My desktop PC normally runs relatively slowly as I live in a rural area without the best broadband being available.
The PC is almost new and has been running, for several days, quite a bit slower than usual. I have Windows 8.1.
I have Avast Free Antivirus and after a scan it tells me my PC is running slowly and to speed thing up :-
7 useless programmes can be deactivated.
12 systems issues can be tweaked.
728 MB can be freed up on my hard drive.
I understand Avast is a decent system but does anyone know if I should follow the advice or is it possible I am being given "false positives" if that is the correct expression.
My own personal opinion is an Anti-virus should be an Anti-virus and nothing else.
Does it give a list of what changes it wants to make? (naming names)
Thanks for the advice and I will look to see if it gives a list of changes.
I have another question!
Recently I noticed a small revolving blue circle which often appears next to the cursor.
I'm pretty certain this did not appear on my previous computer or, for the first 2 months, with my new PC.
Is this of any importance?
I would appreciate any further responses, to either of these questions, altho' I believe hazelnuts' comment to be correct.
I know this is irrelevant but after I posted I checked and found one can use "hazelnuts' comment or hazelnuts's comment" according to one grammar website!
Broadband/internet connections being slow are not synonymous with a slow pc. It just means webpages and downloads will be slower. The blue circle is Microsoft's replacement (vista and newer) for the old hourglass (pc is working on something) icon.
Broadband/internet connections being slow are not synonymous with a slow pc. It just means webpages and downloads will be slower. The blue circle is Microsoft's replacement (vista and newer) for the old hourglass (pc is working on something) icon.
I understand that altho', presumably, the effects are the same.
My question was about "webpages and downloads" being slower than usual over a time period close to a couple of weeks.
Not particularly, unless you also find that offline programs and the operating system are also slow; however, you actually did find that the OS and programs are slow as you noted seeing the rotating circle nore than usual.
What are the 7 programs the antivirus says can be deactivated?
When did you last clean (normal routine) with ccleaner and do you have any additional includes or running an enhanced ccleaner or winapp2?
When was the last time you looked at the programs that startup with the machine and either uninstalled or disabled useless ones (like iTunes or realplayer "helper" if you rarely use these programs).
Slowness can also arise due to antivirus scanning particular programs and the antivirus taking forever to complete the scan. In the past when I used Avast Free Antivirus I saw first hand that it could take too long to launch some programs due to Avast's real-time protection, subsequent launches of those affected programs didn't suffer the slowdown because Avast had already scanned them. From my experience this happens with multitudes of antivirus software and while some are smart enough to let a pre-scanned program start as fast as possible other antivirus software won't such as MSE which seems to re-scan them all over again.
Edit:
Since you have Avast on the computer make sure that Windows Defender is disabled (if Avast didn't offer to turn it off during install) so that you don't have two av's running simultaneously.
Right-click in your taskbar and select Taskmanager.
When it opens select 'more details' button.
Make taskmanager fullscreen.
Select 'startups' tab at the top.
Hold down the Windows key (the one with the flag on near your spacebar) and tap the 'print screen' button once (it's usually one of your righthand side keys at top of your keyboard)
The screen will dim for a second.
Close taskmanager.
Open your Pictures folder.
There will be a folder called screenshots, the one you have taken should be in there.