Cost/ Slow Computers

I don't know of any studies off the top of my head, but the difference made by tossing in a few sticks of RAM into a computer can be mind blowing. I typically try to upgrade my desktop computer at least once every two years (since I use it for work sometimes), and every time I notice a significant increase in speed. I draw a parallel to glasses. I always think my eyesight is fine, but in reality, they're slowly losing focus so every time I get a new pair, it's like I'm seeing the world in high definition once again.

Then when they get the computer up and running, they log onto CR4 and keep it going in the background, for when nobody's looking.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Do you work for a company that has intellectual property (the drawing system, with all source code and mechanical drawings, and documents) available to any employee. And does this company also have a government systems division, that is on the shared network (with security required access control). Then do you have external access, by service centers, and customer support engineers/technicians. And do you have foreign nationals that can access this (limited). And is there a McAfee virus scan (that's setup to scan everything on startup), and web site limiter. And are there weekly microsoft security updates.

And then an IT department that does not care about, or use the computer the same way an engineer does. The only thing that needs to work for them is instant messenger.

Your lucky if it boots in 10 minutes.

I'm so glad to not put up with that anymore.

We must have worked for the same company/agency!

I and my staff used to arrive at about the same time each day. We would all boot and load programs, then meet in the coffee room. It was very useful time to chat and plan the day! But when we were in a hurry to get started it was frustrating. Most of it caused by company/agency policy, that I completely understand as necessary. _{(I helped design a few of the security policies )}

The first two paragraphs were taken from a company hawking their anti virus software. So i have little faith in their numbers.

Sorry, I had not thought about this in the 5 months since I no longer had to work with an inept IT department. I complained to them many times about productivity.

I never see this bootup issue at home, but then I use damn fast 6 year old hardware with win2000. But microsoft is working to kill this too as they provide new web code compilers that require new browsers that won't run on my antique OS (win98se was super fast, forced to leave this). I just don't like win7, have it on a laptop, I don't like the obfuscation of file folders, and the dictated naming of, and location of virtual folders.

I'll have to get over it.

My old laptop was getting like that and would often just overload itself and shutdown. Then I dumped the whole system and reloaded everything from scratch including the Windows XP Pro.

Ran like new after that!

In fact I do that to every one of my computers when they get slow. I have full regular backups of everything so for me a whole wipe clean and reload takse about an hour.

The problem is not viruses and what not its just that after enough running enough whatever bits and pieces of programs fragmenting getting or corrupted or what ever they do adds up and it's necessary to on occasion just start from scratch again.

I don't know why so many businesses have IT departments that are so afraid to wipe a computer clean and reload everything but they do. If they did that to every computer that gets slow and buggy a lot less time would be spent waiting.

The only IT support I ever got was to clear the history of IE7. But IT was outsourced to Costa Rica, uninstall/reinstall applications was the best they could do.

Agree about the wipe reinstall.

You dont know what you wish for. IT in our company did excatly what you say - wipe it and install new.

Only they forgot to save the data!

Seems they are crap one way or the other!

I have not wiped clean and started over. But I do monthly maintenance including defrag; delete letters, emails, etc older than one year; make sure the virus scanner is updated & then scan if it hasn't been done recently; run CCleaner; make sure startup at boot loads only the virus scanner (that is, nothing running in the background); etc.

It is slower than I would like, but not terrible. I'm not sure how long it takes to boot, because I get it going, then go away and do something for 10 or 20 minutes.

porn surfing too much has bad side effects

This is my work computer, i dont porn surf.

But you know its not recommended with you personal computer! Always use the work laptop for it!

Have you looked at all the applications you have in start up. Just about every application that was down load gives you the option to run some portion of it in start up. Most are unnecessary. All these are loading during the boot up slowing it down. Plus they eat up ram space. Slowing the applications your trying to use.

I don't keep files on my hard drive unless I'm presently working with. They are stored external. All that's on the C drive are the OS and applications I use. Of the 145 GB available only 30 is used. This is on an 8 year old Dell with Pentium 4 running XP. Registers and the temporary files are kept clean. Still boots up pretty fast less then a minute. None of the applications used take more then a minute to load. My CAD software is the worst at that.

Then I'm the one maintaining this computer. Not everyone has the knowledge. I would say that most people other then knowing how to click on the icon to get to the Internet do not know much about maintaining a computer. Nor do those in management that procure computers know what they are looking at. Most just look for a deal. There's a big improvement in the choice of a 7200 rpm over one at 5400 rpm.

I'm also on an older model running XP (I understand support will end in 2014.) I mentioned in another reply about my maintenance stuff. For the start menu for those who don't know how: Start > Run > msconfig > OK < Startup tab. Then uncheck everything except your virus scanner. A restart will be required.

I think the same capability is available thru CCleaner.

Mine is as fast as it was new. After seven years of use, almost every day, the computer runs fine. No zeroing hard drives and reloading operating systems. No more glitches and garbage. No additional software required to protect from malicious software. I'm free from all that. It's wonderful!

Clean out the registry file and use something like CCleaner to get rid of all the junk files. MS leaves a lot of junk on the HD, also defragment the HD once in a while.

I will go and get a coffee! This will increase my efficiency but it will cost time to do so.

I cannot think of a big impact from a slow computer as long as the work results counts and not the hours spend in the office.

Honestly in some companies the computer recommeds microbreaks and prolonged 10 minute breaks after using the computer for a certain amount of time. You get a notification from managment if you do not pause when recommended.

Waste of time? Or just a good way to increase efficiency?

And please never get started on toilet breaks. Its most likely costs the economy much more than slow computers!

"the software that you are using has increased in complexity and it takes longer to process"

Bingo....a MS office and Windows a 7 upgrade made my 1.5 gig of ram bog down.

I need to be running 3D CAD and analyzing software on it but that's a joke.

I get paid by the hour..............cheers...........

My Core i5 laptop just crashed yesterday. Dell has a great restore feature, and I was forced to use it. In the old days I always felt like I had a new computer, just like I do now. The ram is good too, but my mind is not able to handle any more than my stock ram can. The slowness was a problem, and I was attributing it to the internet, which was not the main issue, although they had to fix the lines today. I had a sudden intermittency problem, that coincided with the OS failure. Also had a strange call from someone who wanted to help me fix my registry. He said he was working in behalf of Microsoft. Maybe the feds are after me. Had two cops tail me across town in two different cases. Probably just coincidence. I hope so. Privacy is a memory though.

OOOH! Maybe that slowness, crash, and phone call are all related...

Sounds like some form of malware and the perpetrator or representative thereof.

On the other hand, slowness and intermittent problems can be signs of a dying or corrupted hard drive. Keep that backup current!

"I doubt that your computer has slowed down by an amount the is detectable without very sensitive equipment. What has happened is the software that you are using has increased in complexity and it takes longer to process than the software that you were running when you purchased the computer."

I also concur

The two biggest of the three malefactors are your RAM resident apps and your HD in that order. If your HD is less than 75% full you can write that one off your list if you have less empty space, a defrag might help some. The real villain is the RAM resident apps. It is essential for security monitors like AV to be RAM resident. Apps like Quick time have no need to be RAM resident. It is very slow to load and Apple doesn't want you get angry with them because it takes 30+ seconds to load. Several other software companies have taken their lead so you may have a few very slow loading apps loading at start-up. The other big problem with that is those RAM resident apps use up free RAM. That is why adding more RAM will speed your computer up after it starts.

I have seen more warnings against cleaning out your registry than advice to do so. The main concern is that you clean something needed crashing you computer.

The number 1 possibility is malware. This century the hackers have been gaining on the anti-Virus (AV) applications. I have read several articles warning of a new breed of Bot-nets. They have been classified as military grade bot nets. The article handpicked 70 or 80 (I can't remember now) and had each attack a computer protected with one of the top four AV apps. The result was none of the top four detected even one attack. I read some other article that down played the article saying he was sure these Bot-nets are extremely rare. My thought was how in the hell does he know that since they are undetectable. The best way to remove them is to completely reimage your C:drive. However, even that did not work for me this weekend. It will take some time to figure out how that happened. I browse with Firefox with several security add-ons inside a sandbox created by Sandboxie. If your browser is attacked, you get an error that you can't update your browser while sandboxed. I like this because you know you were attacked. I have been attacked in Facebook (the most attacks), Hotmail and many other 'safe web sites'. I knew I had a problem when Sandboxie couldn't load Firefox. I re-imaged from the last time a bought a new HD and rebuilt C: and before I connected to the network & internet. NEVER connect to the internet before your firewall is up and running. I just cleaned up my daughter's computer and when I plugged in the ether net cable to get updates, when I next looked at the screen something was trying to get in to her computer. That took about 1 second! Bot-nets will try to reaquire your computer. If you rely on the internet to aquire your security software you are probably toast.

My next step will be to use a reformatted disk for the target and see what happens.

Ronwagon I would suspect you have malware if your computer did not get fixed after the the restore. Malware may have gotten into the hidden partition and tainted your restore.