Dying computer
Apr. 8th, 2011 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackMy laptop has recently had problems starting up. It starts, but if you run more than one or two programs, they stop responding, in a fashion that makes me think of a computer out of memory.
I'm embarrassed because I'm a professional programmer, and yet I don't know everything about some obvious things like dealing with a normal home computer.
I'm buying a new laptop anyway, as this is quite old, but it would make sense to make it usable as well if I can.
What is most likely? The obvious suspects seem to be:
* Physical fault in memory or motherboard
* Hard disk too full or too fragmented
* Rootkit or other evil (I have AVG 2011, but I don't know if it woudl find everything)
* Accumulation of too much non-spyware crap that's installed and runs on startup
How can I most easily tell?
I'm embarrassed because I'm a professional programmer, and yet I don't know everything about some obvious things like dealing with a normal home computer.
I'm buying a new laptop anyway, as this is quite old, but it would make sense to make it usable as well if I can.
What is most likely? The obvious suspects seem to be:
* Physical fault in memory or motherboard
* Hard disk too full or too fragmented
* Rootkit or other evil (I have AVG 2011, but I don't know if it woudl find everything)
* Accumulation of too much non-spyware crap that's installed and runs on startup
How can I most easily tell?