Processes and processor usage percentage?

Kids these days -- no childhood upbringing...


Those things come loaded with all sorts of crapola on them -- almost any consumer grade Vista machine comes that way these days. You have two choices:

1) Painstakingly find out what each and every process is, and uninstall the programs that are starting them. If you just kill the process, it will start up again when you reboot.

2) Fresh, clean install of Vista (preferred method).


In general, a clean Vista install will come up with one desktop icon, and roughly 40 processes running -- very fast. The downside, is you have to purchase another copy of Vista, as the manufacturers usually only give you restore discs, which have all the same crap on them.

If you choose option 1, you need to go into Task Manager, and Google each and every task's name, and you will find many sites devoted to telling you what they are, whether you can remove them, and how to go about it. This can take days to do properly, which is why I prefer option 2

It all comes down to how much your time is worth...



Another thing to make note of, is you mentioned surfing...

If you are using FireFox, it does not handle Flash sites well (in fact, very badly). That means any site with any Flash on it, even a simple Flash advert, will slow your machine to a crawl, and eat yer CPU. Two sites I go to often are CNN and the Weather Channel -- they are both loaded with Flash, and will slow everything down.

i must say I really really hate when preloaded software bogs down my computer. I assume the only reason computer makers do this is because they get a ton of money from the software companies.

I wonder how much a computer would cost without any preloaded software...just the operating system.

how about letting your customers pick and choose which software to dowload and try by giving them offers rather than preloading it and slowing down a machine.

I doubt that will happen anytime soon...

That's a good part of the reason for low priced computers -- the software companies subsidize the costs, by paying to have their demo software loaded on them.

Sorta like cell phones -- you get the phone basically free, but you pay in the long run for the service. Many consumers will choose to purchase and activate the demo software on a new machine -- especially the anti-virus, and Office suites, rather than search for their own...


I wouldn't use an off the shelf machine for DJ work, unless I reinstalled the OS from a clean copy first. Unless it was a clean machine -- but then you pay more for it.


A pro contractor doesn't buy the cheapest tool on the market -- he gets the ones that work right, and last. Neither should a pro DJ.

Penny wise -- pound foolish

You should not have to purchase a new OS to reload a computer. The system restore discs usually install a clean OS with the manufacturers specific drivers included. The add-on crap is then in another installation disc. Typically the add-on software disc has individual installation options so you can install your DVD player and burner software without adding the junk you don't want. Many new computers do not come with thees recovery discs, but the files are stored wasting space on your hard drive and you usually run a program to burn them to create the recovery CD set.

DJ Dan said:

I just figured out a way to stop my laptop from installing most of their crap on a system restore. Acer does it really weird once you log in to windows for the first time it runs a script and locks you out of your computer while it installs a bunch of worthless crap. All other computers I've done system restores on all the crap is in the image not an after thought. I figured out how to kill the process then stop it from running at startup. I do agree with Rick your best bet is just buying a new copy of Vista but at ~$200-$300 it's not always affordable. I'd rather put that money towards a copy of Photoshop so I can learn that; not software that I already have a license for that infected the crap.

What Fred says is true custom builders are great but the two local shops I know give me the impression that they don't know much more than I and are mostly focused on businesses. I've always had luck buying the best I can afford off the shelf at the moment. I always shop based on specs, price is second. If I cannot afford what I feel comfortable with so I have some breathing room in the future I'll hold off until I can.

Anyway Papa sorry to deviate from your thread. If you'd like to set some time aside (over the weekend?) so I can log in remotely I'd be happy to help you clean up the system.

Click to expand...

Dan,

I would disagree on the affordable part (for the regular working DJ).

Folks are spending $5k for speaker systems, $2k for lights, thousands for music, and only $399 for the machine that plays it back :sqerr:


Pick up that $399 machine, a fresh retail copy of Vista for $300, a simple format and install (takes maybe an hour) -- and you have a primo working class machine -- no worries, no headaches

Laboratory Computers in Austin (I think there is one in Vegas now too) used to build custom made laptops. They have a cool website. Used to have lots of pictures of half clothed women (that they used for ads), but not so much anymore, but still a great company.

Mike

I still run XP for my DJ machines but they boot in 30 seconds.

I don't do anything special but strip the os to nothing and the only thing installed is my software for DJ purposes. I run nothing in startup and never let the computer touch the internet.

DJ Cam said:

I still run XP for my DJ machines but they boot in 30 seconds.

I don't do anything special but strip the os to nothing and the only thing installed is my software for DJ purposes. I run nothing in startup and never let the computer touch the internet.

Click to expand...

I do the same as well.. Only use XP and it never goes on the internet.
I tried Vista... and use vista at office and home, but not for DJ / Karaoke...
The requirements for most dj programs are still very minimal, unless using videos.

I still have one system going out with a athalon 2600+ and 1 gig ram... runs perfect for karaoke. Also use 2 laptop sign-in stations for karaoke that run win 98 yet...
Also I only use Desktops for DJ'ng as if something goes out I can change it quickly.

Cleaning up the startup programs will make a huge difference.

XP is much better than Vista for 99% of the world. The only people that need Vista are video editors, photoshop junkies and people using insanely large spreadsheets that can actually use more than 2GB of RAM. The rest of us are better off with XP. Buying a new PC usually locks you into Vista, but it's definitely worth the effort to see if they offer an XP recovery CD. If you do, definitely get it and the Vista recovery discs too in case you want to upgrade, or sell it with Vista in the future.

But then again, some people actually may like the computer asking them if they are really sure they want to do everything....