[Computerpro3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Every week I check on the latest updates for: - Spybot Search and Destroy - Ad-Aware - Norton - Spywareblaster - Windows Defender Then I run each of them which I follow with a disk cleanup and defrag. I have been doing so for the las 3.5 years I have had my current desktop.

If you want your machine to go 99x as fast as it does now uninstall norton. Seriously, it's perhaps the #2 cause of computer problems in my experience behind actual malware and viruses.

www.eset.com


Try out nod32. Look at their client list - these are the guys that dell, microsoft, etc use in their corporate offices. 14mb compared to nortons several hundred, updates several times a day, scans my 1TB in about 18-20min and has never missed a virus in the wild on virus bulletins tests.

 

[AuroraProject]

Agreed, Norton is very bloated and hogs resources. McAfee is the same way, small footprint antivirus are the way to go.

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think there's a very strong analogy to American automobiles in the mid 1960s to mid 1970s. They were great machines, except that the maintenance requirements were very high. People just didn't expect any better, until the Japanese came and upset the market with a more reliable product. Consumers need to insist on computers that require no more maintenance than the equivalent of an oil change.

An which magical Japanese cars are those, that only work with an oil change??? That is Myth. FYI I worked in a mechanic repair shop for some time, in the office, and trust me on that, that all cars eventually broke down, Jaguar, Lexus, Honda Toyota, Ford, Audi, BMW, Volvo, Chevy, all of them, and at the same rate. Being Japaneese, Russian, Americans, Europeans, do not make any difference, all of them broke down, and what we, the americans, realized later on, is that imported parts are far more expensive that the american ones...
Japanese are not any better regarding that, and the repairs cost you an arm and a leg...Just find out how much a timing belt replacement will cost you in a Toyota, or Honda, or Lexus or whatever....I have never replaced any timing belt in any american car I have owned yet...just to mention the most significant failure of those "magic" Japanese cars...

Do not misunderstood me, they are very well done, and they run smooth, and they are very good, but while the mechanic shop came into the conversation, they are not any better...

 

[AuroraProject]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller /img/forum/go_quote.gif An which magical Japanese cars are those, that only work with an oil change??? That is Myth. FYI I worked in a mechanic repair shop for some time, in the office, and trust me on that, that all cars eventually broke down, Jaguar, Lexus, Honda Toyota, Ford, Audi, BMW, Volvo, Chevy, all of them, and at the same rate. Being Japaneese, Russian, Americans, Europeans, do not make any difference, all of them broke down, and what we, the americans, realized later on, is that imported parts are far more expensive that the american ones... Japanese are not any better regarding that, and the repairs cost you an arm and a leg...Just find out how much a timing belt replacement will cost you in a Toyota, or Honda, or Lexus or whatever....I have never replaced any timing belt in any american car I have owned yet...just to mention the most significant failure of those "magic" Japanese cars... Do not misunderstood me, they are very well done, and they run smooth, and they are very good, but while the mechanic shop came into the conversation, they are not any better...

I also spent 12 years as a dealership technician, and I have to strongly disagree with this post. Japanese cars are far more reliable than American cars, and lots of the parts on American cars wear out much faster than Japanese parts (GM egr valve failure at 40K? In 12 years I never once replaced an egr valve on a Japanese car, this is only 1 example of many).

But that's a discussion for a whole different thread.

 

[Computerpro3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuroraProject /img/forum/go_quote.gif Agreed, Norton is very bloated and hogs resources. McAfee is the same way, small footprint antivirus are the way to go.

I think Norton is the reason people hate windows. I'm not kidding either. I hate windows when Norton is installed.

 

[Seaside]

24 threats with trojan are not that bad.
It could slow down your computer a bit, but it is no way to make it that slow.
It must be some sort of software conflicts or hardware malfunctions. Could be your RAM or dying HDD.

Norton was fantastic...at DOS days. It gets heavior and heavior as OS goes to windows XP. That's when I decided stop using it. Its live update feature is the other culprit that makes system slow.

I think the best way to take care of your computer is to make a ghost backup, and update it regulary with latest patches. Along with that, I make backup of my mails and other data at other HDD. With those backups, I can get back to fresh windows within 10 mins with all data I need.

 

[AuroraProject]

Set aside the 24 virus threats for a moment, there is also massive spyware problems and hundreds of pop-up windows opening every 30 seconds or so. Each of those pop-ups uses memory, as does the spyware. Add that to the memory demands of XP and the systems limited 256mb of ram, and yes, you will get excessive slowdown. I've seen severe slowdown before, and fixed it with no hardware, and I know I'll see it again.

 

[Seaside]

That's why you need a clean copy of backup. Get ghost or other backup program.

I prefer that way rather than using anti-virus software, because I can get my worry-free computer within a few min, while.... anti-virus software takes a few hours to scan and never able to fix it 100%.

I do not install unknown software from internet, and pretty much careful about the way I use my computer... so I do not have whole lotta problem except of small occassional virus problems. I regulary apply backups and small modifications and keep my computer that way. But my wife's computer is a mess, just like yours. Whole lotta of trojans and spywares along with viruses. More than 100 of them. What I did is... I clean installed windows and applications while modem turned off, apply all patches and updates for them, configure things they way she want, then make a backup of it first. So next time she want me to fix something, I just apply backup and... that's it. It get back to the virus-free clean state within a few mins.

 

[AuroraProject]

Ok, super. Now explain that to my customer and train them how to do all of that.

You're not telling me anything new, again, it's not my computer!

Edit: that wasn't meant to come off as rude. I just wish it was that easy sometimes. People just click anything nowadays! The computer asks, "Do you want to download this super hot XXX virus filled, spyware infected, personal info stealing, system performance crushing, hard drive killing program?" Hmm, sure why not!

 

[ls20]

I don't use firewalls, spyware blaster, spybot, (or any other sort of detectors), and my computers have not been compromised in 7+ years.

But you really think it's a reasonable expectation for everyone else to have the same mastery. defrag, chkdsk, and msconfig are basic tools?

Im sure there are skills basic to others that you have no competency in

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cousin Patty /img/forum/go_quote.gif Some people just have no concept of how to maintain a PC or how a healthy PC should behave. It annoys the hell out of me. Get with the program for god's sake.

 

[FalconP]

Also check out the freeware program Autoruns: you'll be surprised by the number of auto-starting processes that you have no need for -- and unnecessarily consuming RAM -- in your XP box

 

[HFat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duggeh /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well the way to test would be for me to compare a brand new Raptor to my beaten in increasingly noisy 4 year old one. However I'm not parking over money just to find out.

A new drive would most likely wipe the floor with your old one. The technology improves fairly often. You could check some benchmarks to get an idea of what improvements to expect.

 

[HFat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanY /img/forum/go_quote.gif Most people just assume that Windows gets slower over time, and it does, even when nothing is wrong. A lot of technical people reinstall the OS every six months or every year, so they don't notice it as much.

That's not been my experience. If it slows down significantly, something is wrong.
I don't think I've ever reinstalled an OS on my PC.

 

[saturnine]

I'm a Geek Squad CIA, you wouldn't believe the amount of infected systems I see in a day's work.

Good protection or Unix FTW...

 

[AuroraProject]

Quote:

Originally Posted by saturnine /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm a Geek Squad CIA, you wouldn't believe the amount of infected systems I see in a day's work. Good protection or Unix FTW...

I can only imagine!

I pulled two pennies out of this computers floppy drive this morning, that might explain why it wasn't working!