Question by BatGurl: Computer Problems?
I have a computer that has been giving me some problems. I think I might have a virus, but I don’t know. My computer keeps telling me that there is no room, even though I have the bare minimum on the HD. I don’t have any games, I’ve removed all the neccesary programs through the control panel. I did have an anti-virus program but it was giving us errors, and I did what the tech support said which was to unistall and reinstall. However when I went to reinstall the software the computer told me I didn’t have enough room. There is something going on with our computer. The percentage of space keeps decreasing over time, even though nothing has been added. Does anyone have any advice to help?
Best answer:
Answer by M G
First try running the disk cleanup utility
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There are several possibilities here. First is the size of your browser cache. If you are on broadband, anything over 10-20 MB is overkill. Also, IE6 and IE7 have an advanced setting to empty the temporary folder when you close it. Second, some application is logging data like crazy. Do a search for *.tmp and *.log files. When you find the culprit, look for the log settings to see if you can tame the thing. Third, your page file may be getting out of hand. Set the minimum size to 2 times your SRAM size and the maximum to 4 times your SRAM size. If some application is gobbling up the page file and not releasing it, this will show it quickly. If you left click on My Computer, the right click on the C-drive, select “properties” and then “disk cleanup”, windows will clean up a lot of stuff for you.
Just a thought Do You use any utilities like norton protected recycled been or such? if yes empty those files. Right click on recycle bin and see the options. Empty recycle bin too. Scan your disk for errors. Just go to start / Run and type chkdsk.
This could be a number of things. I don’t know how experienced you are, so I’ll keep this basic and stick to only a few troubleshooting items.
Before getting intro troubleshooting, make sure your anti-virus program is installing into the correct hard drive (usually C:). If so, go on.
First, verify your free space. Open up My Computer and look under Hard Disk Drives. Look at the total space and free space for all the drives. The C: drive most likely the main one, so that’s the important one.
If it shows only a couple of GB or, even worst, any amount in MB in free space, then you’re out of space. Try cleaning up your hard drive by running Disk Cleanup (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools Disk Cleanup). Alternatively, download CCleaner, which cleans up more files (see sources). Check your free space again.
If that doesn’t help, try looking around your hard drive to see what’s taking up so much space. WinDirStat is a utility that can help you figure that out (see sources). MP3s and movies are the most common files.
If that doesn’t help, download and install AVG, a free yet good program (see sources) or go to the Symantec website and run a free virus scan (see sources).
If no viruses are found and you still have problems, short of a long list of troubleshooting steps, you may need to format your hard drive and reinstall.
If your hard drive, though, shows a lot of GB in free space, try downloading or copying over a huge file or several files (that you know are safe). Alternatively, try installing another program that you need, such as MS Office. If that doesn’t work either, your hard drive may be corrupted, whereby it shows free space but it is unusable. You may need to format your hard drive and reinstall everything.
If copying files or installing other programs works, then the problem may be the anti-virus program you’re trying to install.
Once you figure it out, you’ll want to make sure you have an anti-virus program (such as AVG) and a firewall (either the one in Windows XP or download the free version of Zonealarm) running at all times.
You’ll also want to set your recycle been space and system restore space closer to 1GB or less. Finally, set your IE cache space to about 200MB.
Udate your antivirus and scan your coputer in safe mode. After you remove virus, I recommend you use firefox browser. It is safer than IE. It can prevent viruses such as worm,trojan and etc. The newest official edition of firefox can be downloaded from http://www.mollzia.com