Getting Use Out of Old Computers

[Dbeasy 15136]

I have a computer that is several years old, but not that bad in specs. See below.

 

 

I’ve upgraded it to Windows 10 in the past, but it runs incredibly slow, literally minutes to do anything. I tried defragmenting the hard drive, dropping programs from the start menu, and even shutting off virus protection, but it just freezes for minutes. I also don’t know what a lot of the services and processes running are doing. Is there a piece of software I can trust to run and clean it up so that it will run reasonably well?

[TwiceHorn 31626]

I suspect that Windows 10 is too much for it.  I don't trust "upgrades," though.  You may be able to do a fresh install with your license key, I'm not sure anymore how that works.

Linux would probably fly on it, though, and the newer distros are pretty damn friendly.

[Updawg 2286]

Replace the hard drive with a ssd

[conVINCEd 21473]

2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

 

I have a computer that is several years old, but not that bad in specs. See below.

 

 

I’ve upgraded it to Windows 10 in the past, but it runs incredibly slow, literally minutes to do anything. I tried defragmenting the hard drive, dropping programs from the start menu, and even shutting off virus protection, but it just freezes for minutes. I also don’t know what a lot of the services and processes running are doing. Is there a piece of software I can trust to run and clean it up so that it will run reasonably well?

 

It’s running slow because you inadvertently downloaded a virus while viewing questionable porn.

[Bigpoppapump 532]

Did a quick look and it says online it has four ddr3 slots, $53 to get to 16gbs which seems like the min for windows 10 or much of anything these days.

https://www.amazon.com/1600MHz-PC3L-12800-Unbuffered-Desktop-Tech/dp/B00C53GN1U/ref=sr_1_1?_encoding=UTF8&c=ts&dchild=1&keywords=Computer%2BMemory&qid=1608773980&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2253866011%2Cp_n_feature_twenty_browse-bin%3A9729700011&rnid=9729693011&s=pc&sr=1-1&ts_id=172500&th=1

Honestly depending on what’s going on with the storage and how tech savvy you are, I’d wipe the drive and reinstall 10, or shit repurpose into any awesome home network accessory, like media server, streaming device, or shit turn it into a better router than you probably have (high tech savvy)

[Bigpoppapump 532]

It’s running slow because you inadvertently downloaded a virus while viewing questionable porn.

Incognito my friend, and never fucking download shit with pornhub exists.

[immamac 43260]

It's running slow because the drive is ass. That's a good processor and good RAM. Buy a 75 dollar ssd and install the is on it. 

[rage-a-holic 4496]

5 hours ago, immamac said:

It's running slow because the drive is ass. That's a good processor and good RAM. Buy a 75 dollar ssd and install the is on it. 

This. I'm using the same proc with 32GB of ram and an SSD OS drive. Windows 10 runs fine.

[Sam Lin 3564]

Do the SSD first.

 

Then,

What you describe could also be symptoms of overheating. When is the last time you opened it up and blew it out? Make sure the fan on the CPU cooler is actually blowing. Run a hardware monitor utility and see what it is reporting for CPU and GPU temps. If they're sky-high, you may be thermally throttling. There's also a slim chance that the heat sink needs to be repasted to have better thermal connection to the processor, I'd ask someone mechanically minded or a pro computer builder to do that.

[Dbeasy 15136]

All good ideas. I’m not experienced with reinstalling the OS on a new drive but will try to YouTube it. I will also check the heat.

[immamac 43260]

Installing windows is faceroll.

Plug in new ssd into computer. It's 2 screws and plugging in a sata cable. Leave the old one in there and plugged in if you want to have a 2TB storage thing. If not just yoink it and trash it. It's likely a shitty trash drive so throwing it away may be fine.  https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktops-Archive-Read-Only/Add-SSD-to-HPE-h8-1287c/td-p/3742330

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02862607

Then

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/how-to-download-official-windows-10-iso-files/35cde7ec-5b6f-481c-a02d-dadf465df326

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

Burn a dvd since this computer has a dvd drive or use a flashdrive to burn the image on the image is fairly large so use a 16gb thumb drive. 

Plug in cd or USB stick when computer is off. 

Turn computer on and spam escape or F11 to get to the boot menu (should tell you on post which it is, but it's one of those 2 usually)

Boot to windows installer. 

Install windows on the SSD (will be obvious because of size) just do the let it format the device for you and all that option. 

Watch as windows installs. (20 minutes or so tops)

Restart a few times

Viola. New fast computer. 

 

 

[immamac 43260]

https://www.boot-disk.com/quest_bootmenu.htm

I lied it's escape then F9.

[TwiceHorn 31626]

Will his Windows 7 key or whatever he got after upgrading work with that?

[Dbeasy 15136]

I installed windows 10 for free about two years ago. I can’t remember why it was free to upgrade.

[immamac 43260]

Microsoft gave away windows 10. 

[TwiceHorn 31626]

I know the upgrades were free, but don't know what happens when you go back and do a fresh install, especially on something with a different mac addy, which I guess wouldn't apply here.  I assume they still do that (online license verification)?

[MonkeyDoughnut 10367]

I've used this software a couple times moving Windows 10 from HD to SSD. They give you a "full" version as a 1 Month trial.  Only need for a few minutes...

https://www.easeus.com/backup-utility/migrate-windows-10-to-ssd.html

[Dbeasy 15136]

Perfect! I’m either going down in flames on this or going to learn how to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Now if i could just clean up my registry.

[Irish Wrist Watch 1398]

The SSD is a good solution but costs money and there could be another problem of some sort (like power supply) that it wouldn't fix, so you need to try some things first. For starters, If your computer is only 3 or 4 yrs old, it should have 4gigs of ram min, which is enough to run anything with decent speed. If you have a netbook or one of those things, they can't do anything. So here's some steps for a 4+ gigs ram machine. All free.

You need a minimum of 5% of your hard drive unused. ideally 15-20% for optimal perform. So delete some stuff if it is too full. Also, if you have any giant folders on your desktop (20+GB), move them to your C drive using windows explorer. That gets them off of your user profile, I think. Set a restore point.

1. download (from ccleaner's site) install (free version) and run ccleaner. You can always uninstall it if you accidentally opt for the trial version. It will get 20-100k temp files off your computer, but it will delete 10k cookies too. You can tell it which cookies to leave on the machine so that your login info for sites will be preserved. Nevertheless, you could lose some logins/passwords and could have to go thru manual password shit. Or you can tell CCleaner to leave all the cookies alone.

2. Download, install and run Zemana (trial version) and scan for viruses and malware. Alternately, you can use malwarebytes from their site.

(these three programs like to leave protection running in the background for real-time protection, but that takes resources. All you need is windows defender. So you may want to uninstall those programs after you use them. Speaking of which, some of the antivirus programs that come with these computers can be resource hogs. You don't need a paid-for AV program. So if you have one, consider getting rid of it and activating Defender (free). But only do that if your computer is still slow after you do the following steps. (But make sure you don't have two AV programs running simultaneously)

3. If still slow, run ckdisk. I think you can rt click on your c:drive and select properties and tools to do that.

4. If that doesn't speed things up, defrag (also in tools), but you need at least 10% free space, preferably 15.

If that doesn't get you going, consider using CCleaner's registry option. I had good luck with it years ago, but prefer not to jack with the registry. I think it tells you which ones are safe to remove and lets you select each.

Finally, your computer has a diagnostics program that you can activate during boot up. It might tell you if there's a problem

If it all goes to shit, do a system restore, probably by starting your computer in safe mode with networking.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Irish Wrist Watch

[William_Cannon 86]

I’m pretty sure it’s your disk like immac said.

Look at your performance monitor and share a screenshot of perfmon while launching a browser or something. That should show your bottlenecks.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10367]

23 hours ago, Irish Wrist Watch said:

The SSD is a good solution but costs money and there could be another problem of some sort (like power supply) that it wouldn't fix, so you need to try some things first. For starters, If your computer is only 3 or 4 yrs old, it should have 4gigs of ram min, which is enough to run anything with decent speed. If you have a netbook or one of those things, they can't do anything. So here's some steps for a 4+ gigs ram machine. All free.

You need a minimum of 5% of your hard drive unused. ideally 15-20% for optimal perform. So delete some stuff if it is too full. Also, if you have any giant folders on your desktop (20+GB), move them to your C drive using windows explorer. That gets them off of your user profile, I think. Set a restore point.

1. download (from ccleaner's site) install (free version) and run ccleaner. You can always uninstall it if you accidentally opt for the trial version. It will get 20-100k temp files off your computer, but it will delete 10k cookies too. You can tell it which cookies to leave on the machine so that your login info for sites will be preserved. Nevertheless, you could lose some logins/passwords and could have to go thru manual password shit. Or you can tell CCleaner to leave all the cookies alone.

2. Download, install and run Zemana (trial version) and scan for viruses and malware. Alternately, you can use malwarebytes from their site.

(these three programs like to leave protection running in the background for real-time protection, but that takes resources. All you need is windows defender. So you may want to uninstall those programs after you use them. Speaking of which, some of the antivirus programs that come with these computers can be resource hogs. You don't need a paid-for AV program. So if you have one, consider getting rid of it and activating Defender (free). But only do that if your computer is still slow after you do the following steps. (But make sure you don't have two AV programs running simultaneously)

3. If still slow, run ckdisk. I think you can rt click on your c:drive and select properties and tools to do that.

4. If that doesn't speed things up, defrag (also in tools), but you need at least 10% free space, preferably 15.

If that doesn't get you going, consider using CCleaner's registry option. I had good luck with it years ago, but prefer not to jack with the registry. I think it tells you which ones are safe to remove and lets you select each.

Finally, your computer has a diagnostics program that you can activate during boot up. It might tell you if there's a problem

If it all goes to shit, do a system restore, probably by starting your computer in safe mode with networking.

 

 

I don't recommend CCleaner as it's been hacked at least twice now, 2017 and last year... I can't trust them anymore.

[RDCanecutter 26484]

Mine some Bitcoin with it. It's the next big thing.

[Dbeasy 15136]

The SSD is a good solution but costs money and there could be another problem of some sort (like power supply) that it wouldn't fix, so you need to try some things first. For starters, If your computer is only 3 or 4 yrs old, it should have 4gigs of ram min, which is enough to run anything with decent speed. If you have a netbook or one of those things, they can't do anything. So here's some steps for a 4+ gigs ram machine. All free.
You need a minimum of 5% of your hard drive unused. ideally 15-20% for optimal perform. So delete some stuff if it is too full. Also, if you have any giant folders on your desktop (20+GB), move them to your C drive using windows explorer. That gets them off of your user profile, I think. Set a restore point.
1. download (from ccleaner's site) install (free version) and run ccleaner. You can always uninstall it if you accidentally opt for the trial version. It will get 20-100k temp files off your computer, but it will delete 10k cookies too. You can tell it which cookies to leave on the machine so that your login info for sites will be preserved. Nevertheless, you could lose some logins/passwords and could have to go thru manual password shit. Or you can tell CCleaner to leave all the cookies alone.
2. Download, install and run Zemana (trial version) and scan for viruses and malware. Alternately, you can use malwarebytes from their site.
(these three programs like to leave protection running in the background for real-time protection, but that takes resources. All you need is windows defender. So you may want to uninstall those programs after you use them. Speaking of which, some of the antivirus programs that come with these computers can be resource hogs. You don't need a paid-for AV program. So if you have one, consider getting rid of it and activating Defender (free). But only do that if your computer is still slow after you do the following steps. (But make sure you don't have two AV programs running simultaneously)
3. If still slow, run ckdisk. I think you can rt click on your c:drive and select properties and tools to do that.
4. If that doesn't speed things up, defrag (also in tools), but you need at least 10% free space, preferably 15.
If that doesn't get you going, consider using CCleaner's registry option. I had good luck with it years ago, but prefer not to jack with the registry. I think it tells you which ones are safe to remove and lets you select each.
Finally, your computer has a diagnostics program that you can activate during boot up. It might tell you if there's a problem
If it all goes to shit, do a system restore, probably by starting your computer in safe mode with networking.
 
 

I’ve tried to turn off Norton but have a feeling stuff is still running so I’m going to just uninstall it and go with defender.

[torre 1286]

2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

I’ve tried to turn off Norton but have a feeling stuff is still running so I’m going to just uninstall it and go with defender.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-factory-reset-windows-10

 

Have you considered a Reset (link above) ?    May be best to backup your files and choose the option to clean everything.   I see the computer originally came with Win7.  Some users upgrading from Win7 found it best to use the below method.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Another option is to create Win10 installation media on a USB drive,  wipe the drive, and install.   Your HP may have Recovery software installed to wipe the drive.  This is effective to eliminate malware.   There is other free software available online to wipe the drive like DBAN.    This method can be used if you upgrade to SSD.

IT is not my forte,  but have had no problems using these methods.    If you previously upgraded to Win10,  your license   is digitally embeded in BIOS so no problem with activation.

 

 

 

 

[Irish Wrist Watch 1398]

14 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

I’ve tried to turn off Norton but have a feeling stuff is still running so I’m going to just uninstall it and go with defender.

Right. As I recall, you can't turn Defender on until you've uninstalled Norton. Couple of step only, directions if needed are online. FWIW, whenever I do a computer "how to" question, I preface it with "forum." That gets you to a discussion board where you can evaluate the source. Otherwise, you could end up on some site encouraging you to run their s/w to "clean up" your computer. It might work, but you don't really know what you're getting. Always best to hear what the users are saying.

[Irish Wrist Watch 1398]

If you reinstall windows, of course, you're gonna have to back up all your keeper files and you're gonna have to reinstall all of the programs you like. Giant pain in the ass, and you will miss some things. Also, you run the risk of discovering that your old peripherals are no longer supported and that you don't have a driver, so you can't use that computer to print out shit or you have to get a new printer, for example. Probably shouldn't happen since you upgraded to 10 already, but I'd hate to take the risk.

[immamac 43260]

7 minutes ago, Irish Wrist Watch said:

If you reinstall windows, of course, you're gonna have to back up all your keeper files and you're gonna have to reinstall all of the programs you like. Giant pain in the ass, and you will miss some things. Also, you run the risk of discovering that your old peripherals are no longer supported and that you don't have a driver, so you can't use that computer to print out shit or you have to get a new printer, for example. Probably shouldn't happen since you upgraded to 10 already, but I'd hate to take the risk.

You have no idea what you are talking about and it's hilarious to watch you recommend all this absolute hocus pocus garbage and fear mongering driver issues and compatibility between windows 7 and 10. 

News flash. The 2TB disks they use in these computers are like 16mb of cache and 5400RPM at best. They suck, real bad. Like slower than an SD card slow. Like slower than a usb3 flashdrive slow. 

Use Norton Removal Tool instead of the baked in windows uninstaller from the control panel https://www.nortonsecurityonline.com/security-center/how-to-use-norton-removal-tool.html. Anti Virus is stupid to install outside of defender and unless you are browsing really weird shady websites that you don't go to on a regular basis or you are downloading and installing all kinds of shit off the internet it's completely pointless. 

Who even buys software or uses the software installed on a windows 7 HP spamware? You don't even need office anymore to do stuff. 

Install chrome or the new chrome based edge and you are pretty much set. It's why chromebooks are a thing. 

[TwiceHorn 31626]

I think we all know the difference in speed between a platter drive and an SSD.

Typically, though, that is a matter of lightning-quick vs. not-so-quick but still usable.

Does Windows 10 hit the hard drive that much more often than Windows 7?  It certainly would if the memory were completely inadequate, but 12GB DDR should be ok if less than ideal.

I don't know anymore because I exited Windows before 10.  It bogged the living shit out of my FILs W7 builds and early SSDs didn't help  much.  A fresh install did.

[Irish Wrist Watch 1398]

On 12/25/2020 at 4:29 PM, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I don't recommend CCleaner as it's been hacked at least twice now, 2017 and last year... I can't trust them anymore.

Been using it forever. Never had a problem. It also has a versatile wipe function

[Irish Wrist Watch 1398]

I missed the specs click. With 12 gigs of RAM, there's no reason that thing should be running slow. I suppose if the HD was filled to the gills that might be the problem. The steps I outlined are valid. Although you might do a CHKDSK earlier.

 

How much free space on the hard drive? Rt click on your C Drive and click properties.

[immamac 43260]

11 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think we all know the difference in speed between a platter drive and an SSD.

Typically, though, that is a matter of lightning-quick vs. not-so-quick but still usable.

Does Windows 10 hit the hard drive that much more often than Windows 7?  It certainly would if the memory were completely inadequate, but 12GB DDR should be ok if less than ideal.

I don't know anymore because I exited Windows before 10.  It bogged the living shit out of my FILs W7 builds and early SSDs didn't help  much.  A fresh install did.

All modern apps in kidding web browsers are constantly writing and reading to disk. It's less windows 7 and more anything you'd want to do thinking your disk is modern. 

[Dbeasy 15136]

12 hours ago, immamac said:

You have no idea what you are talking about and it's hilarious to watch you recommend all this absolute hocus pocus garbage and fear mongering driver issues and compatibility between windows 7 and 10. 

News flash. The 2TB disks they use in these computers are like 16mb of cache and 5400RPM at best. They suck, real bad. Like slower than an SD card slow. Like slower than a usb3 flashdrive slow. 

Use Norton Removal Tool instead of the baked in windows uninstaller from the control panel https://www.nortonsecurityonline.com/security-center/how-to-use-norton-removal-tool.html. Anti Virus is stupid to install outside of defender and unless you are browsing really weird shady websites that you don't go to on a regular basis or you are downloading and installing all kinds of shit off the internet it's completely pointless. 

Who even buys software or uses the software installed on a windows 7 HP spamware? You don't even need office anymore to do stuff. 

Install chrome or the new chrome based edge and you are pretty much set. It's why chromebooks are a thing. 

Just so I understand what you are saying, aside from just this computer issue, are you saying ditch Norton completely and rely solely on Defender? It doesn't miss anything in terms of browser protection, malware, etc.?

[immamac 43260]

2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Just so I understand what you are saying, aside from just this computer issue, are you saying ditch Norton completely and rely solely on Defender? It doesn't miss anything in terms of browser protection, malware, etc.?

Correct. Unless you are doing nefarious things with the computer modern antivirus is a sham. Use https everywhere, use burner temp card numbers, and don't click on anything except websites you know. 

[TwiceHorn 31626]

And if you get in a pickle, there are several free downloads to scrub it off with.  Malwarebytes, etc.

[BBQ2Bayou 807]

On 12/26/2020 at 8:58 PM, immamac said:

burner temp card numbers

That's something I'd like to know more about. I've got my CC's stored everywhere. I assume that's what you're talking about. 

[immamac 43260]

3 minutes ago, BBQ2Bayou said:

That's something I'd like to know more about. I've got my CC's stored everywhere. I assume that's what you're talking about. 

no, you can literally have 1 time use card numbers for all your online activity (except subscription stuff or things like amazon.com where you use it repeatedly and they have never had a breach) almost every provider has this service now.

[RDCanecutter 26484]

So I got my karma payback for typing smart-ass remarks on this thread. My old office Dell StudioXPS crapped out yesterday. Probably 10 years old, but it did exactly what I needed it to do. I mostly used it to sell art and kept scans of work on there. 99% of that is backed up, so I am mellow, can work around for now using the laptop. I understand that I could probably replace it for a few hundred bucks, but if there's a simple way to fix it, I'd rather keep the money.

What happened was a couple days ago, the graphics got "funny" with square clumps of pixels here and there. I'd shut down whatever I was doing and it'd go away. Then it got worse, did a data dump, said it was trying to repair itself.

About a day later all this happened much faster, then the graphics looked like trying to watch unsubscribed Skinimax back in the 90s, then it locked up with a pattern of alternating gray and burnt orange (actually the good looking burnt orange, yay) stripes.

I turned it off. Turned it back on, fan runs but it won't boot up. Monitor enters power saving mode.

I am planning on disconnecting everything and opening it up to vacuum it out. I bet there is a whole angora cat of pollen in there.