The totally off-topic thread

[QF WP]

Mrs QF WP would be jealous. She wants to drive one!

Was walking past the back of my local IGA and the radio from the loading dock was pumping out "Hey Mickey" from the early 80's. Just a coincidence?

 

[Flashback]

Mrs QF WP would be jealous. She wants to drive one!

A car? Wait, she wants to leave the kitchen? *G* Oh, right, you mean an Audi

 

[QF WP]

Yes you geeky cheeky sod

Just you wait until I see you next.

 

[Flashback]

Yes you geeky cheeky sod

Just you wait until I see you next.

Well .. April is an option

 

[markis10]

Sitting in the BNE J lounge listening to iTunes on shuffle while I wait for my DRW bird to get towed over from the Intl terminal and what starts playing but "Now we are free" from the Gladiator soundtrack, I feel like I am in an ad, must be the 5 cups of coffee I have had!

 

[JohnK]

A new day and another challenge.

I believe my laptop has had it. Kaput! Gonski!

The last couple of days it has been extremely slow. And last night it would not reboot and finally rebooted after 5-6 attempts. Still extremely slow and left it on overnight and rebooted again ~1 hour ago and it took around 20-25minutes to get it back up.

Still extremely slow and frustrating. I have also lost the clicking sound when navigating between webpages and it feels like I am deaf.

According to AVG there is no virus and all security is up to date. Webpages keep failing to load, cannot move between applications easily, computer hangs at least once a minute, not much memory left even though nothing is using the memory and I have taken most things out of start up, takes a while to start task manager etc etc.

The laptop is only 9 months old and I still hate Windows 7. Perhaps it is time to buy another XP machine....

 

[serfty]

...
The laptop is only 9 months old and I still hate Windows 7. Perhaps it is time to buy another XP machine....

Tough gig getting XP these days.

There's a refurbishment place in the city (of Melbourne) that will do a reasonably powerful 2nd hand desktop with XP professional for ~$200.

Or, a guy I work with purchased a 13" Acer with W7 Home for $297 from JB Hifi.

 

[TonyHancock]

The laptop is only 9 months old and I still hate Windows 7. Perhaps it is time to buy another XP machine....

Or perhaps a Mac?

 

[Flashback]

Tough gig getting XP these days.

There's a refurbishment place in the city (of Melbourne) that will do a reasonably powerful 2nd hand desktop with XP professional for ~$200.

Or, a guy I work with purchased a 13" Acer with W7 Home for $297 from JB Hifi.

You can exercise downgrade rights still and install XP Pro (this assume you have Win 7 Pro / Ultimate, I'm guessing you may have Win 7 Home Premium?). PM me JohnK if you're wanting to rebuild it with XP and need info on how to do so.

 

[anat0l]

A new day and another challenge.

I believe my laptop has had it. Kaput! Gonski!

The last couple of days it has been extremely slow. And last night it would not reboot and finally rebooted after 5-6 attempts. Still extremely slow and left it on overnight and rebooted again ~1 hour ago and it took around 20-25minutes to get it back up.

Still extremely slow and frustrating. I have also lost the clicking sound when navigating between webpages and it feels like I am deaf.

According to AVG there is no virus and all security is up to date. Webpages keep failing to load, cannot move between applications easily, computer hangs at least once a minute, not much memory left even though nothing is using the memory and I have taken most things out of start up, takes a while to start task manager etc etc.

The laptop is only 9 months old and I still hate Windows 7. Perhaps it is time to buy another XP machine....

What did you do to it?

I've been using Windows 7 Ultimate for longer than you've had the laptop. My laptop is now 3+ years old (had Vista on it for a while). Still working quite well, no crashes or hangs (though if it does either, I know exactly what caused it).

Now I wouldn't look back twice at XP, despite it being a stolid OS some time ago for many, many years.

Are you sure you have no malware / rootkits / extraneous software or services running? The fact that your system runs slower than Pacific Island parliament usually points to these factors. AVG may help you overcome some of these, but certainly not all of them, and in some cases you may need to actually have a look at your software environment critically and do some slashing and burning. I've seen some pretty sluggish systems before with the usual culprits as I've mentioned, though none as slow as you've reported (I'm surprised you had the patience to wait for the boot process to finish!)

There's always the "ultimate solution" - backup then reformat. At least in this case you can definitely check whether there is a serious hardware fault or not. In saying that, it does surprise me these days what kind of cheap systems retailers will wheel out to the public which probably barely meet the software requirements for the OS let alone to do anything else (and let's not get into the systems that sell with Windows 7 Starter *shudder*).

----------
This anat0l content, if it must be known,
Was sent via Aust Freq Fly app, but not from an iPhone.

 

[Flashback]

What did you do to it?

I've been using Windows 7 Ultimate for longer than you've had the laptop. My laptop is now 3+ years old (had Vista on it for a while). Still working quite well, no crashes or hangs (though if it does either, I know exactly what caused it).

Now I wouldn't look back twice at XP, despite it being a stolid OS some time ago for many, many years.

Are you sure you have no malware / rootkits / extraneous software or services running? The fact that your system runs slower than Pacific Island parliament usually points to these factors. AVG may help you overcome some of these, but certainly not all of them, and in some cases you may need to actually have a look at your software environment critically and do some slashing and burning. I've seen some pretty sluggish systems before with the usual culprits as I've mentioned, though none as slow as you've reported (I'm surprised you had the patience to wait for the boot process to finish!)

There's always the "ultimate solution" - backup then reformat. At least in this case you can definitely check whether there is a serious hardware fault or not. In saying that, it does surprise me these days what kind of cheap systems retailers will wheel out to the public which probably barely meet the software requirements for the OS let alone to do anything else (and let's not get into the systems that sell with Windows 7 Starter *shudder*).

----------
This anat0l content, if it must be known,
Was sent via Aust Freq Fly app, but not from an iPhone.

Just to add to the coughpy AVG bloatware, try installing Microsoft Security Essentials (free) ; it does a surprisingly good job. May also be worth doing this: https://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper/content/content.aspx?ContentID=24894

 

[anat0l]

Just to add to the coughpy AVG bloatware, try installing Microsoft Security Essentials (free) ; it does a surprisingly good job. May also be worth doing this: https://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper/content/content.aspx?ContentID=24894

Do you have a better anti-virus solution to AVG (unless it is MSE as you've just mentioned)? I usually turn off most of the monitoring options, leaving only the background scanner running.

Someone told me that Kaspersky was better, though does it chow down on resources quite a bit? (I won't even mention Norton...)



----------
This anat0l content, if it must be known,
Was sent via Aust Freq Fly app, but not from an iPhone.

 

[Flashback]

Do you have a better anti-virus solution to AVG (unless it is MSE as you've just mentioned)? I usually turn off most of the monitoring options, leaving only the background scanner running.

Someone told me that Kaspersky was better, though does it chow down on resources quite a bit? (I won't even mention Norton...)



----------
This anat0l content, if it must be known,
Was sent via Aust Freq Fly app, but not from an iPhone.

If you're paying for AV, I quite like KIS (Kaspersky). Norton is still a pig. Its last decent year was 02/03.

I find AVG in general is just not as good as it used to be, it's a shame. Yes, MSE is a nice replacement for it

 

[straitman]

It's nice not needing anti virus software any more :!:

 

[anat0l]

It's nice not needing anti virus software any more :!:

You must have a Mac

No, I'm not going to start that argument...

 

[Flashback]

You must have a Mac

No, I'm not going to start that argument...

No... he must have turned off his computer and gone back to the dark age :mrgreen:

 

[straitman]

You must have a Mac

No, I'm not going to start that argument...

Good call :!:

 

[JohnK]

Or perhaps a Mac?

My first question would have to be what is a Mac?

You can exercise downgrade rights still and install XP Pro (this assume you have Win 7 Pro / Ultimate, I'm guessing you may have Win 7 Home Premium?). PM me JohnK if you're wanting to rebuild it with XP and need info on how to do so.

Yes not sure how to rebuild. I know someone who would have a copy of XP and would more than likely just wipe the hard disk clean and install XP.

I don't know yet and thanks for the offer.

What did you do to it?

Good question. I don't believe I did anything to it. But to take 10-15 minutes to boot up is beyond a joke. It happened around 2-3 days ago and I do not remember anything out of the ordinary although the laptop is now extremely quiet where it used to have sort of clunking noise for ages.

I have run Lenovo hardware tests, AVG virus scan, AVG malware scan and nothing shows up. I have taken most things out of startup including MSN, Quicktime, iTunes etc. So memory should not really be an issue but it does hang often. Perhaps it is some sort of adware or something but I am trying to find a free version that does not also have anti-virus to check.

I guess the next step would be a defrag but there is hardly anything on the machine.

Oh and the click disappearing on the webpage is driving me nuts.

 

[Flashback]

My first question would have to be what is a Mac?


Yes not sure how to rebuild. I know someone who would have a copy of XP and would more than likely just wipe the hard disk clean and install XP.

I don't know yet and thanks for the offer.


Good question. I don't believe I did anything to it. But to take 10-15 minutes to boot up is beyond a joke. It happened around 2-3 days ago and I do not remember anything out of the ordinary although the laptop is now extremely quiet where it used to have sort of clunking noise for ages.

I have run Lenovo hardware tests, AVG virus scan, AVG malware scan and nothing shows up. I have taken most things out of startup including MSN, Quicktime, iTunes etc. So memory should not really be an issue but it does hang often. Perhaps it is some sort of adware or something but I am trying to find a free version that does not also have anti-virus to check.

I guess the next step would be a defrag but there is hardly anything on the machine.

Oh and the click disappearing on the webpage is driving me nuts.

Any Windows Updates applied recently? What's it like if you start up in safe mode?

 

[JohnK]

Hmmm. Updates were last week sometime and then some more today. I have not tried safe mode yet.

I shall give that a try later as I am on MSN now.