HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files, etc

[Jayce]

Now, I'm asking this question as I wait for a response from him for several things.

First of all, they are not overly computer savy people. They just like to hit IE and go to their email wherever they want in the house (hence the laptop and wireless I helped pick out and secure for them). However, as time has passed, the laptop has gotten slower. To boot it up last night it probably took 4-5 solid minutes. It's got 1GB of RAM with XP Home SP2.

But when he plays audio, it kind of made me curious. Whether it's an actual CD playing, a DVD, a digital file, or streaming, it all seems extremely choppy. Same with his ability to stream a movie trailer, like we tried last night from Apple's trailer site and it was just too choppy to tolerate, so I brought in my laptop from my car to watch it without any issues.

I told him to do the following...

-Defrag.
-Full Virus Scan (AVG)
-Full System Scan (Adaware)

Despite the fact Adaware hadn't been updated in I think 390 days when I checked it, it still managed to pick up only like 70 spyware files and made no difference with the speed of the computer.

I told him to do a full defrag and a virus scan, then we'll talk more.

But in the meantime... I'm here... wondering... a bogged down computer (from lack of defragging or else due to a virus) WOULD be able to produce the results we were seeing. Right?

Half of me was wondering if it was a hardware issue until I saw how slow the computer booted. Wow...

 

[atomic tofu]

Re: HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files,

if it's my sister and bro in law...and I build them a computer secure everything....walk away and come back a year later. They will have ended up installing 5-10 things that load up on startup that need not be there.

Nothing extraneous on loadup?

 

[Jayce]

Re: HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files,

No. I checked the startup tab. That's why I was so shocked at the boot time, it was unbelievable considering it's XP with 1gb RAM.

 

[ricanflow]

Re: HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files,

Disk cleanup, defragment, clear system restore. Pc's must be maintained, or they will slow down regardless. Also, ensure all drivers are up to date.

 

[Jayce]

Re: HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files,

Rican - do you remember that program that supposedly checks all drivers and automatically scans the net in order to see if any need updating? Just for the sake of toying around with it since it was brought up, maybe I could check it out. Do you have any ideas?

 

[ricanflow]

Re: HP Laptop. About 2-3 years old. Horrible audio on everything, CDs, digital files,

Hp has something like that on their website, but i would just do it manually, it doesnt take long. At last resort, you can get a soundblaster audigy 2 zs pcmcia for like $60.