hey all, i'm on a 5 year old HP running XP sp3

i'm a noob at this and i am afrade to try and turn some stuff off on the startup, but i need to, it take about 15 minutes to boot my comp up and here in the last week or some my comp freex's and crashes alot, i D-Loaded CC about a month ago and love it, even when i dlete the coockies myself from IE-7 CC always find more that i didnt...


I'm also using Spybot Search and destroy, havnt goten througha full scan though with it case it takes so long, my comp soulnt be this slow, i dont have any games on it, and only about 300-400 song on ITunes and some other junk my family has like a digital camra.

any advice on what i can turn off on startup and how to make my comp run better plz???

Thanks.
-Andrew.

Places like Process Library can tell you what's safe to disable, and what you shouldn't disable - just ignore their adverts to buy that registry cleaner.

Edit:
Also too many processes could mean a malware infection since malware will generally run when Windows does. To rule out malware view this thread.

This is a nice little app.

I use the results as reference only. I then use CCleaner to disable startup items.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/startuplite.php

Hi Andrew,
Welcome to the forums !!!
I am glad that you joined up with us. I hope we can help you.
My PC was in bad shape 1 year ago until I came here also.
Many of those startup items phone home and such so they have to wait to get to the Internet.
Many also do un-necessary things that take too much time. If your security program has options to scan at startup you may also want to turn off those options. It is OK to for them to check critical things but not everything. You can do those manually at better times.

It is also important to have only 1 A/V running "real-time" and 1 firewall. Tell us more about them.

To speed up you security/malware scanning, I highly recommend that you install (MBAM) from Malwarebytes.org . It is very small and quick to update. I do it daily and the quick scan takes only 7 - 9 minutes on my Pentium 4 w/ 256 MB RAM. It has an excellent reputation for finding and removing malware .
The program is free. Get the free version for now.
Just press download and ignore everything but selecting the MBAM download site. Don't mess with any free scans or such offered at the download sites if any. I personally used the Download.com site.http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
EDIT If Malwarebytes finds any (ANY) then you need to follow Andavari's advice "immediately" and use his link to get your PC cleaned from malware.

Tell us some more about your system PC, CPU, hard drives etc.

Andavari's link is excellent to decide what to Disable. Do not delete any Startup entries just Disable those that are not normally needed. You can Disable them using CCleaner Tools > Startup.

Good luck,
davey
P.S. It may also help to run Windows Disk Defragmenter and Analyze if your PC needs Defragmenting. If it does then run it when you can let it run for a few hours or several if needed. You can safely stop it at any time if necessary. Then run it again later if needed.

Thanks Andavari Jamin4u and davey.

My comps nothing mutch at all, it was like $500 at Wal-Mart about 5 years ago Intel Pentium 4, nothings been added since i bought the comp, I use AVG free edition for A/V, SpyBot S&S and CC, i dont know mutch more about the comp off the top of my hand, i'l look it up in the morning, i do know its never been abull to play games mutch, and there seems to be no 3d card, all my graphics are run as onbord in the ram...

i'd been using a 42 Kbps dial up internet connection but last month i got a 6 MB DSL, the comps never ran that fast but since then its been down hill, i did download Open GL to help with the graphics befor i got the DSL, it has some.

I'l work on it some more in the morning, 1:57 AM now and 20 deg F outside, finaly been rosting all year....

-Andrew

PS- almost forgot, i'v been kepin an eye on the disk defrag, its only told me i needed to run it once now, but i'v run it a few times a month... it only takes me about 10 minutes to run it on the Pavilion, and only a few secons to run on the recovery. the disk cleaner from day one will always freex the comp when i try to run it.