'Hey, My PC is slow can you check it for me?'

[Kaido]

I just tell them to format and reinstall fresh.

I will basically go through checking everything for hours, never being all that sure of the real culprit, all the while finding tons of bloatware and spyware that can never be deleted. So, just starting with the format saves everyone time and tears.

It's really so much easier that way, especially with Windows 10, which actually does a pretty decent job of finding the majority of the drivers for you & auto-activates online based on your machine ID from the original OS activation.

 

[PliotronX]

Normally ill make sure the os drive is not taking a crap and only then start scanning for malware. I will inquire about patterns or conditions where things are slow while looking at the smart status. I have come across a few cases recently where smart is fine, no malware, and an online chkdsk doesn't reveal a problem but when trying to run a system restore, it failed and wanted a chkdsk /r which actually fixed the slowness issue so the system restore was not necessary. Over the years I have worked on half a dozen systems that just inexplicably passed all tests and so a clean installation of windows was in order. Sometimes if the drive is a 5400 rpm, I will recommend and install a SSD to further improve it.

 

[Crono]

The problem is once you help them, they expect it again and again. And it will happen again, because they're often the ones responsible for the problems. And really, this stuff can take many hours to troubleshoot, or even days. So, I generally don't do it anymore. I have enough of this crap in my own household - 3 Windows PCs and 3 Macs. In fact, I'm backing up my OS X 10.11 iMac right now, in preparation for the update to macOS Sierra.

Furthermore, I don't want to be blamed for important files they may lose or may have already lost because of their own mistakes.

I even turned down my father-in-law's request recently. It didn't go over so well, but I had some pseudo-legit excuses. I'm 90% sure his setup is full of malware, so I probably saved myself half a day's work.

This problem is mostly resolving itself, thanks to smartphones, tablets, chromebooks, and ultrabooks. Hardware with few (easily) user serviceable parts, and operating systems that have an easy recovery and restore option. Cheaper laptops are practically throwaway commodity appliances now, too.

I can open up a smartphone and replace the display, or take apart an ultrabook or macbook with the help of ifixit or a youtube video, but it's not worth the trouble 99% of the time. Even the phone repair people who have kiosks in the mall won't be there forever the next time display tech advances. Companies like Apple already make it hard because of security measures, and non-removeable batteries are now the standard. But mostly people are just replacing their devices when they break, anyway, rather than having them repaired.

People do still have desktops and larger laptops, but the number of people who use them as their primary computers is dwindling. Of course, this isn't really good news for old school mom and pop repair shops. Eventually they'll go the way of television repair shops. Not much you can do to fix cloud software, either.

Those of who use powerful desktops are our own IT, so we'll at least be doing our own repairs. But it's really not long before casual desktop users asking for help fixing their computers is an uncommon occurence. Kids are being raised on touchscreen devices with soldered on/enbedded hardware that would take a team of engineers to repair. The mainstream desktop is going to all-in-ones, thin clients, NUC/mac mini-type PCs, and "sticks". Computer broke? No problem! Go to your local CVS, pay $30 for a new stick, done. All your stuff is in the cloud (or wirelessly networked external drive, if you are fancy), anyway. And when VR/AR hits peak use, it will be primarily powered by consoles, smartphones, and embedded computers.

10 years from now we'll be looking back with some nostalgia (but mostly we'll appreciate not being IT for friends and family) on the days when it was possible to fix computers yourself without expensive equipment and several degrees or certs. Similar thing is happening with cars.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I do have a soft spot for people who are willing to listen to & follow my advice, however. Which is almost nobody, in practice.

I hear ya. I had an (older) relative that I was spending painstaking hours "helping", finally tell me that they were being obstinate on purpose, so that I would break down and just do the task for them. They had no intention of actually trying to learn anything on a computer.

But a surprising number of people just go buy a replacement computer with the same slow HDD & pre-loaded bloatware & wonder why they don't get good results, which is why I typically just recommend buying a Chromebook as a replacement & moving all of their stuff into Google Drive if it'll fit.

Yeah. I'm about to throw in the towel with helping my friend, and tell him to go to G.S.

He complains that his PC is slow, nearly every week. But he won't put up any money for upgrades, preferring to spend it gambling.

I used to give him free parts. But no longer.

I sold him a wireless adapter, that would have been a much easier ordeal, if he had just told me that one of the antennas had broken on his old one.

 

[Eug]

Hah. I just realized my main Mac OS X 10.11 machine, a 27" iMac, is still on 10.11.1. Latest version is 10.11.6, but Sierra 10.12 is already out too. So it seems I can't even be bothered to update my own machines, much less everyone else's.

I think I'll just update straight to Sierra from 10.11.1. I had already done so on my MacBook Pro temporarily, with a hack actually, since it's a 2009 and is not supported, but it works fine in Sierra. And just last month my main applications were updated to support Sierra so I should be fine.

This problem is mostly resolving itself, thanks to smartphones, tablets, chromebooks, and ultrabooks. Hardware with few (easily) user serviceable parts, and operating systems that have an easy recovery and restore option. Cheaper laptops are practically throwaway commodity appliances now, too.

I can open up a smartphone and replace the display, or take apart an ultrabook or macbook air with the help of ifixit or a youtube video, but it's not worth the trouble 99% of the time. Even the phone repair people who have kiosks in the mall won't be there forever the next time display take advances. It's already difficult to get at internal batteries. But mostly people are just replacing their devices when they break.

People do still have desktops and larger laptops, but the number of people who use them as their primary computers is dwindling. Of course, this isn't really good news for old school mom and pop repair shops. Eventually they'll go the way of television repair shops. Not much you can do to fix cloud software, either.

Those of who use powerful desktops are our own IT, so it's really not long before casual desktop users asking for help fixing their computers to be uncommon. And kids are being raised on touchscreen devices with soldered on/enbedded hardware that would take a team of engineers to repair. 10 years from now we'll be looking back with some nostalgia (but mostly we'll appreciate not being IT for friends and family) on the days when it was possible to fix computers yourself without expensive equipment and several degrees or certs. Similar thing happened with cars.

This is true, and it's great. iPads are so simple to setup in comparison. So simple that people can actually do it themselves. I too have noticed less people asking for help from me... but then again maybe it's because they know I'd often refuse.

I do have a soft spot for people who are willing to listen to & follow my advice, however. Which is almost nobody, in practice. Typically anything made within like the last five years is pretty decent & can be sped up with just an SSD boot drive swapped in, and they can auto-save all their files to Backblaze. If they're willing to spring for an SSD & a good backup system, I'm usually willing to help them out because it means I can create a master image of their system if they get goofed up again, they'll see a big performance boost from the SSD, and if they do get nuked, all their stuff is in the cloud, ready for download again, and they don't have to remember to manually back it up or plug in a USB backup drive or whatever. But a surprising number of people just go buy a replacement computer with the same slow HDD & pre-loaded bloatware & wonder why they don't get good results, which is why I typically just recommend buying a Chromebook as a replacement & moving all of their stuff into Google Drive if it'll fit.

What pisses me off to no end at work is that they keep replacing the computers with new computers but with the same crappy hard drives. I told them I'd pay the difference if they'd spec the same computer but with an SSD but I am always refused. I understand why, which is that they need to have a consistent hardware platform for their cloned installs, but those hard drive based computers just waste so much time. And time is money.

I said the same thing about memory, but they refused that too way back when 2 GB was the norm, so one day I just bought some extra (good quality) memory and stuck it in my work computer and didn't tell anyone. 4 GB breathed new life into the machine, until they replace the computer again.

 

[Newbian]

Their porn collection to see if it's worth my time to fix it for them.

 

[zinfamous]

Geek squad charges I believe $190 CAD for this type of work. Let's pick a hourly wage which is half that of a car mechanic's for labour, so about $50 per hour. So that means about 4 hours worth of work. Well, that's about how long it would take me to go through everything. I'm sure an expert like Kaido could do it way faster, but I don't do it for a living so it takes me longer. So, no thanks.

Would they consider it reasonable to call a friend over to cut the lawn six times? Cuz this is pretty much similar.

I did call my nephew over to help cart stuff into the garden with a wheelbarrow. But... I paid him $30 an hour, and then fed him afterwards.

well, my advice and methods are always free.

 

[Newbian]

well, my advice and methods are always free.

Except they caused anal leakage the last time I took them somehow.

 

[John Connor]

Like everyone said, task manager first. Or Process explorer, process hacker. Then I would use Autoruns and make sure there isn't a bunch of crap starting up. Caution with that as you don't want to disable/delete the wrong item.

Far as malware/ADware removal. Run in this order:

Rkill
Tdsskiller
Malwarebytes
Superantispyware
ADwcleaner
Junkware Removal Tool
Herdprotect portable Make sure you aren't using OpenDNS during the scan.

Then you can also try hijackthis and/or Freefixer. Be very careful with Freefixer and check each module. You can read the Hijackthis log at www.hijackthis.de

 

[zinfamous]

Except they caused anal leakage the last time I took them somehow.

You knew what you were getting into!

 

[Loop2kil]

Unless you're a close friend or family member that I like, I charge a $50 minimum. This eliminates a lot of unnecessary calls.

• Task manager (look for evil)
• look at PC specs and taper expectations
• TFC cleaner (great for cleaning multiple user accounts at once) and/or CCleaner(though I hate what ccleaner has become of late)
• Hijackthis
• Malware/bloatware (remove most if not all HP software from printer installations), the list of programs to use has been listed a few times already.

Honestly, If they're running Windows 7 or newer it's almost always a slow crapping out mechanical drive that needs to die and be replaced with an SSD.
I can clone almost any working mechanical drive image onto a SSD and it becomes a whole new computer.

I'm actually seeing less and less malware/virus issues these days...with modern computers the old style mechanical drives are a huge bottle neck and with a few months of constant use from multiple users the computer becomes unbearable to use imho.

 

[Kaido]

Honestly, If they're running Windows 7 or newer it's almost always a slow crapping out mechanical drive that needs to die and be replaced with an SSD.
I can clone almost any working mechanical drive image onto a SSD and it becomes a whole new computer.

It amazes me that they even sell laptops with such crappy drives anymore. I worked on a new laptop recently that had like an i7, 8 gigs of RAM, nice GPU...and a 5200rpm drive. Not even 5400rpm lol. What a waste! Windows 10 was a total dog on it because of the slow HDD speed & latency.

 

[ImpulsE69]

So no one else uses the float test?

1. Drop 'slow' computer in tub of water.
2a. If 'slow' computer floats, it is worthy of being fixed
2b. If 'slow computer sinks, it is not worthy, tell owner they need a new one.
3. Works like...all the time.

 

[zinfamous]

So no one else uses the float test?

1. Drop 'slow' computer in tub of water.
2a. If 'slow' computer floats, it is worthy of being fixed
2b. If 'slow computer sinks, it is not worthy, tell owner they need a new one.
3. Works like...all the time.

I'm pretty sure that my previous boss used this method. I would get a water-logged macbook deposited at my bench about every 4-7 months.

 

[Loop2kil]

It amazes me that they even sell laptops with such crappy drives anymore. I worked on a new laptop recently that had like an i7, 8 gigs of RAM, nice GPU...and a 5200rpm drive. Not even 5400rpm lol. What a waste! Windows 10 was a total dog on it because of the slow HDD speed & latency.

Yeah, I get people asking me advice on buying laptops all the time. The #1 priority I try to tell them is to make sure it has a SSD...but alas when they finally purchase they give me the specs and ask for my opinion. They boast about it having an i7, high end mobile gpu, lots of ram but some crappy slow @$$ mechanically drive <<SIGH>> "Don't come to me when it's slow" hehe

 

[Ichinisan]

appwiz.cpl
("Add/Remove Programs" / "Programs & Features" / "Uninstall a program" -- worded differently in each version of Windows, but getting there is easy)

Sort list by date installed.

You'll almost always see that recently installed software is highly suspicious and multiple suspicious entries were added around the same time, bundled together. Give the unwanted software a chance to remove itself because a removal tool might miss some bits from different variants.

Continue removing unwanted malware and bloatware, starting from most-recent and working backward. You'll usually find groups of malware that get installed around the same time. Remove any non-malicious but otherwise unwanted bloatware (Yahoo toolbars and such).

If user doesn't have a real need for Java uninstall it. Now, we're getting to a point where you might consider removing Flash Player. Install a browser like Chrome that still supports it, but auto-updates and keeps it sandboxed. Addresses most user neglected vulnerabilities.

Then check all processes in Task Manager and kill anything that shouldn't be there.

Remove non-standard plugins for Chrome / Firefox.
Install Adblock Plus (this suppresses a LOT of malware install prompts that come from unscrupulous ad networks).

inetcpl.cpl to open Internet Options and disable/remove unwanted IE plugins without actually running IE.

Check various startup items.

Regedit
HKEY Current User > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run
HKEY Local Machine > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run
Don't just remove malware, remove unwanted bloatware too.
Example: Maybe you actually want Adobe Reader, but you don't need it to run automatically at boot and occupy system resources.

Check services.
services.msc
Sort by status "running" together and look through those.
Sort by startup type "automatic" and look through those.

Follow up by scanning with legitimate tools like Microsoft Security Essentials / Windows Defender / etc.

 

[Naer]

reset to factory state!

 

[Eug]

The big one was the Windows 10 transition. I also refused to help anyone with that. It was painful enough for myself. On my old machines the update process did not go well. I ended up doing fresh installs on all three of them, and of course fresh installs of all my software. And on one of the machines Windows 10 would periodically delete my Windows 7 nVidia graphics driver and replace it with the generic non-accelerated MS graphics driver giving me a blurry non-native and much lower resolution on my monitor. Each time I would have to manually reinstall the nVidia driver. It happened two or three times, not counting the initial install where I had to manually install the driver too. Fortunately MS fixed that and that no longer happens, but that was months later.

Imagine if I had to go through this process for family friends as well.

BTW, one thing I learned going through this process though was that my Acer laptop install actually worked on my Acer desktop. Swapped in the drive and it booted Windows and ran my applications just fine. That surprised me. However, just to be safe I did a fresh install there anyway.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Thank you! I didn't expect you guys to tell me in steps!!!! I really appreciate it! I will act brainy tommorow and show my friend how its done like a pro!

I admire you sticking to your guns and saying that it is your friend.....we won`t tell your little secret....rofl....

 

[FrankRamiro]

To PC gods here. What is the first thing you check on the PC when someone ask you that question? What do you check exactly? I'm pretty sure everyone here experience someone saying that to you lol. The scary part is that some people actually pay for this? I'm pretty sure you can check yourself no? My friend actually ask me this but I said sure I check tomoz but what do I check exactly? Anything I should be looking out for? Anyone care to help? I really appreciate it

Well Cappuccino first thing before you ask any help it's good practice to provide info about your PC hardware and what OPS your running,