Help! Anyone on here a computer buff?

[G_Mulligan]

I have started using my old PC and it was running really slowly. I downloaded a software package called advanced system care and ran as many of the system boost programmes as I could find including removing some old software that may take up memory.

I can no longer get onto the internet from that PC anymore. I removed Norton which I hate with the plan to install avast anti virus but I think windows may be stopping me from getting onto the internet as I don't have antivirus.

Has anyone come across this problem before or have any idea how I can fix it?

Regards

Greg

 

[woody69]

Windows won't be stopping you from getting on to the Internet because you don't have AVS. HOw are you trying to connect? Wireless or using a cable directly into a router / modem?

 

[G_Mulligan]

Windows won't be stopping you from getting on to the Internet because you don't have AVS. HOw are you trying to connect? Wireless or using a cable directly into a router / modem?

Wireless connection using a USB device (virgin) the internet is showing full connection but the internet explorer just won't open.

 

[woody69]

Wireless connection using a USB device (virgin) the internet is showing full connection but the internet explorer just won't open.

Oh if the IE browser just won't open perhaps in your tidying up of your system you accidentely deleted some files needed to launch the browser and you are in fact connected to the net. Do you have any other browsers you can use to access e.g Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc?

Alternatively try this article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318378 as it should fix IE.

 

[brendy]

Windows cannot stop you using the internet purely because it cannot detect an AV program. Run a system restore.
Windows xp and windows 7 are pretty similar for this
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-system-restore/ .
Restore it to a date which you know had the pc working fine on the internet. Next, remove all of the "system boosters" most of them dont work or are money makers. If you still have interent access, download Ccleaner and run it, this is agenuinely handy bit of software that will clear a lot of the crud most pc's accrue over periods of time that slow it down. Give this a go and see how you get on.

 

[Andy808]

First thing to try is a system restore as it sounds like it has removed part of IE.
Depending on your OS go to
Start>Programs>Accessories?System tools>System restore
take it back to before you installed ASC and see what happens.

 

[woody69]

I'd also recommend running a windows update.

 

[G_Mulligan]

Cheers

On my laptop I use CCleaner and ASC and I am very happy with the performance boosting I get and it does genuinely seem to work. I figured losing the browser launch could also be a possibility but unfortunately I don't have any other browser at the moment. Like AV I was going to download opera once my PC was cleaned as I prefer using that to any others. I did have chrome on their but never used it so I deleted that with some other systems I was not using to free up some memory.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Hang on a mo

Before you do anything lets have a look at the machine spec

Start the PC, Find "My Computer" and RIGHT click it, hit Properties and a window will pop up

Need to know the processor, RAM and what version of windows, also you say you have "gone Back" to it...How long have you had it?

once I can see the spec, i'll have a feel for what it should be able to do

Also, get rid of the system boost programs you just installed, these use up more resourses than they save, so are a waste of time

Report Back and we'll soon have you sorted

Fragger

PC Engineer to the Gentry

 

[woody69]

Hang on a mo

Before you do anything lets have a look at the machine spec

Start the PC, Find "My Computer" and RIGHT click it, hit Properties and a window will pop up

Need to know the processor, RAM and what version of windows, also you say you have "gone Back" to it...How long have you had it?

once I can see the spec, i'll have a feel for what it should be able to do

Also, get rid of the system boost programs you just installed, these use up more resourses than they save, so are a waste of time

Report Back and we'll soon have you sorted

Fragger

PC Engineer to the Gentry

Why does it matter what his system properties are when all he can't do is open Internet Explorer?

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Why does it matter what his system properties are when all he can't do is open Internet Explorer?

Because he states that he has gone back to his PC, it may have been in a cupboard for 4 years, it may be a XP machine with a Celeron 1400 CPU and 256 Mb RAM running Internet Explorer 5.

Im a PC Engineer, I troubleshoot such problems all the time, You start at the basics, and in this case, the basics are " What is the spec of the machine?" is there an obvious shortage of RAM etc

Once i have established that the hardware is OK, then we can look at the software

If the OP had said " its a 4 year old vista machine" I would have some idea just from that as to its spec and performance, he didnt, so im asking

One thing the Op can try is to open control panel, internet options, advanced, Reset,
and reset Internet Explorer back to default settings, but it does depend on what version of IE he is using

Fragger

 

[woody69]

Because he states that he has gone back to his PC, it may have been in a cupboard for 4 years, it may be a XP machine with a Celeron 1400 CPU and 256 Mb RAM running Internet Explorer 5.

Im a PC Engineer, I troubleshoot such problems all the time, You start at the basics, and in this case, the basics are " What is the spec of the machine?" is there an obvious shortage of RAM etc

Once i have established that the hardware is OK, then we can look at the software

If the OP had said " its a 4 year old vista machine" I would have some idea just from that as to its spec and performance, he didnt, so im asking

One thing the Op can try is to open control panel, internet options, advanced, Reset,
and reset Internet Explorer back to default settings, but it does depend on what version of IE he is using

Fragger

Surely the basics are "have you tried turning it off and on again?"

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Surely the basics are "have you tried turning it off and on again?"

when he uninstalled Norton, it would have prompted him to restart,,

Funny how in an earlier post you suggest he gets some windows updates, bit tricky when the interweb thingy isnt working Methinks

Touche':ears:

Fragger

 

[woody69]

when he uninstalled Norton, it would have prompted him to restart,,

Funny how in an earlier post you suggest he gets some windows updates, bit tricky when the interweb thingy isnt working Methinks

Touche':ears:

Fragger

But the Internet is working? It's just his IE browser that won't open :temper:

 

[ScienceBoy]

I have charles babbage on the phone, he wants to know if he can install windows 8 on his machine.

 

[G_Mulligan]

Hang on a mo

Before you do anything lets have a look at the machine spec

Start the PC, Find "My Computer" and RIGHT click it, hit Properties and a window will pop up

Need to know the processor, RAM and what version of windows, also you say you have "gone Back" to it...How long have you had it?

once I can see the spec, i'll have a feel for what it should be able to do

Also, get rid of the system boost programs you just installed, these use up more resourses than they save, so are a waste of time

Report Back and we'll soon have you sorted

Fragger

PC Engineer to the Gentry

Hi Fragger

Just back from work.

It is an Intel Celeron 60gb hard drive, 1gb RAM. It came with Vista but I have a naughty version of Windows 7 on there which meant I had to have the windows updates switched off. This damn bloody booster programme has ran all those backdated updates and now today my desktop is black and I can't open MS office even though that is a legit version paid for by work!

cheers for any help you can supply

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Not good

I was right to question the hardware, my guess is that it is a laptop, bought just after vista came out, and Vista is taking up 25% of your hard drive all by itself, The Celeron CPU isnt brilliant and you have half the RAM you should have.

Having said that, Ive seen worse machines running windows 7 albeit slowly, what you have to accept is that whatever you do with it, its always going to be a slow PC.

But you also have a major software issue
Is System Restore working? Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore

Try and take the system back to a date before you loaded the crappy software

If system restore wont work, then you are staring at a reformat

Hope you have your windows disc available, but dont do anything until we know about system restore

Good Luck

Fragger

 

[G_Mulligan]

Not good

I was right to question the hardware, my guess is that it is a laptop, bought just after vista came out, and Vista is taking up 25% of your hard drive all by itself, The Celeron CPU isnt brilliant and you have half the RAM you should have.

Having said that, Ive seen worse machines running windows 7 albeit slowly, what you have to accept is that whatever you do with it, its always going to be a slow PC.

But you also have a major software issue
Is System Restore working? Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore

Try and take the system back to a date before you loaded the crappy software

If system restore wont work, then you are staring at a reformat

Hope you have your windows disc available, but dont do anything until we know about system restore

Good Luck

Fragger

OK system restore is working and I have rolled it back to June which was only date available before running ASC. Thuis has removed the windows updates it ran which means I now have a working desktop and MS office and the internet is back on. Now I am back where I was 3-4 days ago with a very slow pc. Should I take off windows 7 and just work with vista. Is that even possible now? Or is there any other way to speed up the performance (deleting large software such as Norton) or anything else you can suggest?

It is a desktop not a laptop. I am on my laptop now and it is lightning fast despite being pretty old but not ideal for my Uni work if only because of the design of my office desk and the fact I have to fight my girlfriend for it most of the time

 

[PhilTheFragger]

OK thats progress, surprised to see a desktop pc with only a 60gb hard drive, they were very common in cheap laptops of that era.

Ok, The most obvious thing to do is to get an extra 1Gb of RAM inside your PC. the best thing to do is to pop over to www.crucial.com/uk and download their system scanner (middle tab below the main pic)

This will tell you what RAM you have and how many slots available etc
For instance you have 1 GB of ram already, that might be 1 x 1GB chip and a spare slot, in which case you need to buy another 1GB chip...
or you might have 2 x 512MB with both slots taken up, in which case you need to buy 2 x 1GB and ditch the old RAM

Expect to pay around £20 per GB, but watch out you dont exceed the max RAM for your motherboard, (the scan result will tell you)

Getting the RAM up to 2GB will get the maching running much better, and upto £40 isnt unreasonable for a machine that age.
However I would caution against throwing much more cash at it as you would be better off getting a replacement PC box/laptop for about £350/£375 which will last you the next 5/6 years

Shout back if you have any queries Buddy

Fragger

 

[G_Mulligan]

OK thats progress, surprised to see a desktop pc with only a 60gb hard drive, they were very common in cheap laptops of that era.

Ok, The most obvious thing to do is to get an extra 1Gb of RAM inside your PC. the best thing to do is to pop over to www.crucial.com/uk and download their system scanner (middle tab below the main pic)

This will tell you what RAM you have and how many slots available etc
For instance you have 1 GB of ram already, that might be 1 x 1GB chip and a spare slot, in which case you need to buy another 1GB chip...
or you might have 2 x 512MB with both slots taken up, in which case you need to buy 2 x 1GB and ditch the old RAM

Expect to pay around £20 per GB, but watch out you dont exceed the max RAM for your motherboard, (the scan result will tell you)

Getting the RAM up to 2GB will get the maching running much better, and upto £40 isnt unreasonable for a machine that age.
However I would caution against throwing much more cash at it as you would be better off getting a replacement PC box/laptop for about £350/£375 which will last you the next 5/6 years

Shout back if you have any queries Buddy

Fragger

OK cool I have ran the scan and it says 1 slot is free and max memory is 8gb so guess I am free to put more in if I want. Do I literally just take the back off the tower and slot it in or should I get someone who knows computers to do it for me? Should I also buy the ram off crucial.com or just pick it up from a shop?

I think I may have got the HD memory wrong as the scan is showing 136gb total storage with 41% free memory. Don't know if that changes anything?

Cheers for all your help

Greg