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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: Tomdanpete on Tuesday 29 June 10 12:00 BST (UK)
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Hi I have been running a Advent 5421 Laptop for about 2 years and it is now running slow.
Takes about 5 Minutes to load and about the same time to shut down.
Programes also take a time to load.
Running Win Vista,AOL/Internet Explorer/ZoneAlarm/Firefox/Paintshop Pro.
Have tried Defrag/Virus check/Removing unwanted files,no change.
Running on the internet is ok,not sure if there too many programes trying to load,not sure if this is the case how to stop them.
Any help please.
Peter.
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Hi Peter
Disk Defrag etc will only effect performance once you have switched on, as most system files will be contiguous.
You should look in System Configuration/Startup. Over the years you will have acquired many programs that will run when you switch on. In Vista it is in Control Panel/Admin Tools. You can disable them all at once or one at a time to see if one in particular is causing the delay.
If you have Windows Update set to automatic, the default seems to be 3am, so when you switch on your PC it goes off to Microsoft straight away. If you log on about the same time each day you can set it to one hour after that, and you probably wont notice when it looks for updates.
If your anti-virus includes something like PC Tune Up in Norton 360 you should run things like registry cleaner, to remove broken links.
If that doesn't work trying posting a question on Yahoo Answers.
Ken
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Thanks Ken will give your suggestion's a try.
Peter.
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Hi Peter
Just looked at my own Start Up and disabled half a dozen, All I have kept is the one that runs the sidebar.
PS... I updated the last post (about Norton 360).
Ken
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Hello Peter
First,you've got quite a few programs open, so
(1) why are you running ZoneAlarm? Vista's firewall is probably as good.
(2) Why are you using two browsers (Firefox & Explorer)?
I'm at work, so this is from memory, but with Vista there is a good tool for looking at the resources that are being used at any time. To get to it, press Ctrl/Alt/Del and the use the option to start the Task Manager. Task Manager's Performance tab will show you your processor and memory usage, but for more information, on the Performance tab, press the Resource Monitor button. This will give you a much more detailed set of information about your PC.
The usual reason I find for slow PCs, is lack of memory, so that switching between programs involves Windows doing a lot of disk accesses to the swapfile. You should be able to see this with the resource monitor.
The other reason for slow startuip/shutdown is the number of processes that are running behind the scenes. You can see a list of these in Task Manager, and Googling them will give you more information about what each one does. Antivirus scans that run at startup tend to cause slow running initially, but other stuff like indexing software and multimedia managers also can have quite an impact. Use task manager to see what proceses are running, and click on the CPU column to see which ones are using most cpu resource.
Hope that helps
David.
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Thanks David will go through these steps and see what happens.
Peter.
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Thanks for all the help given.
I have removed a lot of the programs from the start menu and things are improving,I still seem to be using a lot of memory shows on the graph at about 75% this is without much running.
Peter.
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I still seem to be using a lot of memory shows on the graph at about 75% this is without much running.
Switch to the Processes tab in Task Manager and look for a process where the digits are high under the CPU and Mem Usage columns. Then do a Google search on that process name to see what it does.
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Task Manager only gives an overview of what's actually going on, which is why it's better to use the Resource Monitor from the Task Manager's Performance tab. The thing to look for in Resource Monitor is the hard fault rate in the memory section. A hard fault is when a program requests access to a page of memory that windows has swapped out to the page file, so it has to work out where the memory page has been stored, and retrieve it. Clearly, running memory-intensive programs on a system with too little memory therefore results in slow performance as windows has continually to store and retrieve memory pages from the page file. The resource monitor will list the programs that are getting high hard faults (you can click on the column headings to sort them, as usual) and this will identify which programs are possible causes of poor performance.
The resource monitor will also give more details as to exactly how much resource each program is using, so you should find it easier there to spot the culprits. Favourites are anti-virus scanners, and Norton had a very bad reputation in this respect a while ago, but l understand that the current versions are much better. Multimedia sharing also can cause performance problems: I keep mine turned off unless I actually do need to run it, e.g. doing a slide show to the TV.
There's quite a lot of help in the resource monitor application, so although it's a bit of an effort to go through it all, it's a very useful diagnostic tool.
The other thing to try is simply googling for "performance problems" along with the name of the application you're using to see if anyone else has similar problems.
Hope that helps
David
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(2) Why are you using two browsers (Firefox & Explorer)?
Not my thread I know, but the reason I run Firefox and Internet Explorer is simply that Microsoft makes it difficult to use its site with Firefox...
As to the question, a quick google shows the Advent 5421 comes with just 1gb of ram, not really enough to run Vista + programs in my opinion. Check how much ram you've got & if necessary order more - 2gb is £33.99 from crucial.com
I would also download & run (regularly) ccleaner from here (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner).
Run the cleaner, then in the tools section, clean out all the unwanted items from your startup menu.
I also much prefer using it to remove programs than the standard Windows add/remove programs - it's much quicker.
You can also use it to clean up your registry, but if you do MAKE A BACKUP first in case it messes something up (it never has for me though!)
When you've finished cleaning up you could then defrag if you wanted to.
Good luck.
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Adding more memory will certainly help, and 2Gb I think is a minimum. Interestingly, I put a windows 7 beta on a system with only 512 Mb, and it worked fine!
Can I just add a note of caution on ccleaner, and that is to make sure you have a full backup first. I've used ccleaner and by and large it works ok, but you must make sure that you check carefully what it proposes to delete. I have come across instances where it has failed to recognise valid commercial applications and deleted registry entries and dll files that it shouldn't have, and that came from trusting it a little too much! In my case, it was the security system we used to transmit our payroll to BACS - Ouch!
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Never ever download or install programs that you don’t fully understand. You are more likely to do more harm than good to your P C.
If you do as someone said, you need to have a back up first. The trouble is many people can't be bothered to do such a thing.
I’ve had people come to me after the damage has been done. I ask them why install such a program, many say it looked good and they wanted to try it. ::)
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Looking in the Resource Manager VSMON.EXE is using 1,554.This i understand is part of ZoneAlarm and monitors internet traffic.
Peter.
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I've found this about VSMON.EXE. Not sure if this fix will sort out your problem, might be wort a try.
VSMON is a program that can eat up to 100% of the CPU time (on occasion), and can be VERY annoying to the user.
Thankfully, there is a simple way to stop it doing that.
1. Open CONTROL PANEL
2.Open ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS
3. Open SERVICES
4. Find the TRUEVECTOR INTERNET MONITOR
5. Right click on it and select PROPERTIES
6. In the STARTUP TYPE drop down select MANUAL.
Restart your computer.
That’s all there is to it.
The next time you access the internet, you MAY find that your blocked, but don’t worry. Just start up your Zone Labs firewall program and them shut the program down. This will reset all connection protocols and allow you to access the internet without using Zone Labs.
Also, as an extra plus, if you ever again use Zone Labs firewall, when you decide to close the program, VSMON will also close down too…It will not be left open running in the background.
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If stopping VSMON works, I'd actually remove ZoneAlarm as the standard windows firewall is probably just as good. I used to use ZoneAlarm, and in fact still do on one rather old works PC. I've never had any problems with the standard windows firewall, and although I'm reluctant to blow Mr Gate's trumpet, the built in firewall seems to do what it says on the tin.
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I'd actually remove ZoneAlarm as the standard windows firewall is probably just as good. I used to use ZoneAlarm
That's probably one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever heard.
Just let VSMON do its thing. ZoneAlarm is the most recommended free firewall programs available. Unlike the Windows firewall, the ZoneAlarm firewall works two ways by monitoring incoming and out-going traffic. Each time a program on your computer tries to send data to a server it asks for your approval first, unless it is a repeat program that you have already approved. The Windows firewall only moniotrs incoming traffic.
I would recommend that you keep ZoneAlarm and do not interfere with it by stopping it starting - put it back on automatic in Services.
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I've had problems with recent versions of both Zone Alarm and AVG seriously slowing everything down . I've swapped to Kaspersky and don't seem to have any problems with it
Robert