PC Hell for the past few weeks...

woody

woody

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Have an older 1.2 Celeron PC, 256k, XP Home. Has been fine for three years, then began getting slower & slower. Not really running any killer aps, just mainly to goof on the interweb and play music...

Anyway a month or so ago, d/l all my music to CD and ran the OEM restore CDs... spent the few days on dialup getting all the XP and Norton AV updates loaded...

AV and spyware scans turn up nothing.

Still runs like crap... took a solid hour to boot up last night.

Any ideas how to get a DOS prompt so I can "format C" I know the restore discs are 'supposed' to do this, but I'm not getting it.

Plan B is to take a clubaxe to it and get a new one... but I don't understand why this one just went like pondwater all of a sudden (coincedentally 'right after' the three year extended warranty expired :) )
 
To get to Dos: Start button to Programs to Accessories to Command Promt or possibly from Accessories to System Tools to Command Promt.

Have you run Web Root Spy Sweeper? And I would run www.ravantivirus.com to get their free anti-virus scan. They have pulled up things Norton didn't catch.

HTH
 
Mark Hinkley said:
Too much internet porn sites??????


hinkley
Click to expand...

:shhh: Now go answer my Odyssey questions on Tech :wave:

Thanks Tom, if I don't demolish it this evening when I get home, I'll try that.

I use spybot and ad-aware... any other good counterspy software?
<edit>i had the webroot on there before the first reformat, I'll try it again.
 
Last edited:
So, right after you fdisked the old installation, did a fresh install of XP your very next step was to install the latest chipset and MB support drivers right ?
 
You might consider installing Microsoft WinXP Bootvis which is a boot optimizer.

Can you boot from the restore CD? XP should ask you if you want to reformat the drive. I would suggest deleting the current partition and maybe even running GWScan to zero out the drive and delete the existing boot sector. I had this happen on my old machine and ended up buying a new HD. Neighbor introduced me to GW scan and after zeroing it the computer worked just like new. Here is the link to get the file, it is a free download to anyone. GWScan from Gateway

As for that machine, it should easily run XP. My workhorse machine is an Athlon 1.33. Runs XP great, especially after installing the Bootvis.

HTH,Travis
 
Urban Redneck said:
Wipes the drive and resets everything back to zero. Makes it impossible to read deleted files on the drive, like the Feds can do when they pull someones drive.
Click to expand...

He just needs to delete and reformat not exorcise it :laugh3: . Gdisk from norton is run with /dodwipe option if I remember correctly writes 101010...'s then it's compliment 010101...'s, does it 7 times... might as well rent a movie and/or go out for pizza and a movie. Gdisk by itself works fine. The OEM preinstall cd comes with it to generate a floppy that will do cookie cutter installs, it uses gdisk.
 
If DODWipe implements the Fed stuff, it's more than just a simple wipe, it's a sequential series of writes over the entire disk. Not only does it overwrite the file structure, but it physically writes multiple times in each sector. Guaranteed to make friends with your local prosecutor. :)
 
If you really want your information gone overnight...
I never heard of GWScan, so I thought I would ask, because the description sounded close.
 
Urban Redneck said:
If you really want your information gone overnight...
I never heard of GWScan, so I thought I would ask, because the description sounded close.
Click to expand...

Sounds very similar. The other thing about GWScan is that it has some other utilities included that allow checks for bad drives. Good stuff it is!
 
OK I 'finally' got the sucka to reboot and got my internet hooked back up. (this the first time since my original "HELP" post from work friday afternoon.

I had XP up fri night and cleanup'ed/ defragged... a couple things wouldn't defrag :dunno:

So I should go to Gateway and d/l that GWscan?

I forgot wnat the command was for formatting c (my boot disks offer two choices: #1 reload windows XP or #2 a command prompt

From windows, LSASS.exe keeps crashing and takes me back down to an auto-restart mode, doing that now... maybe send this off I dunno
 
Stick the cd in. Boot it, when it comes up to the install screen to put the os in the drive partition delete the partition, reboot, do a normal install and recreate the partition. Once the install is done install the chipset drivers, video drivers, audio drivers, don't bother with the network stuff yet you don't want to go on the internet yet.
It would be a good idea before starting to download the newest version of avg and put it on either a cd or if you have one a USB stick as well as spybot and firefox from mozilla.org. Now install the network card drivers, fire off avg and spybot, then go directly to the MS update site and start updating.
Once you have it running the way your want it and before doing anymore surfing use norton ghost and a spare hard drive to image your running system, should only be a max of 3 or 4 gig by then so a small drive is fine. If this ever happens again it's a 10 minute job to restore from that image to get you back to that same spot.
If you don't have a usb stick now is a good time to go pick up a 256meg one at staples or office max for under $30 or a 512 for about $49. Damn things are one of the most useful things that has come out in a couple or three years for PC's, I even use them on suns to back up configuration files.
 
Thanks Rich & all.

I unhooked the box and hooked up an old 75mhz box that I can at least hail out with... it's slow too :) but at least it's stable.

I have to go out of town for a few days, so I'll fiddle with the other CPU later in the week... it really is a POS though (Emachines $399 D-lux with integrated vid card/mobo)

Probably do need to upgrade to a real computer though.

As an aside, when I was online an hour ago, I got two popup prompts... one from ww.updatepatch.info and another similar looking one from ww.winfix.com. Does anyone know if these are little pests that latched onto (or are imbedded in) my junk? Right about that time, lsass.exe freaks & bails.
 
Im running an emachines t 1150 I believe. ITs about 4 years old now running a 1.0 gig celeron and 256k, So we are kinda in the same boat.

1) ditch NORON. It has been proven to be the slowest and worst at catching actual viruses

2) Get AVAST FREE anti virus. Has been proven to be one of the top programs and its free gotta love it. get it here from major geeks. avast free edition

3) If you are still using Explorer to brouse LOOSE IT TOO!

4) If you are not running MOZILLA FIREFOX get it here.firefox browser

5) Next get ad-aware SE personal also FREE here. AD-Aware

after install of this program set up like this:

on openning screen press start
on next screen select use custon scanning options. click on customize
next screen click on scan within archives
in lower section click on all options choose each one
click proceed

It will take you back to the openning page click next to run. dont do this till you have avast anitvirus up and running and updated. They will work in combination with each other and check every file that is openned so you get a doble check 10 times faster than norton and 100 times more effecient.

firefox on our emachines seams to run 10 times better than explorer

It also is less effected from internet problems

doing this stuff increased the speed of my emachines 10 fold
 
I can't harp on it enough, you NEED to install the chipset and drive support IMMEADIATELY after the os is installed whether it's an intel, via or sis chipset. If you install ANY OTHER software like updates first it will never work to it's full potential. If it is an intel chipset just go to intels site and download the newest intel chipset software, same with via or sis.
Intels download site for the chipsets is here:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/support_intel.asp?iid=HPAGE+header_support_download&
And if I remember correctly the onboard e machines video is an intel video. Your support cd should have the older chipsets which will let you install them to find out which ones they are, from there you can go to intels site and download the newest ones. You will know the chipset works because after the install it will find all your usb ports out of thin air :D :D :D
 
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