Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

[CQ-Reborn]

I was wondering if you guys could help me out, my friends computer has been having alot of problems lately, his games that he ran without a problem nice and smoothly now lag terrible and stutter, his computers speed has been literally cut in half and crap like that. He does homework and gaming on the computer but the rest of his family doesn't know how to keep the computer clean, they download random crap like downloading crap from AIM people they dont know with sky-high warning levels, serf on myspace and download programs to help them find music. Since they started doing that the computers had problems.
They have norton and I had them install Ad-aware + spybot search and destroy and have em scan regularly but that doesnt remove virus's I suspect they have.

As many of you know norton sucks *** and doesnt catch half the virus's,worms and other things that flood into the system, I wanted to get them to DL firefox + AVG anti virus since they're better than they're current antivirus + browser but they think mozilla sucks (they use their ISP's browser) and still have like 5 more months of payed norton.

I've done everything I can but I think there are many more experienced people here who could help. Please post what you think I should do.
One of my ideas was to install AVG, do a scan and kill anything that norton might have (and definetly will) missed, but im not sure if they will clash because i've heard its bad to have to anti-virus programs running at the same time.

[Trevortt]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

they could be infected with viruses, adware, spyware, malware. I'd personally use AVG, Spybot S&D, Ad Adaware SE. What is there full system specs?

rpress cntrl-alt &del then goto the processes tab and see how many processes they have running.

Goto start run, type msconfig - hit OK, then goto the startup tab, and see what we have in there that is ticked (post here)

Defrag the HDD, open my computer, scroll to C drive, right click this, select properties, tools & defrag now.

tell him & his family to read this XP Optimization Guide

My guess is if they have been dloading files from the net, these files are eating up all the resources on the PC, which means the system is running low on memory. Any more of this and i think the pc will crash.

[CQ-Reborn]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

2.8 Pentium 4 processor.
1.5 gig RAM
256 MB video card
65 gig HD.

I'll find out what he has running + such and have him defrag his HD. Will post ASAP

[RocketChild]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

There is a lot I could say, but lets start off by getting everyone to move over to Firefox and install the Ad-Block plug-ins. It might help.

Also some supplied the XP guide. That is a good start. Run MSCONFIG at the run line. Go into the Startup area and see if there is a lot of BS starting up there.

Edit: opps did not read all the postings. Already said.

[666_ubermensch]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

I'm pretty sure spybot search and destroy is, itself, adware. Where did they get it? A popup or just a google search?

Anyway, Lavasoft is great, and it's Swedish.

And Zonealarm. I never use antivirus, just good firewall and safe computer habits. A good antivirus is needed if you're downloading music or whatever other ****. A lot of good porn sites, (the free ones), are probably loaded with adware.

Get a new hard drive and start over, they're real cheap. Maybe you had a virus that ****ed with some of your other hardware, that would suck.

[fotrsaken]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

if all goes to hell take out that hard drive and get a new one

[Tombstone]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

format c:

[bigbossmatt]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

format c:

Sadly I would recommend the same. Back up only vital things such as documents and really improtant stuff. Music, I'm sure you can get again...

It's sad, but formatting is a great holocaust for viruses and each time you are forced to do it, you learn by it. In this case, hopefully they don't need to lose anything.

What I've learned: don't search for porn full stop. If I value a good running pc, I wont risk it.

[Stormy{CAN}]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

I'm pretty sure spybot search and destroy is, itself, adware. Where did they get it? A popup or just a google search?

I you say so.

Never has, and never will be. May want to do a little more "research" first, before putting your foot in next time.

Get a new hard drive and start over, they're real cheap. Maybe you had a virus that ****ed with some of your other hardware, that would suck.

Remind me to never refer anyone to you for computer service either.

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

I'm pretty sure spybot search and destroy is, itself, adware. Where did they get it? A popup or just a google search?

Anyway, Lavasoft is great, and it's Swedish.

And Zonealarm. I never use antivirus, just good firewall and safe computer habits. A good antivirus is needed if you're downloading music or whatever other ****. A lot of good porn sites, (the free ones), are probably loaded with adware.

Get a new hard drive and start over, they're real cheap. Maybe you had a virus that ****ed with some of your other hardware, that would suck.

spybot is not spyware...in fact i prefer it over ad-aware


and also..yeah reformatting is a good idea if ur comupter is really messed up...even the cleaning programs wont help. I once got a bad virus and even tho i was able to remove it after countless hours of furstration, my computer was never teh same.

[Nadokings]

Re: Attention o' ye computer savvy onez

optimization guides do nothing, its ad aware or a keylogger taking up page file space making your game run with little or next to 0 memory.