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stefuel
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3353
Location: Green Harbor MA USA
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:29 am Post subject: A little OT, PC question |
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I've been noticing that my PC seems a bit slower that I'm used to. It take forever to shut down and start up. I look in task manager and see that I have 68 processes going on.
1st question. How did this many things get running on their own?
2nd question How do I decide what stays and what goes? There is a bunch of stuff I don't recognise.
Thanks,
Chip
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Chip
A Barco is only a AmPro with training wheels
Card carrying member of the AVS chain gang.
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Nashou66
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 16171
Location: West Seneca NY
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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Chip's wife is asking the same thing about him and the context of what stays and what goes. 
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Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
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macgyver655
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Turning stuff off in task manager will only come back on with next restart. Your better off first going into add and remove programs and remove anything you dont use or want. Then go into msconfig....startup and see what comes on by itself on startup. You can turnoff auto startups by unchecking. A hint is, even if some thing is auto starting, and it is something you use, does it really need to start by itself on startup. You could just select it when you need it. Then I would run a good spysweeping program. I use Spysweeper.
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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Ah, good old "Windows rot". What macgyver said. Try to uninstall anything you don't use, try to remove startup stuff, and definitely try some malware removal tools - Spysweeper, Spybot - Search & Destroy, etc...
When all those things fail to make your machine faster, just reformat your drive an drive and re-install Windows... Or, if you're like most people, just go buy another PC. 
SC
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dturco
Joined: 06 Feb 2009
Posts: 3778
Location: Eastern Shore Maryland
TV/Projector: Runco DLP VX-3000i Marquee 9500 parts doner
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | When all those things fail to make your machine faster, just reformat your drive an drive and re-install Windows... Or, if you're like most people, just go buy another PC. |
Thats exactly what I do.   
Thanks for fixin it. 
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26706
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| ecrabb wrote: | Ah, good old "Windows rot". What macgyver said. Try to uninstall anything you don't use, try to remove startup stuff, and definitely try some malware removal tools - Spysweeper, Spybot - Search & Destroy, etc...
When all those things fail to make your machine faster, just reformat your drive an drive and re-install Windows... Or, if you're like most people, just go buy another PC.
SC |
The only thing I leave running is the Audio aplication software for the phancy sound card. I turn everything else off.
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stefuel
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3353
Location: Green Harbor MA USA
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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OK, so if I re-boot the PC and from the windows desktop I shut off everything in task manager and open up AOL will it start and will it be the only thing that now shows up in task manager?
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Chip
A Barco is only a AmPro with training wheels
Card carrying member of the AVS chain gang.
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AnalogRocks
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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| stefuel wrote: | | OK, so if I re-boot the PC and from the windows desktop I shut off everything in task manager and open up AOL will it start and will it be the only thing that now shows up in task manager? |
US MSCONFIG from the "RUN" box, tab over to the end tab and turn things off there by unchecking them.
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stefuel
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3353
Location: Green Harbor MA USA
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| AnalogRocks wrote: | | stefuel wrote: | | OK, so if I re-boot the PC and from the windows desktop I shut off everything in task manager and open up AOL will it start and will it be the only thing that now shows up in task manager? |
US MSCONFIG from the "RUN" box, tab over to the end tab and turn things off there by unchecking them. |
How do I know which ones to leave alone?
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Chip
A Barco is only a AmPro with training wheels
Card carrying member of the AVS chain gang.
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MikeEby
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5237
Location: Osceola, Indiana
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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My feeling is turn everything off except for any Anti-Virus software. Lots of apps for some reason want to load up in the system tray. IMO the only thing that needs to run all the time is your AV software. If you find you go too far you can always turn stuff back on.
Mike
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AnalogRocks
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 12:54 am Post subject: |
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Oh yeah, keep the antivirus going. That's a must.
Chip, I just googled everything on the list that I couldn't figure out. Once I knew what it was I would say yes or no to turning it off. In my case all of then got turned off except my sound card's software and Avast Antivirus.
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stefuel
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3353
Location: Green Harbor MA USA
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 11:45 am Post subject: |
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I un-checked everything in the startup tab and I still have 46 processes going 
What about all the stuff under the services tab?
edit: One thing of notice, prior to turning off everything, my HD indicator was on almost full time. Now it's off at least half the time. Why is it on at all when the pc is idle.
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Chip
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AnalogRocks
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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You're running XP right? Windoze is always doing something in the background with the drives. Not sure why. I like my Win98 install. When I'm not doing anything neither is it.
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secstate
Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Posts: 720
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| AnalogRocks wrote: | | You're running XP right? Windoze is always doing something in the background with the drives. Not sure why. I like my Win98 install. When I'm not doing anything neither is it. |
I like Linux for the same reason. It doesn't touch the drive unless I am doing something. Also it doesn't get the same "rot" over time that Windows does that said my HTPC is still Windows because Linux just isn't there for that function for me yet.
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AnalogRocks
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| secstate wrote: | | AnalogRocks wrote: | | You're running XP right? Windoze is always doing something in the background with the drives. Not sure why. I like my Win98 install. When I'm not doing anything neither is it. |
I like Linux for the same reason. It doesn't touch the drive unless I am doing something. Also it doesn't get the same "rot" over time that Windows does that said my HTPC is still Windows because Linux just isn't there for that function for me yet. |
I can't wait for the day we can do a one click Linux install that will find all the video capture cards, USB capture devices and proper video card driver and give us a nice front end so we can make a proper DVR with no DRM nonsense out of a PC using Linux without the Linux know how.
I don't mind playing in Linux I would just rather be watching/recording TV.
I know return you to Chip's Windows Woe's
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MikeEby
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5237
Location: Osceola, Indiana
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| AnalogRocks wrote: | | secstate wrote: | | AnalogRocks wrote: | | You're running XP right? Windoze is always doing something in the background with the drives. Not sure why. I like my Win98 install. When I'm not doing anything neither is it. |
I like Linux for the same reason. It doesn't touch the drive unless I am doing something. Also it doesn't get the same "rot" over time that Windows does that said my HTPC is still Windows because Linux just isn't there for that function for me yet. |
I can't wait for the day we can do a one click Linux install that will find all the video capture cards, USB capture devices and proper video card driver and give us a nice front end so we can make a proper DVR with no DRM nonsense out of a PC using Linux without the Linux know how.
I don't mind playing in Linux I would just rather be watching/recording TV.
I know return you to Chip's Windows Woe's |
IMO that day will never happen...There are way to many variations of Linux and it's far to geeky to make things work perfect and simple. I have a little netbook that came with Linux, not too bad little distro but lacked some features. I wanted to run mono on it to play around with some app development. No luck, I had to put on another distro to get mono to work...Problem was then the wireless card was dead in the water and its a known issue.
If the Linux community could standardize on one distribution then it could give Windows a serious run...Until then it will not happen.
Chip...46 Processes really isn't too bad...I keep my Vista notebook very trim and it has 66 running, some of those are app development services. Two of my Windows 7 boxes, my ripper has around 60 running then my HTPC has about 52...It's very trim has almost nothing installed.
Mike
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loudmouse2
Joined: 30 Sep 2009
Posts: 72
Location: Portland, Oregon
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| Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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FWIW I only have 21 processes running on XP.
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stefuel
Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 3353
Location: Green Harbor MA USA
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| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:31 am Post subject: |
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OK, so what's happening here? I just logged off from here and no other applications were running. I pull up task manager and check cpu usage. I'm sitting here monitoring it and it's been running anywhere from 0% to 3%. Then for no apparent reason, it jumped to 47 and 53%. Then it went low again. I didn't touch anything just watching it.
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Chip
A Barco is only a AmPro with training wheels
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bbfarmht
Joined: 27 May 2006
Posts: 1273
Location: Where the Mississippi runs east to west!!
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| Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:30 am Post subject: |
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| stefuel wrote: | | OK, so what's happening here? I just logged off from here and no other applications were running. I pull up task manager and check cpu usage. I'm sitting here monitoring it and it's been running anywhere from 0% to 3%. Then for no apparent reason, it jumped to 47 and 53%. Then it went low again. I didn't touch anything just watching it. |
That was your computer thinking "Why is he watching me damn-it."
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