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PC Cleaner?

muddy

muddy

Well-Known Member
Anyone have any suggestions for a cleaner to use on a desktop type computer? The past month our machine has started to really slow down and run like crap. We've even had a few blue screen shut down errors though these have all come after I installed a new photo printer and have since uninstalled it. I've looked at a few online freebies but am hesitant to try anything until I've heard good/bad comments on anything out there.

The main problem is that the internet has started to really really drag butt and as far as I know my Mozilla and Internet Explorer are both up to date, the only things that are not are some of the flash type players from what I can see. I run AVG anti virus and MacAfee virus but they're only free versions and are not turning up anything out of the norm. I have deleted some larger programs as of late so am wondering if it's time to defrag the system, though I've had issues with that in the past.

Some of my wifes co workers suggested a PC cleaner so here we are. Any suggestions are welcome so long as you don't say "get a Mac", that will never happen. If I can put off calling Dell and having to talk to Apu the Quickee Mart owner I will appreciate it.

Oh yeah, the machine is maybe 3 or 4 years old and these are the first real problems we've had. I could call Qwest and talk to someone on their end too I suppose as it's internet related.

Again, any suggestions?
 
Try CCleaner by Piriform Ltd. I've been using it for several years on two desktops, and one laptop. It's a free download, and will remove an average of 130 mb on a monthly cleaning. It not only cleans temporary files and adware; it will also clean your registry.
 
Ahhhh, the blue screen of death. Mine was acting just like your's Mudbut then it took the death dump and I had to buy a new one. Well, thats what the folks at Best Buy told me. I wonder if they have a more vested interest in selling new or fixing old.

I ran the resident defrag program on mine and it got all the files and folders clumped closer together on the HD but I didn't see any appreciable increase in speed. I think Billy "Gdog" Gates has built in bugs in his MS systems that hatch out 4-5 years after you buy a computer and make it die a slow and painful death until the inevitable blue screen of death appears.

BTW I work with a guy who bought a new Dell online. Had it for two days and it went TU. The sales chick at Best Buy actually told me they were trying to steer people away from Dell. I asked her which brand was coming back throught the door at 'em and she said they are reccomending people not buy Dell. Who knows though, maybe their profit margins a re higher on the other brands than Dell.

The 'Bonker
 
I'd definitely give CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) a try. I have it on all of my computers and run it usually every couple of weeks. You'll be surprised how much "crap" it actually cleans from your computer.
 
No, i take it as....ccleaner is OK but dont expect to really speed up your PC much. Other low cost alternatives do more it appears. I am certainly not one to advise on this as PC death is only overcome with a new PC in my experiece. I have really never had a ton of luck getting stuff 100% resolved with any free-ware, but like I said, I'm no expert. Good luck, and let us know if it helps. My laptop is about due for some feeble attempt of performance boosting.:rolleyes:
 
Gotcha, good advice. I'm gunna give it another few days to see what else is suggested, maybe some computer nerds gone bowhunter will post some stuff as well.
 
I had the same issues a few months ago. Local Technology place cleaned the junk out, but recomended that I increase the size of the memory to make it perform better and faster. That did the trick. The maintanance they did and the increase in the memory cost me about $180, much cheaper than a new computer, and the gal there said we should be good for 3 to 5 more years.
 
I downloaded spybot for free on my computer. I run it every week or two and it finds stuff to clean up every time. The old lady swears by it. Not sure if it will help you but might as well try it muddy.
 
Download Symantec Corporate Edition antivirus from work at the IT website.
 
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I like CC cleaner too but if you're not careful it will monkey with the registry. I swear by (on more than 30 machines) Free Internet Eraser. It removes all data from temp directories, cookies, dowloaded install files, etc etc. If you install, go to the "Browers" and "Windows" tab at the top and check every box on those pages. The other thing that I do frequently is go to start ---> run and type in "msconfig". Go to the startup tab and uncheck anything that doesn't point to something you know. Seems like I get tons of extra crap running during startup that kills the performance. Once you restart(unless it's a trojan or something) those things will not be running in the background anymore.
 
I don't like symantec or AVG that well unless I'm doing a virus scan because they both have so much crap running in the background that it makes a huge difference in performance. I install AVG once a month and run a scan, then remove it lol.
 
Ccleaner is what I use for a free program. All it's doing is clearing temp internet files and other temporary, unused files, cache, etc. It also has a registry cleaner though which I like.

If you ever think your problem is virus related, ditch the AVG free and download the trial version of Kaspersky. It will find anything out there and get rid of it. Their trial version is a full blown version with no limits other than it eventually expires. You have to uninstall all other antivirus programs first however. Once clean, run till near expiration and then 86 Kaspersky and reinstall the newest AVG free.

Takes a little time to go through it all, but that's the low budget answer for virus removal. If all else fails, back up your important files and try reformatting the HD, then reinstall windows from scratch. If you've gotten even a single blue screen of death, I'd be sure your files are backed up ASAP!
 
jasondodd said:
The other thing that I do frequently is go to start ---> run and type in "msconfig". Go to the startup tab and uncheck anything that doesn't point to something you know. Seems like I get tons of extra crap running during startup that kills the performance. Once you restart(unless it's a trojan or something) those things will not be running in the background anymore.
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I went to this and out of maybe 25 things I recognized like 2. What needs to be running? My internet seems to work fine, but my computer is super slow at start up. What actually needs to be running?

I also have spybot on mine, and have been happy with it.
 
I had a trojan mess with my registry and all but shut down my computer. Luckily i had a copy of the registry saved from a motherboard program. Put in the new and saved my computer. I still had to go to a few virus/spyware forums to get help to rid the last of it. Many very knowledgable people told me to download and run A-Squared free and Malware Bytes Anti-Malware. I was suprised to find a couple trojans hiding in my files. Once i got all that out, my computer ran fine.

So usually every two weeks i run:
1. CCleaner
2. A-Squared Free
3. Maleware Bytes Anti-Malware
4. Windows Defender (Vista)
5. my AVG antivirus (it can be configured to run the least amount of stuff in the background as can all antivirus programs)
5. Then run a system defrag

More memory (ram) is always a good thing helping with your computers speed.

If you download any free music, they oftentimes have trojans attached to the files. Just scan them before you use them.
 
Before I would try any free ware I would go to the control panel & run add/remove programs, once it populates the list, remove any programs that you don't use or need, particulary games. The next thing I do is defragment then re-boot. This usually speeds my computer up but as previously mentioned you may need more memory if you store a lot of large files or photos if you have a high mega pixel camera. Videos eat up a lot of space too so you may want to put stuff like that on a flash drive 1st. Cheap alterniative worth a try, good luck!
 
You can't hurt anything by unchecking them in the msconfig startup options. If it's critical when you open the software that you took out of the startup list, everything will still be just fine.
 
I've deleted a bunch of crap and defragging the system is next on the agenda, then maybe try some of the above alternatives.
 
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