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What The A-o-hell Is Going On?


Demonic Angel
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My computer ran sweetly at my old house - was fast as you like and didnt have any issues, but since I'm back at my parents, I've gone on to AOL because my brother had it when he lived here and as the contract isnt up for 5 months, I thought I'd stick with it and change when the contract expires....

But ever since then, its been awful! It's slow, sluggish, things dont shut down properly (AOLDialler.exe normally!), comes up with "Memory Low" warnings, takes ages to open email/web pages....

Basically - is AOL killing my PC??

My HD was a bit on the full side, so I removed a few big programmes I didnt use, which helped slightly, but it seems to be getting worse day by day - the computer itself is only like a year or so old, so its not ancient by any means, but I'm getting quite sick of it now....

And AOL installs loads of crap you dont want - I dont need AOL Spyware Zapper, I have one of those programmes already, I dont need AOL Computer Check-up, because I know what the issue with my pc is.... its blinkin' AO-berluddy-Hell!

Is there anything I can do to make it better, I think I'm going to get a new computer soon anyway I think and give this one to my Mum & Dad, but it just seems to be dying a death and the only new thing I have on here, save Zone Alarm and Skype, is AOL and to be honest, its racking me right off, especially when it starts spyware scanning sporadically and I dont want it to... just bugger off will ya! :rolleyes:

By the way, before anyone asks - no it doesnt have a virus, nor any spyware, adware or anything like that, I'm the sort who tends to be a bit hot about protection of that variety, so theres nothing dodgy on here whatsoever, it's just majorly slow!

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Unfortunately AOL is virtually a legalised virus. Go into search and type in AOL in files and folders. You`ll be amazed. They just take over the machine. !Removed! parasites. :ffs:

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Unfortunately AOL is virtually a legalised virus. Go into search and type in AOL in files and folders. You`ll be amazed. They just take over the machine. Bloody parasites. :ffs:

:eek::eek:

:crybaby::crybaby:

:help::help:

127 AOL files! :censor:

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Isn't there any tick boxes not to install all the crap when you installed it (Could be under advance installation options)?

And/or can you remove individual components though the' add and remove' program in the control program?

Are you on dialup or ASDL(Broadband)?

I guess you could stop the process starting up by going into 'msconfig' (start/run - than startup tab) ???

Sorry girl that's all I can say :(

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Isn't there any tick boxes not to install all the crap when you installed it (Could be under advance installation options)?

And/or can you remove individual components though the' add and remove' program in the control program?

Are you on dialup or ASDL(Broadband)?

I guess you could stop the process starting up by going into 'msconfig' (start/run - than startup tab) ???

Sorry girl that's all I can say :(

There were no options to not install anything... I looked out for them... and its AOL Broadband btw....

Its seriously pants - my pc was tops before this and now I can't even load up games because my pc has a fit... :(

Word of warning - anyone even thinking of AOL, just dont go there, for the love of god, dont go there! :ffs:

I could remove individual components I guess but I dunno if thats going to affect AOL and make the issue worse...?? :unsure:

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There is a way of connecting to AOL broadband and not using the software.

Phone up AOLand tell them your going to cancel the contract because you don't like the software and they will tell you how to set your modem to connect to AOL without using the software.

Once you have done this and it works, I would remember/backup the settings and reformat your PC so you can start a fresh with zero AOheLl on your PC.

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As Robie says get connected without the software its totally possible !! My Dads has AOL on his sony vaio and i hate it - i'm WIFI connected upstairs and didnt touch the AOL software as far as i'm concerned its crap .

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AOL is retarded in every way! even though youve got 5 months of connection, i could cut the loss and go with someone decent

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I'm Ghey, and I love AOL!

Seriously though, I have a ghetto rig, and it runs okay with the AOL software. It's only on startup it's a bit sluggish.

I tend not to use the main software anyways for checking e-mail and such.

Either use Outlook, or check it online.

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Memory (or stuff using it all up) is what slows down PCs these days. Processors are all plenty fast enough, but if you start running out of memory and have to swap stuff to disk everything goes VERY VERY slowly.

How much memory does your PC have? 256Mb is just painful all the time on Win XP, you can get by with 512Mb if your system is nice and clean and doesn't have loads of bloatware (like AOL) running. 1 Gb would be better.

If you look on the performance tab in task manager, you can see how much memory you've got on the right hand side, under Physical Memory - Total. Then if you look at the Commit Charge numbers on the left, Total is the amount of memory you're using right now and Peak is the most the machine has used since it rebooted. If either of those are bigger than your physical memory, that's bad and probably the main reason your PC is so slow.

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If you look on the performance tab in task manager, you can see how much memory you've got on the right hand side, under Physical Memory - Total. Then if you look at the Commit Charge numbers on the left, Total is the amount of memory you're using right now and Peak is the most the machine has used since it rebooted. If either of those are bigger than your physical memory, that's bad and probably the main reason your PC is so slow.

Thanks for that bit of info :thumbsup:

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Memory (or stuff using it all up) is what slows down PCs these days. Processors are all plenty fast enough, but if you start running out of memory and have to swap stuff to disk everything goes VERY VERY slowly.

How much memory does your PC have? 256Mb is just painful all the time on Win XP, you can get by with 512Mb if your system is nice and clean and doesn't have loads of bloatware (like AOL) running. 1 Gb would be better.

If you look on the performance tab in task manager, you can see how much memory you've got on the right hand side, under Physical Memory - Total. Then if you look at the Commit Charge numbers on the left, Total is the amount of memory you're using right now and Peak is the most the machine has used since it rebooted. If either of those are bigger than your physical memory, that's bad and probably the main reason your PC is so slow.

Hmmm

Physical memory total is 785904k, available is 121940k, system cache 142660k

Commit charge total is 1153476k, limit 1377180k, peak 1426988k

I need more memory then? :unsure:

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Odd, as I have 1Gb memory (1048048 Total Physical memory).

Commit charge is only 479288, and peak is only 534448.

I have Ghey-O-L installed and running permanently as well.

There must be a shed-load of spyware on there Em.

I would suggest downloading summit like Ad-aware (free edition), and running it.

You'll only be spending money on more memory, when at this point, you may not need more. I would probably say another 256mb, but get some anti-spyware software on there first.

Is it running an anti-virus program? If so, which one?

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Need to figure out what's using it all! Just splurging on more memory would probably fix it, but you're using over 1Gb which seems excessive (unless you've got a huge image open in Photoshop or something).

While its a fairly pointless comparison, on my machine, Commit Charge total is 425504 and Peak is 714376 (probably while running Photoshop). I'm using 2k instead of XP precisely because it uses less memory, but it shouldn't make that much difference.

Hopefully it'll be processes using the memory, go to the process tab in Task Manager and order by memory useage to see what the main culprits are. Opera is the biggest on mine at the moment with an obscene 61Mb... Opera 9.0 must leak memory somewhere methinks.

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Already said ^^ up there ^^ John Boy that I have Spyware & adware programmes - I have Ad-Aware, Spyware Blaster, Windows Defender, plus the spyware programme through the Netscape browser as well - all are updated and no issues been detected. Anti-virus wise, I'm currently trialling Windows Live One Care, no issues have been found - my computer is totally crud-free... apart from AOL that is! I also have Zone Alarm installed as well....

Need to figure out what's using it all! Just splurging on more memory would probably fix it, but you're using over 1Gb which seems excessive (unless you've got a huge image open in Photoshop or something).

While its a fairly pointless comparison, on my machine, Commit Charge total is 425504 and Peak is 714376 (probably while running Photoshop). I'm using 2k instead of XP precisely because it uses less memory, but it shouldn't make that much difference.

Hopefully it'll be processes using the memory, go to the process tab in Task Manager and order by memory useage to see what the main culprits are. Opera is the biggest on mine at the moment with an obscene 61Mb... Opera 9.0 must leak memory somewhere methinks.

Hmm well I've done that and something called wcg_hdc_tma.exe is using 214,744k of memory!! :eek:

Next down the line is Firefox with 77,200k - but I have no idea what that programme at the top is.... I've googled it, but Google can't find anything about it.... :unsure:

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You probably have sooo much anti spyware systems running at the same time they are competiting against each other and eating your memory!

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You still got that thing that Rob (Jaxx) told us about?

Can't remember what it's called now? Something with DNA or something?

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End process that thing that's using loads and see what breaks :) No idea what it is either though...

Agree with Robie that all that AV and anti spyware stuff probably isn't acheiving a great deal more than just 1 of each and is just eating memory, I'd worry about the 200Mb thing first though.

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You still got that thing that Rob (Jaxx) told us about?

Can't remember what it's called now? Something with DNA or something?

Yeah it was that! It's being removed from my pc now! (sorry Rob!)

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You probably have sooo much anti spyware systems running at the same time they are competiting against each other and eating your memory!

well ive counted 4!

ditch the lot then use windows defender, i personally cant fault it, and a virus checker, youll find things will start to get quicker straight away

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IMO Ditch the lot and download these things:

ZoneAlarm - Free Firewall

AVG - Free Virus Protection

Spybot Search and destroy - Free Spyware protection

Adaware - Free adware protection.

All do different things and will protect your pc nicely :)

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