Looking for free download to fix slow computer?
My computer has been really slow and acting really weird. I’ve been looking for a free download that can scan and fix my computer. I’ve seen some online, but they only fix my computer to a certain point and then I’m required to buy the software to compleatly fix it. Anyone know of anything that is 100% free that works?
Most likely best to use spybot search and destroy, adware remover, and avg all free and can be found when using google
Well it depends on whether it’s slow due to viruses and spyware or because it’s filled with a lot of junk. Either way the steps below will increase your computer’s performance:
1) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer.
2) Stomp auto-starting programs. Click Start > Run and type “msconfig” at the prompt. Click the Startup tab and look at all that junk that loads when you launch your PC. Do you really need “Adobe Reader Speed Launch”? Probably not. Turn off anything else that looks useless, but be careful not to disable your anti-virus and important system components.
3) Run a full anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. I would recommend using AVG Free Anti-virus, Spybot – Search and Destroy spyware remover and Ad-aware spyware remover. These programs are all free.
4) Clean up the registry. CCleaner, available at http://www.ccleaner.com is free and worth running. It will also remove unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.
You don’t need software, just do the following “tune-up” operations.
A major cause of slow PC’s is fragmentation of the hard drive. You need to defragment the HD at least once a week if not more depending on how much you use your computer, and what you do with it.
One way is to use the defragment utility built into Windows XP. It is slow but does the job rather well. Go to:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and then click on System Defrag to run the tool. It may take several hours, so let it run overnight or simply walk away from your PC for a few hours.
A great program for defragging automatically is Diskeeper Home. It costs $30 but is well worth it. Go to http://www.download.com and search for Diskeeper. Read the Publishers Description and the Editor and User reviews. It can be scheduled to run automatically as the program deems necessary, and if you are using your PC and the program launches itself, it will take a backseat to whatever you are doing and give you the priority for CPU usage. I think you’ll agree it’s a good program to have. It precludes your needing to remember to defrag at regular intervals.
Another major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Software manufacturers write “.exe” files that help launch a program faster when you click on the icon. These .exe files are running all the time unless you shut them down, and they eat up your RAM and can leave you with precious little RAM to run your PC. The best thing to do is to shut down all the unnecessary programs that are running unless you specifically NEED them to be running “in the background”. If you can wait another 2 or 3 seconds for a program like Word, or Adobe, or whatever to open then don’t allow some of these “.exe” files to run. Each one you shut down, saves you RAM to help run your PC more efficiently. The following program, Autoruns, will allow you to control what runs when you boot up your PC.
Here’s a really good Microsoft tool. It’s called Autoruns and it was written by SysInternals who were recently bought up by Microsoft. Before you download the program create a folder under program files called Autoruns. Leave Windows Explore open. Launch Internet Explorer and go to the following Microsoft web page. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx
Go to the bottom of the page and download the Autoruns program. After it downloads unzip the file (You’ll need WinZip or WinRAR to do so). You will see 4 files. Drag and drop those 4 files to the Autoruns folder you created under Program Files.
Once you have the 4 files in the C:Program FilesAutoruns folder you can double click on the file titled “autoruns.exe” (not the autorunsc.exe) to launch the program.
This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Logon” tab. It will list the programs that are running on your PC and eating up resources. Look them over carefully and turn off any that don’t absolutely have to be running. Simply click on the “check mark” in the little box beside the program name. Clicking on it will remove the check mark. Look for any program that your are not using at this moment that has a check mark in the box. Look for programs such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, etc. Once you have edited the Startup list, click on Apply and then on OK.
NOTE: Look in the publisher column and leave items that show Windows; System 32; Program Files; etc. alone. Also leave things that mention Audio, video, etc. alone. Shutting them off may cause some things not to work. Once you have exited the window, reboot your PC for the settings to take effect.
WARNING: Don’t go into the other tabs and start deleting/unchecking things. You will probably give yourself major headaches if you do that. Stay focused on the “Logon” List only. If you happen to shut off something that you didn’t intend to, you can relaunch the Autoruns program and simply put the check mark back in the appropriate box, and then reboot the PC. The “program” will be reinstated to run at boot up.
Regularly clean up your browsing history, files, cookies, temp files, etc. A good program to use is Ccleaner and it is FREE. Get it here: http://www.download.com
Also, you need a “registry cleaner”. The registry can get “defragmented and clogged” with various data that you simply don’t need. The only effective way to clean this massive list is to use an automated cleaner. Go to http://www.download.com and you can search for Registry Cleaners. There should be several FREE ones there for you to use. One I’ve found to do a good job is named Registry Distiller.
Another good thing to have is a little program called FreeRAM XP Pro. It is free and is available from http://www.download.com This program puts a little RAM meter on the System Tray and shows how much RAM you have remaining that you are not using at any given time. I think you may be surprised at how little RAM you have to run other programs. Also, once it is installed you can right click on the little meter, then click on RESTORE and it will open the RAM display window. You can tweak the settings so it will display your CPU usage also. Then just click “Minimize” and then “To System Tray” to return it to the Task Bar.
What happens when you run out of or run real low on RAM is that the OS recognizes the low or no RAM situation and starts using a section of your hard drive as memory. This is called virtual memory, or a swap file. The PC is constantly writing and reading from your HD. Comparitively, it is a very slow process. Check your motherboard manual and determine how much RAM each slot can hold. It will also tell you what type of RAM you need. You can also go to http://www.crucial.com or http://www.4allmemory.com and run their analysis utility to determine what kind and how much RAM is installed in your PC. Depend on your MoBo manual to determine the RAM limits of each slot though.
Hope this helps!!!
hi http://www.ccleaner.com/ that site is brill…….it deletes loads of crap you dont need………o try doing a virus scan….. if no improvement try formatting hardrive……if still no improvement
i would probably buy a new computer lol
if it’s free anti virus and anti spyware you want you can get them here
AVG free anti-virus http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe
Ad-aware anti-spyware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
spybot search and destroy anti-spyware http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
I can recommend CCleaner. It is completely free. It deletes unused files, cleans your registry and allows you to stop certain programs starting along with your computer.
That is the number 1 reason why your computer will slow down, every app you install these days wants to automatically load when you log in. How many icons are there in your system tray right now?
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Before you run this go through add/remove programs and uninstall anything you don’t need.
Run cleaner then restart your computer.
Also, scan your computer for virus’ and trojans. But make sure you only have one antivirus program, as too many of these will slow your computer down also.
Okay, you’ve tried those….some of them leave you a free gift of a real virus, too….
These are all good, really free, and reliable sites. A lot of us here use them.
Download them all, then restart if Safe Mode to run them
Avast is an anti-virus. I has separate real-time monitoring for internet, P2P(limewire) and email, so you save memory by switching them in and out as you need them.
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-...
Spybot kills spyware types of viruses, and blocks about a thousand known evil sites. After the scan, put it into Mode>Advanced>Tools, choose System Startup from the sidebar, and delete every item it says you do not need.
http://www.spybot.com/en/mirrors/index.h...
Then use CCleaner, which kills Registry entries and cache and other internet files, some of which belong to viruses.
http://www.ccleaner.com/download
After all this go back into Normal Mode, and set up the resident modules you want to use.
Set yourself a System Restore point, so any future restore comes back to here, not an earlier virus-y version.
Actually while you’re at cleaning up, you could uninstall all the trial stuff you’ve downloaded and never use, and your ancient or duplicate videos etc, then do a defrag, on the hard drive.
THEN do the new Restore point.
I use tweak xp pro. It is great, it helps you find stuff you don’t know about or can’t find on your own in windows like disk defrag disk cleaner, there’s so much stuff you can do you can check it out here: http://www.totalidea.com/content/tweakxp/tweakxp-index.html I noticed there’s a free download which probably doesn’t include everything, I don’t know exactly what it doesn’t include but from what I’ve noticed I don’t use half of the stuff they have anyways. (you have to be careful with anykind of this stuff, if you don’t know what something is don’t try to guess)
All of these answers answer your question. The spyware and virus software you can get free avg which I have read all over is the best free virus software, (you didn’t say what you already have or use so I’m assuming you don’t have any) and registry cleaner like ccleaner is good and free I think, you can go to download.com like someone else said and find that (or anything else) for free, just read the comments and look around before downloading, don’t forget to delete your temporary files (you can do this by going to internet properties) check your start up items, you probably have alot of unnecessary programs starting up with your computer and it makes it take longer to start up (go to run, type msconfig, then click the start up tab, this is the system configuration utility) you probably want your intivirus and stuff like that to start up but you probably don’t need your adobe reader; anything that you don’t need running all the time you can uncheck. I think tweak xp does all of this, minus the spyware, virus and registry scan but it scans your computer for programs that you don’t need, missing files, like I said it shows you anything that can be done on windows. There’s soo much stuff out there that you can use, different programs that have extra stuff on it like regsupreme pro is a registry cleaner but it has software manager that not only removes the software and shows you the stuff that’s not even listed in the windows add and remove programs but it deletes all of the files like the registry keys too, another one is uniblue, it’s spyware and registry cleaner and has a speed up my pc scanner also. The main things you need to do has been listed and the extra tools to help. Don’t forget to delete temp files and cookies, fix start up items, disk defrag and disk cleanup (in start, all programs, accessories, and system tools) then you can scan it with the free anti virus, spyware, and registry scanners you decide to get, just remember I’m pretty sure the difference in the free virus software is that you have to remember to scan your computer whereas if you buy it it pretty much runs and does everything on its own, I can’t say forsure but it might be something to check into but if this is the way it is it should be no problem if you remember to scan it regularly. If you keep your computer up to date and scan it regularly with the disk cleaners, registry, virus,and spyware tools and fix your startup items (usually the programs go back to start up with the computer again after you run them) and don’t overload it with too much stuff it’ll run good.
*Be careful what you change, here’s a website you can check out reguarding start up programs and which ones you want to run. http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm . Like I said when talking about tweak xp, you have to be careful about what you change on your computer, one thing could make it not work right or load your programs, etc.. Before doing something you’re not sure of do a search first.
You can download AVG OR Avast to check for virus, but first I would download ccleaner, this is a great little program that will clean up all the junk from your computer. I use ccleaner on both my computers it will also clean up registry works with XP and Vista.
Just some basic maintenance tasks might be all thats needed.
Firstly eliminate viruses and spyware with tools like AVG and Spybot.
Secondly do some drive maintenance.Try and remove as much junk as you can from the PC. Run disk cleanup or CCleaner and remove the temporary files, clear cache etc.Most often an overloaded HDD which also gets severely fragmented becomes the cause of performance deterioration. since a lot of users never use their drive utilities and many dont know what fragmentation is, the disease is diagnosed only when its increased to unweildy levels. Run a defrag, if you want a tool thats faster and more efficient, google for trial versions of completely automatic defragmenters.
Using a registry cleaner can clean up your computer and then make your computer faster,Why?the reason is that there may be some regsitry errors and remnant,corrupt files and temp files in your computer to cause “computer slow”.
Everytime you install and uninstall software on your computer and surfing online you create junk in the computer registry.over time, the registry can grow to enormous proportions, especially if the various programs you’ve installed do not do a good job of deleting and/or updating it’s Registry entries.You need to scan and clean your computer with registry cleaner to make it fast.Good Regisry Cleaner will improve your computer and Internet performance dramatically!
There are some comparison and review of TOP 5 registry cleaners.
http://www.make-computer-faster.com/
You can download and scan your computer for free.
Check http://www.pc-optimizer-pro.com
With pc optimizer pro you can safely clean, repair and optimize your computer.
It will help improve your system performance without expensive hardware upgrades.
Good luck!
Learn how to clean up your computer and speed it up here:
<—http://fix-slow-computer.remove-junk.com
Good luck!