not savvy with this it's probably best not to attempt it, but it should have come with a rebuild disk that contined your XP and all your laptop drivers. This will erase everything on your HDD (unless you have a data partition) so you will need to back up all of your music, movies, photos - all of this you should be doing anyway, having only one copy of important files will usually end in tearful disaster.

So, one. Do a rebuild. Two, get rid of Norton and install AVG free and Spybot. VG will run itself aurtomatically when it is installed, you will need to update and run Spybot yourself periodically.

If you want me to explain any of the above in more concise terms feel free to ask.