Computer running very slow....

P4 with 1g of ram and a 3.2 processor speed running like crap, here are some screenshots, tell me what to get rid of.

 

Also tell me if I should get rid of antivir in favor of a lighter av, same with kerio

 

before switching AV and FW, id suggest that u run msconfig.exe and see what u have running on startup.

if u dont already know how to do this, go to start menu > run > type in "msconfig" and press enter to click ok. go to the tab labeled startup. start unchecking unnecessary items. if ur unsure which items u need, u can post screenshots.

u can also run ccleaner to delete junk files as well as clean ur registry.

 

Just by looking at the screen shot I really think your Kerio 4 is useing an awful lot of resources. I am running F-Secure internet security suite and look at the difference in resource usage. I believe you can do a lot better with a different FW and AV

 

Hi. speaking from my very own experience: my baby has only 512 MB ram, and using quite few apps. Very often it ran like a snail,froze up odd times. But not any more, because I installed O&O Clever Cache Professional V6. Now it runs like sprintter. You may download it from their web site and see it yourself. Good luck.

 

Here is the startup screen....

Also, I use Kerio 4 and Antivir and both and kinda high, do you have any recommendations for something maybe a little lighter, I do use Arezus as a bit torrent....

 

I have kind of quit recomending any particular av program. I now suggest that you just try a few and see how they do on your comp. I tried dozens over several years until I found one that I like and that my computers like. i am sure it won't take you years though. probably no more that a couple of weeks

 

You could try the program below to find any bottle necks.

I wouldn't implement any of the fixes unless I had a decent backup so just have a look at the probs it reports.

Once it finishes scanning you need to hover your mouse pointer on the problem reports to see all.

Advanced Windows Care

http://www.iobit.com/WindowsCare.htm

Edit:
Just tried the beta of this program and it is completely different from the original version.

 

Simon, your Kerio 4 ram usage is way abnormal. It's using nearly 95mb of ram total. On my system, typical usage was around 26mb for all 3 processes combined (the 2 gui's and the 1 service). This might be due to your p2p Azureus usage. Azureus itself can use tons of ram, and it might also be stressing Kerio if Kerio is trying to resolve all the addresses on all those connections. There is a way to turn off the resolving (I don't use Kerio now so I can't guide you on that), so if you can find that switch it might help. Kerio used to have problems with large numbers of connections, so that may be bogging your system down. Also, as others have mentioned, you might do well to try another firewall that's more suited to p2p usage.

 

I thought your svchost 70 meg usage was abnormal as well. Is it possible to go up that high?

The most I've ever had mine go up to, with heavy torrenting was around 40 megs.

 

I realize everyones systems numbers will be different but looking at those numbers my first suggestion is to unplug from the net and temporarily disable all services that do not need to be enabled....FW, AV, AT, ipod, iTunes, Kodak....etc....and then re-boot. I would then see if those items such as explorer.exe and spoolsv.exe are still exhibiting those very high Mem Usages. Those 2 IMHO are wayyyy out of line with what I would call normal{75 meg explorer.exe\35 meg spoolv.exe}
I would despense with worrying about protection being loaded and other un-necessary items in regards to troubleshooting. I would check that system with what I would call a normal number of processes for a PC not connected to the net....I'd say a concervative number less than 20 processes.

BTW....has that 1 gig of ram been in that PC long or have you just recently upgraded ?

 

Seems like a lot of running processes. Did a Google on one or two of them. One, stsytra.exe came up as unknown. Heres` a screen shot of mine.

 

Try stsystra....a process belonging to SigmaTel.

http://www.sigmatel.com/

 

That`s what I get for not digging quit deep enough. Thanks for the info. What little I did read on it stated it was not needed at start up. I`m guessing there several others showing up in his Task Manager that do`t need to run at start up as well. A quick tour through Msconfig, Start Up folder, and even Services should trim down his list considerably and give a noticeable speed boost. Thats my story....and I`m sticking to it.

 

id uncheck quicktime, kodak, nero, itunes, and hpztsb10. im not entirely sure about teh first three and hcenter.

also consider bitcomet (uncheck the option for toolbar) or utorrent for a less mem hungry torrent app.

 

I'm not a techno expert but I can also suggest you to run and scan your pc with anti-virus, anti-spyware/malwares, and anti-trojan. Then you can use EasyCleaner v2 of ToniArts and run the registry cleaner and unnecessary file finder to get rid of junk files. Use also CleanCache 3.2 to clean the cache and some other craps. Then use defragmenter to defrag your hard drive, and after that use also NTREGOPT to defrag the registry and also use PageDefrag from systinternals to defrag the paging file.

Check also those programs that ate large amounts of cpu and ram and get rid of them, use ProcX from ghostsecurity.com.

Actually, my system was just 256MB RAM P4 2.4 and having its regular weekly schedule with that... my pc is just fast for my daily normal use.

 

From the uTorrent FAQ:

• Open up the Kerio GUI (best to do while no torrents are running)
• Click on the Overview tab (top left)
• Make sure you are in the 'Connections' section of Overview
• Right click in the window where all of the programs currently using a network connection are listed
• Un-check 'Resolve Address' option (3rd from bottom)

 

Disabled the start up programs you guys mentioned and ran AWC and it says it found 800 pieces of spyware and cleaned them but the memory usage is still kinda high. I doubt 800 is legit, I use opera with mcafee internet suite now, I dumped kerio and antivir....

I will run a spyware scan in safe mode next with adaware and spybot. I might erase itunes and use mediamonkey with my ipod also, I might delete azerus and java and use utorrent even though I had bad luck the last time trying to get it to work.

Do you think I should invest in a spyware program to go along with mis? Also, I added in 512mb of ram monday and I downloaded IE7....

Anyways here is a new list...

 

The 800 items I think are blocked websites added for extra security.Sorta like Spywareblaster.

Your memory usage looks more like normal compared to you first screenshot.

 

Azerus is likely causing slowdowns if you're running XP SP2 and haven't done the TCP/IP patch to increase the number of incomplete simultaneous connections. I would also say you've probably got something casuing memory leaks. I know that previous versions of Azerus had some memory problems, but I would go through and update everything, including drivers. That should probably take care of it.

 

thanks

 

I'd like to add one more thing here.

Try running the error fixing utility of Windows. Go to MyComputer>Local Disc C>right click then go to Properties>Tools>Error-Checking Check now, then check the two boxes then start. When the prompts pop-ups click ok, then re-start your pc.

Do the same thing with drive D.

Do this before running the Defragmenter.

Once, a month will be ok using this error-checking utility...but when you are using FAT32 it is more prone to fragmentations and error. My firefox ScrapBook extension when used ofted (capturing/deleting) caused my system to hang or freeze, but after I use the error-checking utility then defrag the hard drive where firefox was installed everything was ok.

I think errors can also cause the system to slow down and hang.