help with speeding up laptop..?

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hangerhead

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I have a (packard bell) model laptop with a dual core processor T3200 (2GHz) and 4GB Ram with Windows Vista 32bit.
Overall, there are 200gb free space available.

I've had it 2 years and yes, installed and uninstalled tons of things but run a defrag every week. I use Microsoft Security Essential as Norton Internet Security 2011 was not allowing me to do any work and spawned so many host files.

THe problem I am having is that I cannot have more than 6 IE table open (single page).
It was recommended that i Install IE 9 which I've done but, whether I toggle the GPU support on or off, doesn't make any difference.
Task manager frequently shows CPU process at 100%

I checked the essential MS services (search for Black Viper) for ideas and had to re-insert bluetooth, adobe/java etc but these are not causing the problem.

any ideas/more info needed?
 
Time for a through backup of your files and use the restore discs or restore partition to reset back to factory fresh. Windows usually slows down after that sort of time and a fresh start will bring it back to life.
 
i'd used CCleaner already and also disabled all add-ons in IE9 - b ut this also included adobe/java applets and left horrid gaps in my browser windows.
I really wish MS would move more to a MAC model with local registry for each application as I suppose it might be more to do with that...however, pretty much everything else runs smoothly, it's just IE.
It was IE 8 and I fugured IE 9 would make it better but no.
So, in IE what should I look for in order to speed up the process?
 
ie explorer!
i've installed google chrome and currently with 8 tabs open, my CPU is down at 15%...clearly MS IE is the issue.
 
Having the same problem myself. Local geek tells me to get a thumb size flash USB drive, and set it to readyboost. 8 or 16 Mb as the pocket will allow. Supposed to give that much more available memory when running processes. (Thumb size purely from the practical point of view of leaving the thing plugged in)

Can't speak for the effectiveness of the idea - I know nowt about computers, but I'm going to give it a go.
 
hangerhead said:
ie explorer!
i've installed google chrome and currently with 8 tabs open, my CPU is down at 15%...clearly MS IE is the issue.
Click to expand...

Right, well you didn't actually say that before..

Have you updated flash recently? It wouldn't be unheard of for Adobe to put out a version that crashes browsers.

Also if chrome is using a constant 15% that sounds iffy too.
 
mickledore said:
Having the same problem myself. Local geek tells me to get a thumb size flash USB drive, and set it to readyboost. 8 or 16 Mb as the pocket will allow. Supposed to give that much more available memory when running processes. (Thumb size purely from the practical point of view of leaving the thing plugged in)

Can't speak for the effectiveness of the idea - I know nowt about computers, but I'm going to give it a go.
Click to expand...

All your doing there is creating another swap file on slower media, I wouldn't bother personally and probably wouldn't help in this instance.
 
neil_g said:
Right, well you didn't actually say that before..
Click to expand...

Well...I kind of did...

THe problem I am having is that I cannot have more than 6 IE table open (single page).
It was recommended that i Install IE 9 which I've done but, whether I toggle the GPU support on or off, doesn't make any difference.
Task manager frequently shows CPU process at 100%
 
What in the name o' the wee man is an IE table?
 
hangerhead said:
Well...I kind of did...

THe problem I am having is that I cannot have more than 6 IE table open (single page).
It was recommended that i Install IE 9 which I've done but, whether I toggle the GPU support on or off, doesn't make any difference.
Task manager frequently shows CPU process at 100%
Click to expand...

no offence but it wasnt clear what was using all of the CPU ;)

believe me i do this all day every day, its important to nail down all the facts otherwise you can spend hours looking at the wrong thing :D

anyway, try disabling addons in IE one at a time to see if the CPU usage drops.
 
I am surprised noone has suggested a proper antispyware scan yet.
MSE has very limited spyware checking, it is more of an antivirus program in reality.
Get the free versions of MBAM antimalwarebytes and also superantispyware, run both on full scan and repeat until no new items are found.
MSIE will not 'be the issue' the issue will be the spyware that is causing MSIE processes and threads to work, changing to another browser is not a cure, just avoiding some symptoms and in all likleihood only temporarily so.

Using MSE plus ccleaner plus mbam and superanti you should have no problems, nothing is 100% but that combination is the best you will get for free and indeed I have yet to find a reason to use the paid versions to get more reliability, although if you want 'set and forget' protection you will need the paid versions for real time protection in most cases.

It is better to try and understand what has happened rather than just reinstall, as you may well then quickly go on to re-visit the site/program/whatever that caused the issue and be back at square one, whereas if you have the right tools and run them at appropriate intervals you will get a much better idea of what is going on and where from.
HTH HAND etc ;)
 
B1ts said:
I am surprised noone has suggested a proper antispyware scan yet.
MSE has very limited spyware checking, it is more of an antivirus program in reality.
Get the free versions of MBAM antimalwarebytes and also superantispyware, run both on full scan and repeat until no new items are found.
MSIE will not 'be the issue' the issue will be the spyware that is causing MSIE processes and threads to work, changing to another browser is not a cure, just avoiding some symptoms and in all likleihood only temporarily so.

Using MSE plus ccleaner plus mbam and superanti you should have no problems, nothing is 100% but that combination is the best you will get for free and indeed I have yet to find a reason to use the paid versions to get more reliability, although if you want 'set and forget' protection you will need the paid versions for real time protection in most cases.

It is better to try and understand what has happened rather than just reinstall, as you may well then quickly go on to re-visit the site/program/whatever that caused the issue and be back at square one, whereas if you have the right tools and run them at appropriate intervals you will get a much better idea of what is going on and where from.
HTH HAND etc ;)
Click to expand...

that was going to be next on the list after dodgy addons, which is probably the quickest and easiest of checks ;)
 
interestingly i just had a conversation with one of my colleages..

apparently after a recent batch of updates IE9 has been locking out 100% CPU after opening more than 4-5 tabs.

whats the CPU usage like with 1 tab open?
 
Mikesphotaes said:
What in the name o' the wee man is an IE table?
Click to expand...

mistype, should have been 'tab' :)


neil_g said:
anyway, try disabling addons in IE one at a time to see if the CPU usage drops.
hangerhead said:
i'd used CCleaner already and also disabled all add-ons in IE9 - b ut this also included adobe/java applets and left horrid gaps in my browser windows.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

neil_g said:
interestingly i just had a conversation with one of my colleages..

apparently after a recent batch of updates IE9 has been locking out 100% CPU after opening more than 4-5 tabs.

whats the CPU usage like with 1 tab open?
Click to expand...

It's very useable!! But I wouldn't have realised it as I tend to open up around 5-6 tabs at a time :D
Well, glad it's not just me/my pc and somewhat unsurprised it's the fault of MS :)

Did your colleagues have any suggestions (apart from buy a mac...maybe just uninstall IE9)?


B1ts said:
I am surprised noone has suggested a proper antispyware scan yet.
MSE has very limited spyware checking, it is more of an antivirus program in reality.
Click to expand...

Ok, i'll give all that a go also, although i'm a frequent checker/user of superantispyware it has been a while since I'd used it or anything like it, thanks.
 
hangerhead said:
Did your colleagues have any suggestions (apart from buy a mac...maybe just uninstall IE9)?
Click to expand...

well he definately wouldnt do the former, we support those too and theyre certainly not without their own issues ;)

did you do windows updates recently? it might be worth doing a roll back to a time before that, or going through add/remove programs and removing IE udpates. otherwise i'll have a look when i get a mo.
 
Last edited:
ok, done all the MBAM and superantispayware.
only some tracking cookies to be found, otherwise totally clean.

PC itself operates fine, apart from the more than 5 tabs open in IE (8 or 9).
so, i will experiment with 2 or 3 pages open and each with a few tabs.
 
Now that you've told me what IE Tables are....

............either go with post 2 from Robert or uninstall all your IE browsers then reinstall IE8.
 
philshep said:
Apple do a version of Safari for Windows. You could give that a whirl?
Click to expand...
IME it crashes daily (from about 6 months ago when I was running it on this site regularly). Chrome is the only quick and stable web browser I've used over the past 12 months....
 
MnM said:
I.E is a big pile of poo - use Firefox :)
Click to expand...

You can't beat a well thought out, intelligent review of a browser. Thanks for this :)
 
MnM said:
I.E is a big pile of poo - use Firefox :)
Click to expand...
Firefox is a big fat bloated pile of poo - use Chrome

LemmingLover said:
You can't beat a well thought out, intelligent review of a browser. Thanks for this :)
Click to expand...
I hope you'll agree my review was as in depth and as well thought through....
 
arad85 said:
Firefox is a big fat bloated pile of poo - use Chrome

I hope you'll agree my review was as in depth and as well thought through....
Click to expand...

........and it's shiny as well !
 
arad85 said:
Firefox is a big fat bloated pile of poo - use Chrome

I hope you'll agree my review was as in depth and as well thought through....
Click to expand...

Spot on mate - uninstalling as we speak :)
 
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