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Computer grinding to a halt (1 Viewer)

Steve I have done two screen captures of the the items.

I payed and registered for the regclean, deleted all the files compacted the registry, guess what on boot up and load I had the blue screen of death. Rebooted and seems stable at the moment but still slow.

For some reason I haven't got the place for adding attachment in this thread. I have put them both on flickr
 

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Assumptions

1 - I wonder if it could possibly be a hardware problem ..
Check that all your RAM is functional .. Right-click the "My Computer" icon from the desktop and choose properties .. does the amount of RAM shown match with what you actually have on your system ?

2 - What might have caused the duplicate Registry entries .. did you at some stage install a new copy (or upgrade version) of Windows on top of your previous OS ? ..

3 - What is your hardware like ? .. is it possible that this is an old machine and is simply having trouble coping with more and more programs running under Windows ?

One obvious and not too painful solution would be to grab all the files you need onto an external memory device (eg memory stick), format the hard disk and do a clean Windows installation .. that has the advantages of sorting out the Registry mess as well as blasting away any malware which may have caused / contributed to the problem..

If it's not possible to do that, try to step back with "System Restore" ... go back to a Restore Point when your system was "ok" .. eg 3 or 4 months back ..

For me the best option would be Format and re-install .. well worth the time it takes :t:
 
1 - I wonder if it could possibly be a hardware problem ..
Check that all your RAM is functional .. Right-click the "My Computer" icon from the desktop and choose properties .. does the amount of RAM shown match with what you actually have on your system ?

2 - What might have caused the duplicate Registry entries .. did you at some stage install a new copy (or upgrade version) of Windows on top of your previous OS ? ..

3 - What is your hardware like ? .. is it possible that this is an old machine and is simply having trouble coping with more and more programs running under Windows ?

One obvious and not too painful solution would be to grab all the files you need onto an external memory device (eg memory stick), format the hard disk and do a clean Windows installation .. that has the advantages of sorting out the Registry mess as well as blasting away any malware which may have caused / contributed to the problem..

If it's not possible to do that, try to step back with "System Restore" ... go back to a Restore Point when your system was "ok" .. eg 3 or 4 months back ..

For me the best option would be Format and re-install .. well worth the time it takes :t:


You have just hit the nail on the head as to where the double entries have come from, I reloaded XP Last Monday as I thought it may speed things up but it didn't, if anything it slowed it down even more.

It looks like I may have to format and reload totally as I can't restore because with the new reload it only goes back to that date. Its the thought of having to reload everything again.
 
lesser of two evils

Hello Christine o:)
I'm delighted that I was able to shed some useful light on the subject, and believe me the option of formatting and a clean installation is well worth the effort .. Just imagine:
1 - you'd get to organise your files nicely once again :gh:
2 - you'd get to zap all the malware which your poor old computer maybe chronically infected with
3 - Last but not least, you'd get to wipe out any nuisance/parasitic programs which have accumulated onto your system along the way ..

so GO AHEAD .. DO IT , and may the force be with you :t:
just make sure you grab ALL your important files beforehand
PS: if your computer is still slowish after you re-install Windows, then just buy an extra block of RAM, it's relatively cheap and it would improve the performance of your machine
 
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Hi Christine

I see you have 2 copies of 'rundll32.exe' running, this is a windows exe but I had slowdown probs recently after a windows update, I closed it and it cured the slowdown with no apparent ill effects. Give it a try, go into task manager and right click on 'end process' on them both and see if it makes any difference - you'll not be doing any deleting so you're safe on that front.
 
Help,can anyone tell me how to find the "restore " prog.I downloaded one of the clearance progs,and it has deleted the "cookies".So I now need to restore things back to how they were.
 
Thought I had better put this on the advanced prog,then i do not have to find the page again.I need to find the "restore " prog,as I have now deleted the cookies,by using one of the afore mentioned cleaner progs!!!.
 
Hi Christine, (Redgate)

Is there any need to go through all that, I'm sure it won't matter and you can just go back on the sites you're used to and they'll get the cookies back into your PC anyway...as I understand it at least. To start with log off and then log back on to BF or perhaps use another site to test on, I'm sure you'll find it's all ok.

Good luck, Sue.
 
No,Sue,I need to do a System restore,it is impoosible to remember the passwords,I have had to re log in to BF each time.It is pretty simple to do,just do not know where to activate.I am unable to activate my website ,as I cannot remember my username.
 
No,Sue,I need to do a System restore,it is impoosible to remember the passwords,I have had to re log in to BF each time.It is pretty simple to do,just do not know where to activate.I am unable to activate my website ,as I cannot remember my username.

I see Christine, no problem then.

Go to "Start" then "All Programmes". Up to "Accessories" then select "System Tools" from the list and click on "System Restore". You then click "Restore my computer to an earlier time" then click the nearest date to restore it to.

Close down everything else running before you start, then sit back and relax while it all goes ahead. The one thing about System Restore is - you can always reverse it.

Good luck Christine,

Sue.
 
all is not lost

Hi Christine o:D
System Restore cannot bring back deleted cookies .. it only restores the Registry to an earlier state ..

As a matter of fact, nothing can bring back deleted cookies ..:-C
But do not panic .. As Sue said, I'm sure you one way or another you can remember / get back your important passwords, most sites have some sort of a verification process to deal with lost/forgotten passwords ..:smoke:


By the way, are you the same person as "Saphire" who started this post ? .. if so and if you are considering formatting your system, then before you format PLEASE REMEMBER TO Copy onto an external device, eg a memory stick:

1 - All the files you want

2 - your favourite websites folder


Good luck
 
By the way, are you the same person as "Saphire" who started this post ? .. if so and if you are considering formatting your system, then before you format PLEASE REMEMBER TO Copy onto an external device, eg a memory stick:

1 - All the files you want

2 - your favourite websites folder


Good luck

Iraqbabbler, thanks for the reminder, although I only have a small petition with the system files on for this type of situation, so know I won't lose anything. Its just the thought of having to go through lots of programs to find which ones won't run anymore.

I have found a backup on my removable drive that I did in April, probably after I did a reformat and after I put everything back, I may try that one first. Then I may not have as many programs to replace.
 
HELP! How do I do format without floppy disk

I don't have floppy disk drive anymore so how on earth do I format the boot drive. I used to fdisk first then format now I don't have that option. I put the xp disk in but there is no options to format it comes up saying there is xp already loaded, do I want to repair, do I want new copy, then it ask what drive, but won't allow it to be put on the c drive because its already there. It won't allow me to even boot to dos to do the format.

Doing a search on the net and I am being told I have to delete the partition before I can format, if I do that I will lose everything, I have no means to backup 500gb of software. If there is no other way then I will have to put the floppy disk drive back in the machine and run an old dos disk to format. I have been trying to rack my brains as to what I did the last time to format just the c: partition.
 
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I have just downloaded the latest maxblast software, I have made a cd boot disk ready. The software is finding errors in sectors on the drive so my safe bet is to do a full format, including partitions. My external drive I didn't think was big enough to take all the files but it is. I am now in the process of moving everything on to that drive and will start again with a clean sheet.
 
Formatting

Hi Christine,
You need to boot externally (eg from an XP CD) .. you must change your BIOS setup to tell the computer to bypass the hard disk and look for an external boot disk. You do that as follows:

1 - Power up your computer

2 - Quickly enter the BIOS setup by pressing "F1" or "F2" or "DEL", or "ESC" .. you can probably see some instruction on the DOS screen telling you which key as the computer powers up ..

3 - Once in the BIOS setup screen, change the boot sequence to make the CD your first boot device ..

4 - Put the CD in the CD Rom drive

5 - Restart your computer..

Now you can do fdsik and format .. etc.

Good luck :t:
 
Thanks iraqbabbler, I tried all that and it wouldn't allow me to fidisk or reformat until I did a total erase of partitions, so spent the evening copying everything on to a spare drive, I didn't do it as a backup because I didn't want to overwrite the new clean xp.
I now have a clean XP on board and am just loading what I want back which is taking ages. As soon as everything is how I want it I will do a total backup while it is still clean.
 
Sweet Success

Well done Christine .. or as they say Wooooooooo Hoooooooo o:D

Remember, if you find the PC still a bit slow, just add an extra block of RAM .. cheap and would speed up the machine ..

I wish you all the best of luck .. happy birding and painless computing :t:
 
Thanks again iraqbabbler, I did purchase 2gb of Ram last week and thats when I realized that it didn't help in speeding things up. Unfortunately my machine will only take a max of 3gb and to get three chips that are compatible is a nightmare, each time I have put in an extra chip of the same size that chip always ends up corrupted for some reason. I bought a 2gb kit they don't do 3gb kits.
 
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