Computer running very slow-pls help

Tattooed

Tattooed

Tattooed

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Hi,
My neighbour is having problems with her computer. When she computer gets to the Windows desktop and she clicks on an icon- it takes ages for the program to start. The computer just seems to grind to a halt.

Any idea what could be causing this? The computer is only one year old.

The guy she bought is from say's it could be a virus or it could be the hard disk. He is going to charge her £50 to get rid of a virus and £100 if it's the hard disk.
 
I'm no expert but it could be the hard drive. A computer will slow down if the hard drive is on the way out. Maybe you could try defragging the hard drive or running diagnosis software on it.

Rgds
 
If it were me I would do a clean install first and see how it goes. If it still runs like a dog then I would test/buy another HDD.

£50 to get rid of a Virus and £100 for a HDD? At least Dick Turpin wore a mask :D
 
philtorrens said:
I would say it's called extortion tbh. £50 to remove a 'virus' which can be done using freely available programs is a bit much.
Click to expand...

But if you lack the knowledge and experience to be able to do it yourself, then its the price you pay if it is going market rate. Average joe public is not going to have the technology know-how to go fiddling around with his PC and so takes it somewhere to get sorted.

£50p/h isn't far off what a lot of independent garages charge to fix your car (in some cases far more expensive if it is a main dealer).

Also, I'd imagine £100 for a hdd includes labour? Which isn't too bad.

Obviously you would shop around if you felt it was expensive. Same reason most people take their car to a garage when there's a problem instead of fixing it themselves.
 
Six6siX said:
But if you lack the knowledge and experience to be able to do it yourself, then its the price you pay if it is going market rate. Average joe public is not going to have the technology know-how to go fiddling around with his PC and so takes it somewhere to get sorted.
Click to expand...

Fair enough point. Glad im not dependant on such people at them prices ;)
 
Hi,

Can't reinstall Windows because the guy she bought it from did not give her Windows XP disks.

Tried to run an anti virus program,but it took so long for it to load,I decided to give up.

It was an ex university lecturer she bought the computer from.
 
Depending on what edition of Windows XP it is it shouldn't be too hard to get hold of a disk and just the licence key attached to the case. It's perfectly legal to do this.
 
philtorrens said:
Depending on what edition of Windows XP it is it shouldn't be too hard to get hold of a disk and just the licence key attached to the case. It's perfectly legal to do this.
Click to expand...
Make sure you use an OEM disk. Try installing and running Malwarebytes in safe mode and then in normal mode install MS SEcurity Essentials. Also has the machine got a hidden recovery partition you could restore from?
 
philtorrens said:
If it were me I would do a clean install first and see how it goes. If it still runs like a dog then I would test/buy another HDD.

£50 to get rid of a Virus and £100 for a HDD? At least Dick Turpin wore a mask :D
Click to expand...

drive to house, remove virus, drive home 2 hours £25 an hour - you can get £10 an hour cleaning or working behind a bar with no skills

replace hard drive = £35 for the drive and £65 labour, drive to house collect reinstall drop off 3 /4 hours ~£22 an hour

sounds reasonable...
 
Tattooed said:
Hi,

Can't reinstall Windows because the guy she bought it from did not give her Windows XP disks.

Tried to run an anti virus program,but it took so long for it to load,I decided to give up.

It was an ex university lecturer she bought the computer from.
Click to expand...

reboot in safe mode, check the even log / system for disk errors, if no erros its probably a virus, run conbofix.exe from bleeping computers, then malwarebyte...
 
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