PC technical problems

[Preston]

Deleting programs installed on your computer will only free up hard drive space. If your hard drive is not full, deleting programs won't accomplish anything.

The reason I suggested deleting programs is because one has to worry about them running as "startup programs" or "background programs", etc.

And Peter be careful if your account is an admin account - it is not the way to use your OS. All should run as a limited user and use administrative privilege.

[Sorrano]

The reason I suggested deleting programs is because one has to worry about them running as "startup programs" or "background programs", etc.

And Peter be careful if your account is an admin account - it is not the way to use your OS. All should run as a limited user and use administrative privilege.

Those startup programs can certainly be killers. My work computer takes about 10 minutes to become operational once it is turned on. However, I use those background programs and am not willing to part with them because they enhance my productivity throughout the day and make up for the 10 minutes of system startup.

[Peter]

I've now gone back to firefox, simply because I didn't like the lack of tool bar with chrome - I've noticed no difference in performance with either - the real issue for me was Norton.

I've just checked RAM which I've set to "System managed size" and it's increased itself to 651MB which seems rather high considering they recommend 370MB?

[Chris]

I've just checked RAM which I've set to "System managed size" and it's increased itself to 651MB which seems rather high considering they recommend 370MB?

As long as the system is managing it, you're fine. You should only ever change that if you have a specific issue with a program.

[Sorrano]

One thing I would stress, especially if there are any symptoms of irregularity, is to make sure you have your data backed up regularly. My principle computer at home went out on me this morning, but because I do have my data backed up and on a networked drive I am not pulling my hair out over lost data. The drive appears to be at fault but I may be able to access it via USB on another computer to recover anything else that I may have overlooked.

[Preston]

One thing I would stress, especially if there are any symptoms of irregularity, is to make sure you have your data backed up regularly. My principle computer at home went out on me this morning, but because I do have my data backed up and on a networked drive I am not pulling my hair out over lost data. The drive appears to be at fault but I may be able to access it via USB on another computer to recover anything else that I may have overlooked.

Yes. Sorrano has an excellent point for everyone, it is highly important to back up your data. There are programs that help do this. Windows has a built in automatic backup system, though there are better ones from what I understand?

Also, Sorrano - 10 minutes!!! What the heck do you have installed, lol?

[Preston]

I've now gone back to firefox, simply because I didn't like the lack of tool bar with chrome - I've noticed no difference in performance with either - the real issue for me was Norton.

I've just checked RAM which I've set to "System managed size" and it's increased itself to 651MB which seems rather high considering they recommend 370MB?

As long as the system is managing it, you're fine. You should only ever change that if you have a specific issue with a program.

Are you talking about physical memory (RAM) or system memory? I ask because I am confused - I did not know there was a "system managed size" setting for RAM and I don't understand the recommendation?

[Chris]

Are you talking about physical memory (RAM) or system memory? I ask because I am confused - I did not know there was a "system managed size" setting for RAM and I don't understand the recommendation?

No, I'm talking about virtual memory. You have a certain amount of RAM in your computer. But what if you need more than that to run a program? And what's more, when you write a program, how do you know where in memory it will be? The answer is virtual memory. This is something that allows each program running to work as though it has the entire addressable memory range at its disposal. Of course it really doesn't, so what the operating system does is take things it thinks you won't be needing immediately and swap in out of RAM and onto the hard drive. Then when you need it, it will swap it back into the actual RAM.

The issue here is how much hard drive space should be set aside for this? Generally, your operating system can determine the optimal amount. But sometimes you need to do something special, and so you have the option to set the size yourself.

[Chris]

Windows has a built in automatic backup system, though there are better ones from what I understand?

All that will do is back up your system on the same drive. That will allow you to restore it if you screw something up or something goes wrong with the software. I never bother with this. The most important thing is to back up your data to a CD-R, external hard drive, flash drive, or something, so that if your hard drive fails you don't lose all your data forever.

[Sorrano]

No, I'm talking about virtual memory. You have a certain amount of RAM in your computer. But what if you need more than that to run a program? And what's more, when you write a program, how do you know where in memory it will be? The answer is virtual memory. This is something that allows each program running to work as though it has the entire addressable memory range at its disposal. Of course it really doesn't, so what the operating system does is take things it thinks you won't be needing immediately and swap in out of RAM and onto the hard drive. Then when you need it, it will swap it back into the actual RAM.

The issue here is how much hard drive space should be set aside for this? Generally, your operating system can determine the optimal amount. But sometimes you need to do something special, and so you have the option to set the size yourself.

The less load that you put on your hard drive the better, that is why I recommend increasing RAM so that there is less need for paging. I had an XP machine that the drive failed in process of using the virtual memory--this does not mean it is bad, but with the 500 MB RAM I had serious resource limitations and was using McAfee at the time which was heavy into resources. The drive failed in process and it took some time to recover data, although about 20% of the drive was unrecoverable. After that experience backups became my best friend.

[Sorrano]

Yes. Sorrano has an excellent point for everyone, it is highly important to back up your data. There are programs that help do this. Windows has a built in automatic backup system, though there are better ones from what I understand?

Also, Sorrano - 10 minutes!!! What the heck do you have installed, lol?

At work I have a number of utilities that preload, for example, there is an alt-tab that I quite like, as well as a botched search engine. I've tried to get rid of it, but when I have some time I will work on that. Sophos is preloaded, as well, and it has to update as soon as it is active. MSE is much quieter.

With regards to the built in backup, I think that you can configure it to backup to a USB drive, but then you can get free backup programs on the web. Personally, I like to copy files over manually; it can be tedious, but it doesn't take me that much time to do all that. I was using an xcopy32 script, but when I had a failure I discovered that it hadn't been working properly and lost a lot of stuff. I like to put my data files directly to a NAS (Network Area Storage--it's a drive that is plugged into the network, has it's own operating system, and is independent of any specific computer) and then I back up the NAS to a USB drive. that works well for me and creates redundancy.

[Peter]

Youtube seems to slow down my computer terribly - even when viewing the what are you watching page or uploading videos for the rare Beethoven it takes an age. I get a message about flash shockwave crashing but I do have the latest version. I wonder if AVG which has a youtube video accelerator is causing the problem, but I thought that was meant to speed things up!

[Preston]

Youtube seems to slow down my computer terribly - even when viewing the what are you watching page or uploading videos for the rare Beethoven it takes an age. I get a message about flash shockwave crashing but I do have the latest version. I wonder if AVG which has a youtube video accelerator is causing the problem, but I thought that was meant to speed things up!

To my understanding:
One thing to keep in mind is that when a webpage (such as the what are you watching) has numerous flash videos on it, it will easily slow most any computer down. It does it to my computer some extent. I remember going to former poster Ed's blog, which he would load up with videos, and when scrolling down the webpage there would be a fair amount of lag, stuttering, etc.

So that is somewhat common. The slowness comes down, now a days, to the power of the computer and the amount of flash videos, it seems.

One, I searched on the internet and it seems a lot of people have had problems with flash crashing with little solution. I wonder when you reload the webpage if it crashes again? I have had a couple of flash crashes though I will reload and it will be alright. Seems there is some kind of a glitch or bug in flash, where this happens occasionally for some and often for others (that can depends on different factors - operating system, cpu, memory, other programs, viruses, etc.)

Though, since your computer hardware is having trouble keeping up with all the videos, then it is possible that could be causing flash to crash - your computer not being able to take anymore.

I would try disabling the AVG video accelerator and see what happens, why not? Then you might need to clear your cache, flash cache, history, temp files (they can really add up), etc. And do a defrag of your hard drive (do this while you are asleep).

So for the cleaning of your cache and the defrag, there is a company called piriform that makes good tools for both - and they are free. I use them often.

for the cleaning use CCleaner, and for the degramentation use Defraggler. they are quite simple to use. really only two clicks for both. though read the directions.

These things are important. Run CCleaner around once every week and a half, and defrag every 6 months.

www.piriform.com

Those things or it could be malware, etc.

[Peter]

Thanks Preston for the advice - re.defragmenting I've never found it makes that much difference!

[Megan]

My volume control button keeps disappearing and I'm having trouble getting it back. Any advice please will be much appreciated.