Laptop running very slow 'D' drive ?

RadioSouth · Post by **RadioSouth** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:13 am

Have a laptop that's running very slow and often internet pages stop loading and the reload needs to be hit a lot. Admitedly I'm only connecting at 28.8 but compared to my desktop that's also connecting at the same speed tyhe laptop has to be running at least 5X slower.
Here's the history:
New Acer laptop mobile Sempron processor.
Since getting it I've added AVG, AOL Spyware, AOL Privacy Wall and AOL.
Being things were running so slow I did a disk cleanup and attempted a De-Frag. De-frag is showing 2 drives: Acer C
Acerdata D
and shows both as FAT32 and have areas showing capacity and free space for both drives. I know little ablout computers but am assuming drive D is a data backup ? Might this be what's dogging my machine?
I tried to de-frag C but after 10 minutes it never made it past 1 %
Any ideas ?
And thanks to those that have helped on getting my Dell back and running better than ever !

Rick Rock · Post by **Rick Rock** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:24 am

You already stated your problem-

RadioSouth wrote:Since getting it I've added AVG, AOL Spyware, AOL Privacy Wall and AOL.

Get that AOHELL $#!t off there and it'll run better. A memory upgrade might be in order as well.

firegood · Post by **firegood** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:10 pm

All aohell jokes aside, the second drive you see more than likely is wher acer hid the system restore files. Companys have been doing that to save on the amount of disks they have to give out. Please give us the specs of the computer and look to see how many processes are running when browsing the web.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:41 pm

Yep, same on my Acer laptop. The second partition is the backup that the restore disks use to reinstall everything back to factory original.

All the ribbing about AOL should tell you one thing, it's widely known that their crap really takes a lot of system resources and slows the computer down.

Post by **wavetar** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 4:21 am

Not to mention the Acer may have come with it's own set of programs (ie: antivirus & firewall) which could be causing all kinds of conflicts. Since it's new, I assume it's running XP? With nothing running, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del & go to the processes tab, tell us how many processes are running. A fresh load of XP should only be running about 22 processes. I wouldn't be surprised if you're running over 40 with the Acer & AOL stuff installed.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 10:04 am

My Acer only came with a few things running, the Acer eManager and audio mixer running in the tray. You had to select other features to be installed when you went through the initial setup.

Anyway, my bet is too much crap running at once.

RadioSouth · Post by **RadioSouth** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:17 pm

As usual, right on the heads guys. 48 processes and it looks like AOL accounts for 8 of them. Is deleting the process as easy as highlighting what you want to can and hit 'end process'? Then of course I have no clue what most of these are, don't know which I can safely can. Machine here is Acer with Sempron 3100+ 60 GB and 512mB DDR.
Here's the programs, I'm not doing much with the machine it's basically something I picked up to stay in touch on the road and to surf for local info. and MapQuest help. Here's the list :
SHELLMON.EXE
taskmgr.exe
alg.exe
wmiprvse.exe
avgupsvc.exe
avgamsvr.exe
aoltpspd.exe
aoltsmon.exe
MpfAgent.exe
Explorer.exe
AOLServiceHost.exe
AOLHostManager...
AOLacsd.exe
anbmServ.exe
sistray.exe
spoolsv.exe
waol.exe
avgcc.exe
mcagent.exe
MpfTray.exe
svchost.exe LOCAL SERVICE
qttask.exe
realplay.exe
svchost.exe NETWORK SERVICE
AOLSP Scheduler ...
AOLDial.exe
svchost.exe NETWORK SERVICE
svchost.exe SYSTEM
QtZgAcer.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
PCMService.exe
SMSS.exe
Keyhook.exe
Rundll32.exe
Monitor.exe
AGRSMMSG.exe
SOUNDMAN.exe
SynTPEnh.exe
SynTPLpr.exe
MpfService.exe
avgemc.exe
System
System Idle Process

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 1:33 pm

I don't see too much out of the ordinary. My laptop has 49 processes, and the main desktop has at least 50+ processes when its running everything that i use.

How much memory does this system have? If it's less than 512MB i suggest an upgrade! I don't build any system with less than 512 these days.

Ending a process just shuts it off for the time being, when you reboot it will come back, ending it doesn't remove it permanently.

You will have to go into msconfig and look through the startup list to see if there is anything you can live without. One i always get rid of is the Quicktime task scheduler, it doesn't need to run in the tray for Quicktime to work and can sometimes hog some system resources.

Or you can get a program called Advanced Startup Manager.

http://www.rayslab.com/startup_manager/ ... nager.html

It's a quick and easy way to edit the startup items, and it makes backups of removed items so that they can be restored if you remove something important by accident.

k2hz · Post by **k2hz** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:03 pm

RadioSouth -

I think I see a some problems looking at your list of processes, I am not familliar with XP, I still run ME so I will leave it to the XP gurus like Scott/kb0nly for their comments.

First, the "Mpf" stuff is McAfee and I have had a lot of problems with McAfee really slowing down my system. "Mpftray" seems to be involved in some system freezes I experience. Do you need both McAfee and AVG running together, especially on top of AOL?

I am suspicious of Rundll32.exe being active. Again, I don't know about XP but in ME, I normally do not see it running. When it is, it seems to be from a progam that did not start or end properly and it usually is associated with really slowing down the system and messing up the mouse. I kill it and everything runs fine again.

Scott, what do you think about these processes running on his system?

Post by **wavetar** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 4:20 pm

Exactly, there appears to be at least two firewalls running...McAphee & AOL privacy wall. You also have two anti-virus programms running...McAphee & AVG. This is a sure-fire way to have troubles. As a rule, you should never "double up" on either software firewalls or antivirus programs...they can easily conflict & cause a multitude of problems...slow/no internet being just one of them. Not to mention, it really bogs down your system resources.

You should decide which programs you prefer & uninstall the others. That should help your internet speed issues, assuming the uninstalls take effect properly. I have no experience with AOL software as I've never run it, but the general concensus seems to be "get rid of it".

We can take a look at the various ACER specific & other programs afterwards if there are still issues.

I will say rundll32.exe is a normal XP process, so you needn't worry about it.

Todd

OX · Post by OX » Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:10 am

The RUNDLL32 is normal on XP systems. It is also normal to see several instances of it running. There will be an instance for each DLL that is running as an application. I would get rid of the QTTASK and REALPLAY too as there's no reason for them to be running the in taskbar eating up resources.

You can remove the QTTASK and REALPLAY by clicking start-run and type in MSCONFIG. In the startup tab is a list of programs that startup from the registry. Uncheck those to programs from the list and click OK. The computer will prompt a reboot so let it do it. When the computer reboots, it will annoyingly remind you that you modified the startup list, just check the box and close the window and you're done.

kf4sqb · Post by **kf4sqb** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:36 pm

Definately get rid of the AOL junk. I can tell you from personal experiance that you're going to have fun doing it, too. AOL installs so much junk on your system that it takes a while to remove it all.

As for the anti-virus, ditch the McAfee junk and use AVG. McAfee isn't worth the time it takes to install.

To identify the processes you see running under Task Manager, check out Process Library. Gives you a pretty large listing of process names, what program they are associated with, how essential they are, and what security risks, if any, are associated with them. Also, look very closely at process names. Some "bad" programs' process names mimic valid Windows process names, like maybe "RUNDL132.EXE" instead of "RUNDLL32.EXE". If you noticed, the first has a "1" in place of one of the "L"s in "RUNDLL". Just because it looks legit at first glance doesn't mean that it is!

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:43 pm

Sorry guys, been busy as all get out here!

k2hz:

RunDLL32 is a very normal thing to see on XP, however, you need to be familiar with your system as well. Many things run under RunDLL32 in the process manager, mainly because the software creator was either too lazy or did not realize he should give a reportable process name to windows when the app is run, so XP just tosses up RunDLL32 in the process list for it.

Also, YES.. Get rid of McAffee, uninstall any other antivirus apps and just use AVG. If you want a firewall get AVG Plus Firewall, i have that version on all my computers as of a week ago and i am very pleased with the results after using GRC.com to check how well the firewall is actually working compared to others i have also used.

Rick Rock · Post by **Rick Rock** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:24 am

I don't know about your AVG, but PC-Cillin is awesome. It's from Trend-Micro, and has all the necessary without all the BS. It does cost a bit though, but you get what you pay for!

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:46 am

Trend-Micro is starting to do a good job with their antivirus, i had a computer through here the other day with the latest version on it, seems to be a pretty well made product. They also have an internet security version with firewall.

The only reason why i push AVG is because of the results i have seen with it on a daily basis, and i have it on all of my personal and business computers. AVG is also a good NO BS AV that doesn't use huge system resources and bog your system down like the bloated Norton or McAfee.

AVG also has a free version available, it does everything the paid version does minus a few small details, if i recall you can't get rid of or disable the startup splash, and you can't create custom scan schedules. But otherwise it does everything the paid version does. That's why i push it when someone doesn't have any AV protection or doesn't have a current version from other sources.

kf4sqb · Post by **kf4sqb** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 7:59 pm

Actually, Scott, you can make custom scan schedules with AVG Free edition. It will even let you scan a drive on another computer over a network, and I don't mean mapped, even though it says that it isn't supposed to. I'm not really sure that there is a difference between the paid and free versions. I've begun to think that they just give you the previous version as the free one, and charge you for the most current. If that is what they are doing, it suits me just fine. Free version works great! I recommend AVG because, hands down, it's just better software than the other guys.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:23 pm

Your right.. I just put the free version on another computer because i honestly couldn't remember since i switched to the paid version, AVG Plus Firewall.

The Free version is older than the paid version, but otherwise all functions are available.

I must have been thinking about another AV.

Laptop running very slow 'D' drive ?

Laptop running very slow 'D' drive ?

Re: Laptop running very slow 'D' drive ?