Laptop woes

[RealNinja]

I have recently been given a laptop by my boss who has no use for it anymore (she bought a new one cos this was running really slowly)

I had a look at the HD space etc etc and it was in major need of an overhaul, so I have reformatted the HD.

I reinstalled windows no problem yesterday and all was working fine, I reinstalled spyware and a virus checker, put up the firewall and connected to the net. Still things were fine.

The I decided to try turning it off and starting up again, to boot from the HD.....

It nows runs as slow as it did before and will lock up for no apparant reason....

Suggestions please?!
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You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny

[Seb]

Get a smart checker (Make sure smart is enabled in the bios as well) and check out the state of the HDD, it could well be reallocating sectors due to faults elsewhere which would explain the big performance drop.

Something like Active Boot Disk will do the job nicely.
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2010 Triumph 1050 Sprint ST

[map]

Drivers?
Did you get the latest from the manufacturers site?

Also what version of Windows are you using and what memory does it have?

As well as the HD check it might be worth downloading the Microsoft memory checker - click here.
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...and the whirlwind is in the thorn trees, it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks...
Gibbs, what did Duckie look like when he was younger?

[NSR Mick]

Also try checking the CPU fan isnt clogged up.
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If you dont like the way that I ride.......Stop trying to keep up!!!

[RealNinja]

I have an update...

it seems to work perfectly ok until I install any windows updates and then throws a complete fit and won't do anything after rebooting...

no keyboard input, no pointer movement, nothing....

To the point where it won't turn off either...?!
____________________
You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny

[map]

[RealNinja]

I have installed SP2 off my disc, but then got about 35 updates for it to install.

XP OS

Would it not try to download SP3 when it did the updates?

Interestingly, it's working again now....but i'm not convinced of it's stability.

EDIT - 1g of RAM
____________________
You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny

[Seb]

Have you run a SMART disk check yet?
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2010 Triumph 1050 Sprint ST

[RealNinja]

I haven't yet....

I was going great guns, it was running fine with SP2, so I installed SP3 and it lost the drivers for the modem, so now i can't connect to the net anymore, without networking it to my PC

and I aint doing that until I know this thing isn't virused to death!

My main concern is the complete lack of stability, one minute it's fine the next it's locking up and crashing.....
____________________
You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny

[Seb]

Rule out hardware issues first of all.

A memory tester wouldn't hurt either, it's a 30 second download after all

https://www.memtest.org/

And then for the love of god, get a proper hard drive tester like active boot disk going, windows scandisk won't tell you the full story on a modern drive.
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2010 Triumph 1050 Sprint ST

[RealNinja]

Nobody move!

It's working (i'm typing this on it)

It's running service pack 3 (but dont tell it)

It's still connecting to the 'net

and

I can turn it off and on when i want!!!

Thanks to everyone that suggested stuff to try, I will dispatch karma across the board
____________________
You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny