help! im an idiot

[Four0Sport]

I am in no way computer savvy.. i know enough to get by. well lately my comp has been lagging badddddd and ive ran virus scans, ran through safe mode, and still cannot find whats affecting my pc. this afternoon i ran msconfig and selected 'diagnostic start up', restarted, ran anti virus, ran msconfig and clicked the normal selectable start up option, well ever since my background/theme has been windows classic, not the blue and green XP format and I cannot get it back to the regular format to save my life. there isnt even an option under the appearance/themes for the XP theme. I cant stand the old format.. its killing me! can someone please help!?!?!?

 

[BrooklynBay]

I had this before, and it also drove me crazy. Every time I would reset it, it got messed up. I found out later on that my hard drive kept developing multiple bad clusters. I ran CHKDSK every time this happened, and it helped for a while until more bad clusters developed. Check the settings under Themes, and Appearance.

 

[Tbars4]

...A couple things you can do is run Right click on My Comp, click manage, click disk mngmnt, select C, Right click and click on properties, click on the tools tab and at error checking click on test now...mark both the boxes and click ok...Now reboot...This will check your system, files, etc at restart...

...after it does restart you can then , DEFRAG your system...Remember, Defrag is not complete until you completely shut down th computer after it has defragged...These are part of normal clean up maint. if you don't already do this...

...If you need more help, all I have been doing lately is cleaning our computers...

 

[Four0Sport]

hmm.. it says i am unable to select disk management bc a connection could not be made. ARGH!#@

 

[BrooklynBay]

Right click on your C: drive in My Computer, and select properties, then tools. You will see the options for error checking, defragmenting, and backing up your drive.

 

[Tbars4]

...on my Vaio XP I can not get there...There is no tools option from there...

 

[BrooklynBay]

Do you have Home or Pro with SP3?

 

[Tbars4]

...My Vaio has home XP sp3...The way you sent him I believe is per each Individual Manuf.'s setup...I'm thinking he is on a shared computer and he does not have Admin. privelages on it or he signed in as just a user...

 

[BrooklynBay]

I have Pro with SP3, so maybe this might be one of the differences?

 

[Four0Sport]

i am an admin on my pc.. i found part of the problem, while selecting 'diagnostic startup' it disabled ALL system utilities, ran services.msc and found some of the system utilities i had to re-enable and start but still having some slight issues.. thanks for all the help guys! i now have the XP theme back, my sound works, i can access some of the utitlity tools and setups. i should have taken more computer classes in school lol

 

[Blacksheep Josh]

I think the key to keeping a computer running at maximum performance is a regular maintenance schedule, this is my schedule and what I use, and my computer will have been used for a year on December 25, and I've only been able to make it faster. Still runs like a brand new computer.

I have:
Acer 4315 model with a single core 1.73ghz Intel M processor, running 2.5 gigs of ram.

I installed:
-AVG Free Antivirus
-Spybot Search and Destroy with Teatimer (protects registry changes, helps guard against spyware)
-I run an antiviru scan every morning at 8am (automatic)
-I run Spybot Search and Destroy whenever I remember, and most times about 1-2 times a week
-I have Disk Defrag set to run every morning at 5am.

While it may seem like a lot, my computer runs faster then my friends, and theirs are newer and "faster" then mine.

Keep up with the maintenance, just like any other thing, and it'll run beautifully.

Next big mod is upgrading to a dual core processor.

 

[BrooklynBay]

They have quad core now. A friend of mine bought one from Dell recently when they were running a special.

 

[parad1mg]

my comp aquired a virus last week and all i could do was turn on my computer then after it has finished booting up it would just slow down to a crawl then shut down by itself while showing numerous error windows..

i restarted my computer in safe mode and downloaded a free anti-virus software called avast! ver. 4.8 .. it ran by itself after i finished installing it and it got rid of all the problems i ever had.. it did a full scan while booting up and would show infected files/folders and actions you can take to get rid of it.. imo and in my case it worked like a charm.. plus its free...

 

[gijoecam]

I've been running Avast and Ad-Aware since my wife's PC died a couple years ago... Even switched mine over when it died last spring. LOVE it!! Runs nicely in the background, catches everything (so far) updates automatically, and it's FREE!

-Joe

 

[Four0Sport]

ive been running avg and ad-aware but still cant seem to find whats causing my lagging problems. then again, my computer is 7? yrs old. so idk. its working sorta as we speak, a friend of mine who builds/repairs computers as a side business to running a coal mine said he had a pc laying around he would give me, said its built pretty good. never hurts to have a spare, right?

 

[KPT]

They have quad core now. A friend of mine bought one from Dell recently when they were running a special.

Now? Quad cores have been around for two years at least.