Gaming PC has gone from middle aged to Pensioner in 5 seconds

[Acetic Orcein]

Hello!
Ok let's see...

Suddenly my computer has suffered severe slowdown. I'm definitely sure it's not a virus, as I scanned with malwarebytes, and also avg and no such malicious material. (also i've not been on dodgy sites)

Anyway, I notice severe lag when running my firefox browser. Opening a tabbed window with a youtube video loaded, and trying to use yahoo/msn.

Even with only one window open (let's assume two tabs), and msn messenger open, the computer spazzes out and freezes. I notice this happens more with a youtube video running.

Anyway I've never had such severe slowdown before... and I guess the only change I can think of is upgrading to the new firefox version. It gets to a point where the computer is unable to terminate processes, so I have to restart.

Anyone have any suggestions to help my pc become less of a resource hog perhaps?

 

[caster62003]

Don't think this will help, but I just recently restored my Moms computer, after she was complaining about similar symptoms. I also installed the latest Firefox as well, and she still says it is still slowing down severly. When she is using IE8, I guess it works just fine, no complaints from her.

I'm starting to think the Firefox team has done something to make it more of a resource hog, or something to that effect.

How does running IE work for you? Try installing IE8, how that work?

 

[Strider]

I agree, is it only firefox 'lagging', and when you speak of a freeze, does your complete operating system freeze?

If everything freezes, have a look at your cooling. Maybe dust clogs up the ventilation. That can happen anytime and could create such symptoms.

Oh and if it's only Firefox (also @caster62003), it might be an addon. That happens often and some addon programmers are careless. No issues with any 'clean' firefox, though.

 

[Acetic Orcein]

Hello!
Thanks for the replies

To caster: Yeah. I was sort of a firefox convert after using IE for aaaaaaages. I'd rather not 'downgrade' back to it lol!
But yes, I suppose trying a different browser might help! So I'll give it a go.

To Strider: the whole computer freezes, cpu usage goes up to 100% and nothing loads/works, though I now have process killer to shut down firefox if it goes on a resource binge.

I have also hoovered out my computer a few days ago (very dusty indeed), so I dont think that is the problem atm.
I'll try getting rid of any useless firefox add ons and give that a go too.

Thank you for your assistance.

 

[Santee]

Try opera I'm on beta 10 right now, it ran faster than Firefox at first but slowed down but still smoothly but it's a beta can't expect much so you might wanna try opera 9 latest stable. EDIT: Post below me is right Opera 10 beta used to lag all the time with HD youtube videos now it lagged once on a 6 minute video.

 

[Athlon-pv]

Why bother with Opera 9 , Opera 10 has been released y'day

http://www.opera.com

It is a good deal faster then Opera 9

Under 10 mb download.

 

[Elritha]

You can load firefox in safe mode to see if any addons or plugins are causing the problem. Check the start menu for the shortcut.

 

[omgmog]

There are a number of things that could be causing slowdown, one of them is a generally untidy system.

So first of all you're going to want to remove all temporary files/caches/empty recycle bin/etc. You can do this with CCleaner:

- http://www.ccleaner.com/download

It'll let remove all temporary files/caches/etc, and repair registry errors.

As you said your slowdown happens in Firefox mostly, it could mean that your Firefox profile is full of junk too, Firefox gives you a way to clean this up:

- In firefox you can go to Tools > Clear Recent History (ctrl+shift+delete) and clear everything.

If you've had your Windows install for a long time, and you've haven't defragged the HDD for a while, run the disk defragmenter:

- Start menu > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

run this on your C:, it might take a while if you have never defragged before, but it should provide a noticable improvement.


If you have less than 5% of your total HDD space free, this will also make the system run slower, so generally have a clean up of old files manually too.