Computer house calls in Puna?

[zzz]

Aloha. We are experiencing some computer difficulties here in lower Puna. Slow, although we have DSL, and other quirks. Any recommendations for reliable computer experts in lower Puna that make house calls?

[BigIslandlovers]

Try downloading these programs: CleanUp, Malwarebytes, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Avast 2015 Free. You can get them from www.downloads.cnet.com .. You will want to run CleanUp first to remove temp files. Then Malwarebytes to find any bad things. Spybot will be next and will find anything that Malwarebytes missed. You will then run the Avast anti-virus program with it boot time scan option.

You can also run Advanced System Care 8 and see if it helps the PC's performance. But the program can slow down some PC's.

[HI_Someday]

You didn't state what computer you have (PC or Mac). If it's a PC then in addition to the steps BIL mentioned above you might try running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter. They are located here (or thereabouts, depending on your OS):

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools.

Run one, wait until it's finished then run the other. If you haven't defragged your drive lately (or ever), it could take an hour or more. Also update your virus software and run a Full System Scan. In my opinion these steps should be done on a regular basis as a sort of "tuneup".

[steve1]

If you have a mac, you might want to Repair Disk Permissions using Disk Utility which lives inside the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder.

If your Mac is running system 10.6.8 or earlier, an excellent (and free) debugging tool is Applejack which is very small and you can find here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15667/applejack

If your Mac is running 10.7 through 10.10 you can use the Mac's built in Disk Recovery tool by restarting and holding down holding the Command and R keys. If your system software is too corrupt to repair, it will download new system software but the file is 4-6 gigabytes so that may take a while. You can read about it here:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4718

[TUCK]

I am always looking for computer management programs also. When I saw the list of programs (from Big Island Lovers) one might install I asked a very experienced computer friend who looked at them and said that while the first few are fine, they could conflict with ones already installed anti-virus program. He was of the strong opinion that Advanced System Care 8 is a malware program itself. I am not being a troll,and have no wish to offend Big Island Lover, but am merely passing along some advice from someone who has always given me good advice.

[bluesboy]

If it's a pc, I've found that over the years many programs get installed, and they sometimes have a startup utility that helps it run faster when you bring it up. If you disable these startup programs, then your computer will overall run much faster, but when you bring up individual programs, they may take a little longer to boot up. That's usually a pretty neglible difference compared to the overall increase in speed you'll achieve by not having all those programs on standby.

To disable the startup of these programs, in the start menu type msconfig in the run box, then go to the startup tab, click hide Microsoft services, then check all remaining, then choose disable at startup. You may notice you'll actually need some of these, but the computer will prompt you that they're not running, and you can then enable them if you absolutely need them.

[BigIslandlovers]

Not offended at all Tuck. I could've explained the steps and details a bit better. Theses are some of the programs that we use here to clean PCs. I was mostly putting out the easy ones to use. And while true on the conflicting of some programs like Avast with another anti-virus program is true I use Avast mostly because of its boot time scan and then I will remove it if the customer is using another program. Advanced System Care is a good program and over 117 million people have used it. While its a good program to use in cleaning up the PCs performance I usually don't keep it installed as it can be a memory hog.