My laptop has gone on strike - it's either on a go slow or working to rule

[KatyMac]

I have done disk clean up
I analysed the de-frag & it said it wasn't necessary
My virus software (AVG) is up to date

What else can i DO?

Nothing you can really do about internet speed alas. Pain I know. Could try resetting your connection but it may make it worse, not better.

Leave things alone that you don't know what they are. Chances are you don't need the AOL stuff, if you have never used AOL, but it's probably doing no harm just sitting on your hard disk.

Start - My Computer
HDD (C - hold your mouse pointer over the top of this icon, it will say Free Space: x.xxGB Total Space: x.xxGB
How much Free Space do you have? If more than 1.00GB, don't bother deleting things.

I dumped it - it came up You have never used this are you sure you want to delete it

24.2
53.1

& D is
38.2
53.6

24.2GB that's loads of free space. So no probs there... Windows only starts to get upset when it drops to under 1.0GB in my experience.

Sodding thing has just speeded up

Probably best to do a Shutdown this evening. Then turn it on in the morning (make a coffee, as if it's anything like my laptop, it will take a good 5 mins to boot) and with luck it will work fine.

What has speeded up? Do that PING thing again, has your net connection improved?

I shut down most evenings - shouldn't I?

Always did in the past (years ago), but these days I just Hibernate. Do a Shutdown once a week (or when it starts running too slowly!).
Shutting down every night is very good of you.

Exactly the same numbers - but it is visibly faster even DH noticed it

Hmm, odd. Ah well, at least it's running better now.

bizarre

Could well have been a website misbehaving in Firefox. Bad javascript can grind things to a halt - as I constantly find using beta versions of various javascript frameworks...

do you ever get pop ups for adverts when browsing the www (or even at other times)?

also.. if this is a laptop check the power management... my wife accidentally set her laptop to maximum economy.. this slow everything down even when the power is connected

if is happens again check you acutal CPU running speed.. you rh click on My computer and then select properties.. look for the line that says processor.. the first speed will show the maximum (this depends on the model) and below it will show the speed the cpu is actually running at..

So what should it be on maximum performance or maximum battery life?

I very rarely get pop-ups

depends on the laptop.. each manufacturer has there own power management tools

Mine laptops are all IBM and I set everything to high bettery performance.. this means that when the power line is connected everything will run at max speed.. when i=on battery everything will slow down and make the battery last much longer

Stupid Laptops

There is something that has been posted on Ask Jack about killing pointless processes in Windows...

Found it:

SysInternals' Process Explorer

Looks quite techie though, I'm sure there was something that sounded much less complicated that was mentioned.

Flossie - I didn't even understand the title

It has speeded up today - so I obviously did something right (who knows what )

So I think I will stop worrying about it

Thanks