Hardware testing.

[Liam Proven]

On 18 September 2010 03:48, Patton Echols <p.echols at comcast.net> wrote:
> On 09/17/2010 07:17 PM, Doug wrote:
>> On 09/17/2010 09:21 PM, P Echo wrote:
>>
>>> I've been asked to triage a laptop running windows xp   I know that my
>>> problem is off topic, but the question is "on" I think.
>>>
>>> /snip/
>>>
>>> If it matters, the symptoms are multiple, repeated crashes of things
>>> like MS Word, especially when trying to cut and paste from MS Excel.
>>> (WinDUHs not even playing nice with itself)  I assume the normal bloat
>>> and crap-ware on the system, but want to exclude hardware problems
>>> first.  It is a Dell Laptop, @ 3 years old.  No model or other yet.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any thoughts.
>>>
>>> -- Patton
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Have you done all the usual things, like defrag, etc.?  Have you run
>> some good anti-virus program(s)?  Windows even has some of its own
>> security stuff now, but I'm not sure it's available for XP.  Also, I'd get
>> and run a registry checking/fixing prog, like Registry Mechanic. And
>> tell the owner of the machine to never run any kind of Outlook or
>> Internet Explorer.  They're magnets for trouble from the outside.
>> Only then run your tests.
>> (You probably knew all this, anyway.)
>> --doug
>>
>>
>>
> Sure, All the usual stuff.  I planned on doing the hardware checks first
> because I'm hearing things like "this laptop is crap, it's old and
> dying"  Until I do the HW checks, I'll never convince anyone that it's
> just the OS needing a cleaning.
>
> I don't know what's been done yet, I'm volunteering for a small
> non-profit and this machine is in production over night, then I have one
> day (tomorrow) to get it up to snuff to go out of town on business next
> week!
>
> Thanks for the thoughts (I had forgotten about Reg.Mechanic.)

FWIW, personally, from extensive experience, I consider all registry
tools other than RegEdit.exe and RegEdt32.exe to be a complete waste
of time. Don't bother, they're all just scams. Any improvement is
observed placebo effect, nothing more.

1. Clear out all the temp files, both from the user directory and from Windows.

2. Give it a CHKDSK. You can't do that from Ubuntu but a Win7
emergency startup CD (free download) works fine.

3. A virus scan with a couple of the freebies you don't need to
install is a good plan.

4. Run Windows Update & ensure every available serious update is
installed. Do the same with Office.

5. Delete all the uninstallers to reclaim a gig or so of space.

Unfortunately, you can only do step 1 from Linux, but it has uses all
the same - no files will be open, everything can be deleted, and you
can also get any pesky temp directories in the root directories of any
drives - the ones with long "names" in hexadecimal whose contents you
can't see from within Windows. Nuke those with extreme prejudice, too.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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