Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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! 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! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daktari Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 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: 127 AOL files! :censor: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSR Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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 :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 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...?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robie Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris202 Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaxx Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 AOL is retarded in every way! even though youve got 5 months of connection, i could cut the loss and go with someone decent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flat Pack Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robie Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 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.HmmmPhysical memory total is 785904k, available is 121940k, system cache 142660kCommit charge total is 1153476k, limit 1377180k, peak 1426988kI need more memory then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnome Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flat Pack Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 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!! 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.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robie Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 You probably have sooo much anti spyware systems running at the same time they are competiting against each other and eating your memory! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSR Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 You still got that thing that Rob (Jaxx) told us about?Can't remember what it's called now? Something with DNA or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flat Pack Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic Angel Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 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!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveSR Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 Have a read of this HijackThisPost it in here and we will tell you what to kill :arrgg-matey: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaxx Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robie Posted July 25, 2006 Share Posted July 25, 2006 IMO Ditch the lot and download these things:ZoneAlarm - Free FirewallAVG - Free Virus ProtectionSpybot Search and destroy - Free Spyware protectionAdaware - Free adware protection.All do different things and will protect your pc nicely :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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