if something goes wrong?

[soulfood]

Hi if something goes wrong, how do i know where the "cancer" has come from? or to put it another way, how u tell where the problem is? is it the cpu, Hard drives, graphic card, power supply, ram, drivers, anti-virus programs, internal wiring , turn on button, USB 3.0, etc? there is so much that could go wrong, ? thanks

 

[bigmck]

Hi if something goes wrong, how do i know where the "cancer" has come from? or to put it another way, how u tell where the problem is? is it the cpu, Hard drives, graphic card, power supply, ram, drivers, anti-virus programs, internal wiring , turn on button, USB 3.0, etc? there is so much that could go wrong, ? thanks

The first thing is to tell us what the problem is. If this is a "hypothetical" question, I don't think that can be answered.

 

[soulfood]

Ok what do i do if my computer slows down and runs really sluggishly? is there a program that can pin point where the problem might be?

 

[glassofwater]

First backup all important data using an external hard drive, DVD or CD-ROM
Reinstall Windows XP from scratch.
To further enhance the totality of your reinstall simply format the hard drive using your Windows XP installations disks by deleting old partitions on your primary drive and recreating those same partitions.
After deleting and recreating the partitions XP setup will ask you to format the new partition on the disk. perform a full disk format as NTFS. After that simply move to installing the operating system as prompted.
Reinstall the programs backed up and repopulate important data into fresh operating system installation.

On XP and previous versions of Windows libraries, file and drivers were prone to corruption which was always a big issue. Not to mention spyware, trojans and other nuances of those kinds which if left unchecked over time time tends to lead to system lag and processing power degradation.

If you do not want to reinstall the OS there are various things you can do remove some of the cruft to speed it up.
Use Sysinternal tools like Autoruns to identify processes that start unnecessarily
Uninstall used software
The normal maintaincey stuff defrag, etc,.

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

Hi if something goes wrong, how do i know where the "cancer" has come from? or to put it another way, how u tell where the problem is? is it the cpu, Hard drives, graphic card, power supply, ram, drivers, anti-virus programs, internal wiring , turn on button, USB 3.0, etc? there is so much that could go wrong, ? thanks

I'd start with running a Virus Scan. Update, scan, and remove whatever it finds.

What Internet Security do you use?

Download Malwarebytes and Junkware Removal Tool. Update, scan, and remove whatever is found, as well.

Download CCleaner.

Run Disk Cleanup.

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag. Also, View Manual.

Take a look at this tutorial: Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

This would be a good place to start.

Hope this helps,
John