[LiveBrianD]

Get rid of acer epower management, acer backupmanager if you don't use it, the Egis stuff if you don't use it, itype if you don't customize your keyboard keys, lws, and suitetray.

[Aladar]

Alright, so I got rid of the processes.

I put in the installation disc, and is "repair installation" as you said equivalent to "startup repair?" Because I could access startup repair easily after a fail to boot. It didn't find anything, and also when I did a memory check, it turned up nothing.

[Aladar]

Hmm, I just installed and ran Auslogics Defragmenter. It seems like one of the files on my external hard drive (from a full system backup) is continuously showing up as fragmented, but that's about it. The computer seems a lot better right now, hasn't crashed in a few hours. Hopefully that was the reason.

[LiveBrianD]

I would think that fragmentation wouldn't really affect the computer, and if it did, it wouldn't by much. (this was more of an issue in the past, though for data recovery reasons it's still a good idea to defrag your hard drive every now and then. Windows does this automatically in Vista and 7 btw.) Still, that's not a bad thing to try.

[Aladar]

Hmm. I gave it a few days, and it's not getting any better. You were right, the defragmentation didn't really help. I don't have the time right now to reinstall Windows, like last time; is there anything else I could do?

Thanks.

[LiveBrianD]

If it's slow, one thing you might want to try is running Seatools on the drive. Do a short DST, and if that passes, maybe a long DST. This is simply a matter of starting the task and then leaving it alone for an hour or so.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 23 March 2012 - 07:14 PM

[Aladar]

Passed the short DST. Couldn't find the long DST though; is it under "Basic tests" as well?

Also, each time I start up Seatools, it tells me that it has stopped working and is looking for a solution to the problem. There's also a blank box with the buttons "accept" and "decline", and when you click accept you get into seatools, though the dialog saying Seatools has stopped working is still there.

[Aladar]

Oh and btw, my father was trying out something (trying to blur parts of a video) when afterwards I noticed that there were a few "Free offers from Freeze.com" shortcuts on the desktop. How do you get rid of these? Is it just deleting the folder, or should I scan with MSE? Thanks.

[LiveBrianD]

You can just delete those. You may want to go into add/remove programs to look, just in case it added itself to the start menu or added some browser toolbars. (don't you just hate those? )


Also, for slowness, are there a ton of items in startup? Look in CCleaner for that.

[Aladar]

Yeah, I did that earlier, and posted the results on the previous page.

[LiveBrianD]

Oh whoops - I forgot about that. Are all your drivers up to date?

[Aladar]

How do I do that?

[LiveBrianD]

Go to the motherboard manufacturer's website for chipset, audio, and networking drivers, and ati's site for the video card if it's ati or nvidia's if it's an nvidia card. Download the drivers from there and install them. (the ones that came with the hardware are almost certainly not the newest ones)

[Aladar]

Yeah got AMD Catalyst Mobility Download and Install Manager. It's currently downloading components.

How do I find out who made my motherboard?

[LiveBrianD]

Oh yeah that's right, I forgot this was a laptop. Go to their site to download drivers (ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sony, whatever it is...).

[Aladar]

Alright, did that. But there's no change in performance...

[LiveBrianD]

Dang... I'm out of ideas then.

[Aladar]

Hmm I've let it sit for a few days, but it isn't getting any better. I'm going to replace my laptop in a while, probably build a desktop or something, once Ivy Bridge comes out, but for now I think I'm going to reinstall Windows. Should I just clone the drive like I did back when my HDD failed, and then bring it back over once I finish the reinstall? Or should I just copy my documents, and reinstall all other programs?

[LiveBrianD]

There's no point in reinstalling Windows and then reverting the system back to the disk image you made before afterwards. I suggest doing a clean install instead, and then reloading your programs.

[Aladar]

Hmm, but I would have to restore my files from a backup right? But what if the problem is actually lying in one of those files? Then the reinstall would have been pointless?