Questions for the computer gurus

[SWThomas]

Well, I'm just about fed up with my current computer situation. I have a Dell Dimension E310 (Old I know) and it's getting slower by the day. Here's a few questions I have for you computer savvy SVT owners out there.

- What's some good security software that isn't a memory hog? Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-Spam, Spyware blocker, etc... I'm currently using McAfee Security Suit and it updates all the time and it seems to be slowing down my computer.

- What's some good software/program I can use to clean up my PC. What I'm generally looking for is something that's going to get my PC operating as fast as it use to. Maybe something safe that will diagnose my PC and tell me what's slowing it down. Open to suggestions...

- In the future, when I upgrade to a new PC, what's the best/easiest way to transfer all my info from my old PC to the new one. Pretty much everything on the hard-drive?

- And lastly, what do you guys think of off-site back-up products. I keep hearing about "Carbonite" on the radio and was wondering if it would be worth the $50 a year it costs? Or would I just be better off getting an external hard-drive and backing up every so often.

Any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[thomas91169]

1) none. disable/uninstall all antivirus bullshit as its not necessary. Only time you will contract a virus is by downloading something risky. I download shittons of torrent stuff and only contracted 1 virus from installing a lame ass b-rated game. Dont DL or install stupid shit and youll be fine. I browse with FF and used to visit shittons of pr0n sites as well (was GF-less) and never any issues like back in the day doing that stuff with IE and getting spyware up the asshole.

2) they dont exist. Reformat is the only way to return to the state the pc was in when you bought it.

3) buy an external HD. transfer everything you want to save to that (documents, pics, music, etc) and shitcan the rest when you reformat or upgrade.

4) External or secondary HD for backups. You shouldnt keep anything you would cry about if you lost it on your main drives anyways. Plus it makes it easy to reformat like i do every 6mo when everything else is on a secondary HD.

 

[gump]

Probably the best free security list in the world

^^^ the best help site for people who don't know much. The list is free & I would suggest AVG or Avira is you want the free stuff. If you want to pay then Kaspersky has the highest rating this year according to PC World's tests. I use Nortons 360 myself.


Comodo is the best free firewall out there, rated better than the free zone alarm. Scan the site I just listed & try some free stuff.

 

[astrodudepsu]

Well, I'm just about fed up with my current computer situation. I have a Dell Dimension E310 (Old I know) and it's getting slower by the day. Here's a few questions I have for you computer savvy Tundra owners out there.

- What's some good security software that isn't a memory hog? Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-Spam, Spyware blocker, etc... I'm currently using McAfee Security Suit and it updates all the time and it seems to be slowing down my computer.

- What's some good software/program I can use to clean up my PC. What I'm generally looking for is something that's going to get my PC operating as fast as it use to. Maybe something safe that will diagnose my PC and tell me what's slowing it down. Open to suggestions...

- In the future, when I upgrade to a new PC, what's the best/easiest way to transfer all my info from my old PC to the new one. Pretty much everything on the hard-drive?

- And lastly, what do you guys think of off-site back-up products. I keep hearing about "Carbonite" on the radio and was wondering if it would be worth the $50 a year it costs? Or would I just be better off getting an external hard-drive and backing up every so often.

Any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated.

1. I agree with what thomas said, but if you have to have an anti-virus, AVG free doesn't use a ton of system resources.

2. Reformat your hard drive. Reinstall windows. Fresh PC

3. External HDD is the way to go. With Terabyte drives going for $100 or less these days, storage is cheap and easy.

4. That online backup stuff is silly. Why? Because you are limited by your internet connection. I personally have a backup HDD AND backup DVD's that I use each month. With two forms of media my stuff is as safe as I need it.

 

[SWThomas]

1) none. disable/uninstall all antivirus bullshit as its not necessary. Only time you will contract a virus is by downloading something risky. I download shittons of torrent stuff and only contracted 1 virus from installing a lame ass b-rated game. Dont DL or install stupid shit and youll be fine. I browse with FF and used to visit shittons of pr0n sites as well (was GF-less) and never any issues like back in the day doing that stuff with IE and getting spyware up the asshole.

2) they dont exist. Reformat is the only way to return to the state the pc was in when you bought it.

3) buy an external HD. transfer everything you want to save to that (documents, pics, music, etc) and shitcan the rest when you reformat or upgrade.

4) External or secondary HD for backups. You shouldnt keep anything you would cry about if you lost it on your main drives anyways. Plus it makes it easy to reformat like i do every 6mo when everything else is on a secondary HD.

Could you please explain reformatting?

 

[Uncle Meat]

4. That online backup stuff is silly. Why? Because you are limited by your internet connection. I personally have a backup HDD AND backup DVD's that I use each month. With two forms of media my stuff is as safe as I need it.

That online backup stuff may be "Silly" as you claim, but ANY backup of your data is better than NO BACKUP OF YOUR DATA! Keep repeating this montra... Backup my data, backup my data, back up my data... it's the most important rule in computing, always has been and always will be. Too bad very few, if any, pay attention to it.

Could you please explain reformatting?

Re-formatting or just formatting = Erasing the hard drive and its entire contents. Did you keep all the original CD's that came with your Dell? There should be a "Recovery" CD that came with the PC which when used will take your PC back to the exact same condition it was in when you initially removed it from the box when new.


U.M.

 

[WireEater]

- What's some good security software that isn't a memory hog? Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-Spam, Spyware blocker, etc... I'm currently using McAfee Security Suit and it updates all the time and it seems to be slowing down my computer.

1. If you find yourself surfing out of the realms of "safe trusted" websites then I'd advise using anti-virus. You can't contract a virus unless you execute it. So if you don't do a lot of downloading and opening unknown files from unknown websites, yes you could do without one. It's really doesn't hurt to run one for the purpose of peace of mind. I would recommend Kaspersky.

- What's some good software/program I can use to clean up my PC. What I'm generally looking for is something that's going to get my PC operating as fast as it use to. Maybe something safe that will diagnose my PC and tell me what's slowing it down. Open to suggestions...

2. There isn't a software that exists that will get your computer running like it "use" to. These programs are gimmicks and I'd never spend money for them. For one, when your computer was quick, the programs were less demanding, not requiring as much memory and CPU. Secondly, running an old installation of windows, you are probably carrying around so much trash now from all the installations, uninstalls, downloads, patches that it's impossible to go through and clean it out.

The best you can do is try and clean out all of the temp file locations, flush your internet browsing cache (download crap cleaner, it's free and cleans these area out for you. It also scans your registry for invalid entrys and cleans them as well.

If you know what you are doing I would run the autoruns tool for windows (download it from MS tech site) and turn off any programs, services that you KNOW you don't need. You can easily shave off hundreds of megs worth of system resources.

I would also suggest running malware scans using multiple programs like Spybot Search and Sestroy and MalwareBytes which are free programs.

But like i said, you will never get it running quick like it was unless you do a complete wipe and start from scratch. This will require you to own a copies of windows and you will need all of your drivers because depending on the windows, it probably won't contain the drivers for your devices unless it's a really old system.

I would also suggest spending $30 dollars and getting new memory, it will make a HUGE performance increase. If it's an older system you probably have 512mb of memory because it was the standard then. Your system probably takes DDR2 which could be had for $24+shipping from new egg for 2x1GB sticks.

- In the future, when I upgrade to a new PC, what's the best/easiest way to transfer all my info from my old PC to the new one. Pretty much everything on the hard-drive?

3. The easiest way is just to back it up on the drive. Probably the most important area to back up off a computer is going to be your document and settings folder. This will be the default location for all of your favorites, pictures, videos, pst files, etc. Generally this really should be the ONLY place you need to back up. Generally programs don't save into program folders.

- And lastly, what do you guys think of off-site back-up products. I keep hearing about "Carbonite" on the radio and was wondering if it would be worth the $50 a year it costs? Or would I just be better off getting an external hard-drive and backing up every so often.

4. I find this completely useless for someone who isn't handling crucial, important information. The only purpose for this would be disaster recovery. Unless you feel like a couple word documents and some pictures are worth $600 a year, then go for it. You could buy 10+ hard drives with that money and bury them around the world with your data on them if you were that worried. These are marketing gimmicks for the average consumer who don't know better.

 

[SWThomas]

Well I'm good for now. I uninstalled all the McAfee crap and installed AVG. Just from that it seem like my computer boots up a lot quicker. And it also scans the computer a lot quicker. I also installed CCleaner and cleaned everything up a bit. And I installed and ran Malwarebytes and detected 40 infected objects. The computer is definitely more snappy now.

Next I'm gonna go to best buy and check out external hard drives. Any suggestions? And last night I ordered two 1G RAM sticks to upgrade from my current 512MB sticks. Knowing my luck I'll do all this and my PC will die on me next week. But at least I'll have all my important stuff backed up...

 

[JasonSnake]

After you are done doing everything, including moving/deleting unnecessary files, do a disk defrag and you'll notice some gain afterward too.

 

[SWThomas]

After you are done doing everything, including moving/deleting unnecessary files, do a disk defrag and you'll notice some gain afterward too.

Thanks! I did that last night and did notice I was a ble to access things quicker. :banana:

 

[jliddle]

Well, I'm just about fed up with my current computer situation. I have a Dell Dimension E310 (Old I know) and it's getting slower by the day. Here's a few questions I have for you computer savvy Tundra owners out there.

:??:

 

[SWThomas]

:??:

Sorry about that. I cut and pasted from another forum.