PC advise please - if poss.

[Retro Pedro]

I've got an really old 'Time' tower PC that I bought in 2002.
Apart from replacing the powerpack twice, adding more memory and an additional DVD drive, it's been as good as gold (touch wood) for my needs. Apart from when the hard-drive connectors needed re-seating.
I run Windows XP Business version and use AVG free edition for the anti needs. I do get the 'not geniune' Microsoft message come up each time it boots up but just hit the cancel button and all seems to work OK. PC originally came with 'home' version but got unofficial 'upgrade' to business version because work wanted me to try remote access from home. After trying to come clean with Microsoft, I did try to get the download 'home' version from them to correct it properly, but the tight fisted very hard up Microsoft people wouldn't play fair with the download, something about insufficient proof because I didn't have the original discs and that was after I supplied them with the original invoices and spec. copies listing pre-loaded Windows XP - but that's another story.
Back to present, probably about 6 six months ago it was getting slower to boot up and slower to jump between online actions, i.e. going from one web site to another or refreshing the site I was visiting. Then during this week it took virtually 6 hours to boot up, with umpteen retrys every hour or so. Eventually it did boot up. Same thing happened this morning but I did get it going and thought it best to take action. Initially, I'm backing up all my pictures and documents onto a free standing hard drive. Then I'm going to try and back up my iTunes library.
1st question - should I try and back up any programmes that I want to keep or would it be easier to try and find latest versions (most are free downloads)
After backing up is done, thought I'd try and run spybot and do a search for viruses - programme is already loaded.
Thought about running Malware bytes but every time I try and load, it comes up with get a free version via a sponsored partnership. In the past, I have paid my £3 for P&P to Vistaprint for a free tee shirt, to date, I've never received a tee shirt and obviously the programme doesn't load because it happens every time - beginning to think it's a scam.
From there, I'll do a defrag disc and try and remove any unused programmes.
If that doesn't speed things up, thinking a disc wipe and try and disc rebuild. Would definately need help with that one. Should it go that far, apart from the Windows XP oprating system disc and other programme disc I would need to rebuild, is there anything else I would need?
If anybody as got any other ideas that I should try before the disc wipe, please shout, I'm all ears.

[bhcalcutta]

Altough you are probably better off looking for new versions of the programs you use, I'd back up everything, just in case.

Malware bytes is an excellent program. You cn download the free version from here http://www.malwarebytes.org/lp/malware_ ... tAod-3QA9Q

It sounds to me like your opperating system is corrupted though, and although a registry cleaner might help, most of them cause more problems than they cure.

A fresh clean install of XP will probably cure your problems, but symptoms like you are experiencing can also be caused by 1 or more memory banks failing, cpu failing, or failiure of other devices.

I have quite a range of free diagnostic programs if you need any.

Regards, Pat

[Retro Pedro]

Thanks Pat - may come back and take you up on that offer. At the moment I'm sitting here watching the back up - 30gb done, 8gb more to go and been running for 4 hours.
Thinking back when I initially got it going after the long start up, Mazola Firefox jumped in, which as been sitting dormant on my computer for years. I used to run it that but for some reason it got change and was only left on it in case there were any bits from old that would require Firefox. So it seems something was getting disjointed.
Of late, been using Google Chrome, but have been told it's heavy in usage.
So as not to confuse, I'm using the laptop for posting and watching the tower do it's thing uninterupted.

[bhcalcutta]

Chrome can be a bit heavy, but it beats IE hands down.

Tbh, I use firefox except for downloading, cause their download manager is a right royal pain in the

[bhcalcutta]

Forgot to add, have you had any BSODs (blue screens of death) recently?

If so, do you know the error codes?

[Retro Pedro]

Forgot to add, have you had any BSODs (blue screens of death) recently?

If so, do you know the error codes?

No screen of death - just running very slow to not booting up.
I did do a spybot and it dug up 'SweetIM' error, and from what I could see on the listing, it was nested in the boot up info. All the other errors were 'cookie' related or something like that (my IT ain't that hot).
I was getting ready to throw this tower PC in the bin because it wouldn't fire up at all last night. Gave it another try this morning and was able to interrupt the boot up with 'F8' and get it booted in 'safe mode'. Looked promising because it asked for my settings or administrator. Left it running all day just in case I couldn't get in going this evening. Decided to give it a 'restart' and it booted up in the normal windows way. Hence me using it now and at normal speeds.
The fact that it's running normally at this moment in time leads me to believe the hardware is OK and the software start up as got corrupted.
Was sounding the IT fella at work today seeing if he had Windows XP discs and microsoft office in case it went down the wipe disc route. The major reservation he had about doing a wipe was that this is a defunct TIME company computer and had concerns about getting online motherboard drivers if required.
He came up with the suggestion to try and do a dated boot up from when it was running OK and resave settings.
If this doesn't boot OK tomorrow morning, reckon that will be the next course of action prior to doing a disc wipe.

[bhcalcutta]

You shouldn't have to much trouble finding motherboard and other drivers. I can probs help with that