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Sad and funny at the same time..

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B

BrandonB

Member
​
Joined
Oct 11, 2004
Location
3 miles east of hell
So my boss talked me into coming over to remove a virus from his home computer.. Not a big issue.

The issue is that the computer is 7-8 years old.. Has NEVER had defrag ran.. and takes almost 20 minutes to boot into windows.


They've installed .. more programs than I knew were availible. The thing has XP and only 256 mb of ram. Last I looked.. the page file was 512mb.. and it was using 460 of it JUST SITTING THERE.

I've got some DDR 1 ram in a drawer that I'm going to throw in the thing.. I started defrag before I left...


What else can I do to speed up this OLD install? I've never seen an install last this long without a total meltdown.


The hard drive light never even blinks.. it just stays on. I think his wife was going to go through some of the programs and uninstall some, but is there any way something could actually be wrong with the drive and it not be throwing errors? I mean.. I've got a pentium 1 chip that would run better than this thing. It's horrendus.

Maybe a registry cleaner? Any more ideas? lol I'll never in heck talk them into a formatt .. even if I provide a copy of XP. The processor isn't the holdup. It's barely even working. I never saw a load over 10%.
 
I would run spybot search and destroy first. It was able to find stuff I didn't even know was a problem on my aunts old compaq from like 1999 LOL. Also I am wondering the size of the hard drive because you could probally copy an entire drive like that onto a usb drive format and reinstall. Maybe that would ease their mind about formatting know its all backed up.
 
here are the steps I take when a customer brings a computer to me. It takes about 1-2 days, but it gets the job done very well.

1. Pull the drive out of the computer and hook up to one of my 2 bench machines (for a few reaons that i will get into).

2. Once the bench machine is booted up, i do a virus scan then a spyware/adware scan of the drive while it is 'inactive' (aka not the boot drive). This gets rid of about 90-95% of the nasties that can get into a windows install.

3. Once that is done, I will go in and make sure to copy off all of the personal files I can find and set them aside in a directory on my machine ( just in case it decides to commit hari-kiri before i can finish fixing it up).

4. I will then remove their HD, and put it back in their machine. I then boot up into safe mode and do some general maintainence like cleaning up the startup-on-boot and such. At this time, I also run ccleaner to clean up temp files and do some basic registry cleaning. PortableApps.com has a great thumbdrive based utility with extras you can add in to help you with these tasks.

5. I then reboot again and once windows comes up, will make sure that if it is not installed, that I will install a good anti-malware (i use malwarebytes), update it, and then let it run a complete scan, not quick. Once it has found everything it is going to find that way, I will make sure either the customer's AV is up to date and let it scan, or if it is expired/a very out of date AV, will uninstall it, reboot, then install for them a good free AV like Avira, Avast!, AVG, or Microsoft Security Essentials.

6. I then make sure the AV is updated and have it run a full system scan. Let it catch whatever it finds.

7. At this point, instead of using the built-in defragger, I will use MyDefrag (formerly JKDefrag... also has a PortableApps.com version) set to the "once a month" script. This takes a few hours usually, but not only defrags, but coallates all the data so that it is all together at the front of the drive, and it opens up all the free space to be just that... free.

8. After this, I will make sure to get any/all windows updates/security patches/service packs that they need installed for them so that they don't have to worry about it. I also will make sure that their hosts file is updated with a good ad/spy/malware-blocking set, normally mvps, though i am currently experimenting with HostMan as it gets 4 different sets and combines them for you. This saves them and you a lot of grief in the future.

9. After all the updates are done, i'll give it another thorough once over to make sure i didn't miss anything. Make sure the Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus are updated, run a scan with both again. Use CCleaner to clear up temp files and internet cache again and to do one last registry cleaning. I will defrag it again. I will check the programs that load on start (either MSConfig or from PortableApps.com - WhatInTheStart), make sure nothing was left behind. Then a final reboot to confirm everything is working, that it is loading fine, and that i broke nothing (like make sure IE or Firefox or whatever they use works, and that Office works, that sorta thing)...

It takes time and dedication and a customer willing to be without their PC for a day or 2 (or possibly 3 if the HD is really bad off), but they will love you for it.
 
Personally, I wouldn't bother with anything more than you're already planning on doing. The extra RAM will make the biggest difference (I would install that before doing anything else, actually, just to get the machine semi-usable), then a good spyware/virus cleanup and a defrag should have it good to go.

I mean, people like that are generally pretty easy to please. Say you get the 20 minute boot time down to 5, and eliminate the 30-second lag on input. By our standards that would still suck pretty righteously, but the owner of that POS, since he's used to it being a POS, will be amazed at how much faster it is.
 
Old Thrashbarg said:
Personally, I wouldn't bother with anything more than you're already planning on doing. The extra RAM will make the biggest difference (I would install that before doing anything else, actually, just to get the machine semi-usable), then a good spyware/virus cleanup and a defrag should have it good to go.

I mean, people like that are generally pretty easy to please. Say you get the 20 minute boot time down to 5, and eliminate the 30-second lag on input. By our standards that would still suck pretty righteously, but the owner of that POS, since he's used to it being a POS, will be amazed at how much faster it is.
Click to expand...

While true, my method makes them think you are a miracle worker, especially since you didn't reinstall anything/cost them their files/music/pictures/docs/etc. Then, you get the pleasure of saying "That was a freebie. I have it in very good condition now. If it gets to that condition again, I'll have to charge you extra.
 
While true, my method makes them think you are a miracle worker, especially since you didn't reinstall anything/cost them their files/music/pictures/docs/etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, but your method also takes a great deal more work. That's what I'm getting at: there's no sense knocking yourself out on a job like this, they're going to be happy if you just get it working again, and they'll think you're a miracle worker if you make it noticeably faster... doesn't really matter if it's 5X faster or 9X faster. And if you can get it ready to go in the space of a few hours, they'll be even more impressed.
 
BrandonB said:
So my boss talked me into coming over to remove a virus from his home computer.. Not a big issue.

The issue is that the computer is 7-8 years old.. Has NEVER had defrag ran.. and takes almost 20 minutes to boot into windows.
Click to expand...

Probably full of junk, majorly fragmented and a bad HDD, maybe a bad IDE cable.

Or thermal throttling, because of the heatsink being jammed of dirt.
 
after 7 years? It's all HD.
Click to expand...

Fragmentation is probably a lot less of an issue than you think in this case. It's certainly a problem, but not the main one. The biggest problem is the fact that it's using 460MB RAM on boot when it only has 256MB physical. It's always swapping from disk, and that will make it dog slow no matter what.
 
Old Thrashbarg said:
Fragmentation is probably a lot less of an issue than you think in this case. It's certainly a problem, but not the main one. The biggest problem is the fact that it's using 460MB RAM on boot when it only has 256MB physical. It's always swapping from disk, and that will make it dog slow no matter what.
Click to expand...

also true.

thing is... either way... this HD is trashed and likely on life support.
 
TollhouseFrank said:
here are the steps I take when a customer brings a computer to me. It takes about 1-2 days, but it gets the job done very well.

1. Pull the drive out of the computer and hook up to one of my 2 bench machines (for a few reaons that i will get into).

2. Once the bench machine is booted up, i do a virus scan then a spyware/adware scan of the drive while it is 'inactive' (aka not the boot drive). This gets rid of about 90-95% of the nasties that can get into a windows install.

3. Once that is done, I will go in and make sure to copy off all of the personal files I can find and set them aside in a directory on my machine ( just in case it decides to commit hari-kiri before i can finish fixing it up).

4. I will then remove their HD, and put it back in their machine. I then boot up into safe mode and do some general maintainence like cleaning up the startup-on-boot and such. At this time, I also run ccleaner to clean up temp files and do some basic registry cleaning. PortableApps.com has a great thumbdrive based utility with extras you can add in to help you with these tasks.

5. I then reboot again and once windows comes up, will make sure that if it is not installed, that I will install a good anti-malware (i use malwarebytes), update it, and then let it run a complete scan, not quick. Once it has found everything it is going to find that way, I will make sure either the customer's AV is up to date and let it scan, or if it is expired/a very out of date AV, will uninstall it, reboot, then install for them a good free AV like Avira, Avast!, AVG, or Microsoft Security Essentials.

6. I then make sure the AV is updated and have it run a full system scan. Let it catch whatever it finds.

7. At this point, instead of using the built-in defragger, I will use MyDefrag (formerly JKDefrag... also has a PortableApps.com version) set to the "once a month" script. This takes a few hours usually, but not only defrags, but coallates all the data so that it is all together at the front of the drive, and it opens up all the free space to be just that... free.

8. After this, I will make sure to get any/all windows updates/security patches/service packs that they need installed for them so that they don't have to worry about it. I also will make sure that their hosts file is updated with a good ad/spy/malware-blocking set, normally mvps, though i am currently experimenting with HostMan as it gets 4 different sets and combines them for you. This saves them and you a lot of grief in the future.

9. After all the updates are done, i'll give it another thorough once over to make sure i didn't miss anything. Make sure the Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus are updated, run a scan with both again. Use CCleaner to clear up temp files and internet cache again and to do one last registry cleaning. I will defrag it again. I will check the programs that load on start (either MSConfig or from PortableApps.com - WhatInTheStart), make sure nothing was left behind. Then a final reboot to confirm everything is working, that it is loading fine, and that i broke nothing (like make sure IE or Firefox or whatever they use works, and that Office works, that sorta thing)...

It takes time and dedication and a customer willing to be without their PC for a day or 2 (or possibly 3 if the HD is really bad off), but they will love you for it.
Click to expand...

You say this process takes you 1-2 days, 3 if the drive is really bad. How much time would you say you're actually working only on that drive and computer in terms of hours? I'm sure there isn't a whole lot of time involved while your bench is scanning the drive, you probably work on other things as well. Once you get the drive back into the customer's pc though, it's a little more involved.
 
the actual time i'm sitting in front of the computer doing anything? Probably adds up to 35-45 minutes. The vast majority of the time is just letting the computer grind away and do it's thing.
 
when it comes to charging for it.. you charge for the time your apps are working to restore stuff..not just time you are actually working on it..
 
psionic98 said:
when it comes to charging for it.. you charge for the time your apps are working to restore stuff..not just time you are actually working on it..
Click to expand...

i do that when i have to go to their premises. 75 an hour from the time i step foot in the door till the time i leave. 125 just to come out which doesn't include the first hour.

SOme people are willing ot pay that.

If they bring i tto the shop, just a flat 75 bucks because i'm working on it at my leisure and have all the time in the world to get it right. i'm not in a hurry to get out of there like if i have to go to the premises cause i know they are gonna hate the high bill.
 
psionic98 said:
when it comes to charging for it.. you charge for the time your apps are working to restore stuff..not just time you are actually working on it..
Click to expand...

I realize that... I was just curious how much of his own input was a part of the 1-3 days.
 
psionic - neither my boss nor I can justify charging someone for work that we didn't do. No matter how long it sits back there churning away with my offline windows update dvd (thanks wsus!) or scanning with an antiviral or what have you... i've done just a few minutes actual 'work'.
 
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