Slow Computer Log-On To New Web Pages

Go to your task manager and look at running programs and processes. Disable the ones that aren't needed.

Be careful with the processes though......................some of them have to be running.

There are other things that may help also.

IE is a memory hog.

So how do I pick which ones to disable and which ones to leave alone? We are having similar problems on a Vista machine at home.

Or do we bite the bullet and send Mi¢ro$oft more money for Windows 7?

You may want to visit a Vista specific forum.

I never used Vista. My bad memories come from Windows ME.

I'm pretty happy with Win 7. An upgrade may be worth the money. I don't think I've ever met a happy Vista user.

Sounds like you got a virus. Go to HOUSECALL run that, go to spybot down load it run that in SAFE MODE.safe mode is when you boot up and press F8 and choose Safe mode. Try to run all your anti viruses in that.ADWARE is another good one.HIJACK THIS is another one. Some times they are HARD to get out,some times you have to go into the REGISTRY to repair lines of code.

good luck

This will sound strange but check the PC's power supply. Try turning off the nortons and the parroto and the health monitor in turn to see if that helps.

Computer repair services, especially with University clientele are well versed and relative inexpensive to handle all kinds of nonsense. Here a diagnostic is $60, that drops to half, when real work is to do.

Norton for home use is known to be a resource hog and should be removed. There are virus' that target Norton specifically and are easy to catch with another virus removal tool.

Also if there is a problem with Norton, there firewall will slowdown or in some cases stop all internet traffic. At my shop we just use Avast and Malwarebytes to keep our computers clean.

Hi Noddy,

As mentioned before, the first thing to check via the 'Task Manager' is WHAT is using up all the CPU. Recently, I had a similar issue and found that somehow a new task bar had been added to my IE (I am sure there are similar issues in Chrome and Firefox) which needlessly took over, and was demanding much of the CPU time. I visited many forums, but finally simply went to the 'Control Panel', and in the 'add and delete programs' section (can't remember what it is called in Vista) and simply deleted those. BTW, taking something off-line in the 'Task Manager' won't prevent it from happening again when you re-start your computer. My bet is, if this problem seems to have happened 'on its own', you have some 'malware' that is just being a pest and capitalizing your CPU resources.

Secondly, and this is just my personal experience, get rid of Norton in favor of something better. I have never had success with Norton and it always seemed to be a memory hog. I have now used AVG Free for several years, and it seems robust and effective on all fronts. And, like the name says, its free.

Third, check your RAM size. If you have added software or other tasks over the months, it is very possible that your RAM is too small. This was my case about a year ago, finding that my RAM was at time being 100% used ... when that happens, the machine will go from 'okay' to 'bad' very quickly. If you have an older machine (or a newer, but poorly equipped machine, the problem may be too little RAM ... swapping or adding RAM is simple and might be the upgrade needed to keep things going.

Lastly, and I have become a huge fan, is a software package called 'Advanced System Care'. There is a free version you can download, and if you want, you can upgrade to a paid version for a whopping US$20. For me it is great, because with one click, and just a little patience, it will clean up ALMOST everything with noticeable differences. The best tool I have found for overall, general clean up.

In the end, you may have to get a newer machine, which is nearly where I am now ... mine has been hauled across too many continents ... but in any case, knowing these things can help you keep even your new machine running better.

King regards ...

Dump Norton. It's probably the thing causing half of your slowdown. the other half is the infection you have that Norton missed! Get Avast, or AVG, or Kapersky, or anything else except McAfee or Norton.

Also Download and run the Norton removal tool (NRT) from the Symantec site. The Add Remove programs control will NOT remove the whole thing itself.

Run MalwareBytes as well to be sure you have nothing else in the system if the other tools find something. Always rescan when an infection is found and "removed" because there are always more than one piece and the scan tools don't always get them all. A different tool will find different parts.

If you have a trojan or a root kit, then you may need to install Linux in dual boot mode and run avast from there and scan the windows partition. (you can get Avast for Linux) Remove all files from all temp directories and browser caches and then reboot into Windows and run the other tools.

the free anti virus from microsoft is good

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials

Vista is ok, other than having its' own idea about where your files should be kept

chrome is the fastest, followed by Opera, firefox, with IE being the slowest

It seems that the OP is still waiting for his PC to "log on".

Thanks everyone for your help.

I have not been successful yet, so a long way to go it seems.

Out of all the programmes and processes in Task Manager the system 'Idle' is the only one clocking up 85 to 97% of the memory. Most of the time 'nothing' happens. And it is always takes 1 minute.

I think it must be a virus because my computer suddenly went slow for no obvious reason. Booting up has always been slow from the day I bought it.

My laptop runs much the same programmes. It starts slow(ish) but logs on with little or no delay to speak of.

Hang in there, you should be able to over come the problems.

Onee of my issues was having 3 antivirus progams running at the same time and conflicting with each other. Once I figured out the right way to "un-install" the programs, I was part way to resolving my issues. Note: Norton requires running the un-install program from their website.

Luckily, I did have Google Chrome installed and was able to us it as a browser while Windows Vista and IE were not cooperating. I will want use it more and use it instead of IE in the future.

Second, my brother suggested running "safe-mode" startup by pressing F1 during system start up. I still have not fully de-bugged my system, but at least we can run and connect to the web.

I still need to fix a configuration file.