About Tom Guertin Expertise I can answer Desktop and Laptop hardware questions as well as software questions. I have worked as a programmer 9 years, test/QA 9 years, and system administration 7 years. Having a diverse background helps in diagnosing computer problems.
Experience Rocket Software Oct 14, 2002 – Present
Senior Systems Engineer: Responsible for all software and hardware installations, analysis, and support on all desktops and laptops. Support 200 remote employees along with 5 remote sites. Build servers, test, and build systems. Manage Active Directory, Exchange, Call Manager, and Unity accounts.
EMC Corporation Dec 31, 1999 – Nov 11, 2001
Senior Software QA Team Lead Engineer: Responsible for full software quality assurance of EMC's SymAPI and SymCLI software for Base and Control functionality.
Created full regression test suite in perl.
Peritus Software Services Sep 4, 1994 – Mar 30, 2001
Senior Software Engineer: Maintain outsourced code for CV, BULL, DG (UNIX), and Stratus (UNIX). Assist Y2K renovation team as project leader and COBOL renovator for Y2K compliance.
Team leader for as many as 21 engineers.
Supported DG AOS/VS II and AVIION (UNIX) communications products and AOS/VS II Databases. Maintained DG’s patch download website by modifying the XML web page, making each fix available.
Sys admin for both DG AOS/VS II and AVIION (UNIX) platforms.
BULL Worldwide Information Systems Inc. Aug 1988 – Sep 1994
Senior Software Engineer: Designed, Developed, Maintained, and Component Tested File System, Printer, and Device Utilities in an ISO 9000 environment using Assembly and C.
Maintained 21 utilities, fixing all problems within company wide goal.
Re-wrote 5 utilities in assembly with only 1 reported problem since 1989.
Maintained a Dump Analysis Utility, which enables users to follow system structures, dump group information, and analyze memory.
SQA component tested all DPS6 utilities.
KRAFT Inc., Dairy Group Oct 1986 - Aug 1988
Computer Programmer: Designed and developed a program that accounts for all maintenance parts, repairs, and moneys using DBASE III Plus.
Purchasing agent for all building and machine maintenance.
Education/Credentials EDUCATION: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
Major: BS. Computer Systems Engineering
I have a 2 year old laptop (Dual Core, 1.73 GHz, 1gig RAM). It is very slow on start-up and opening applications, e.g. Internet Explorer, Media Player, etc.
Is a likely cause having too many programs running on start-up? How do I go about checking this? and of course fixing it?
Thanks.
Answer Ray,
It is likely because your registry is obese. Your best solution is to save your data to an external drive, flash, or burn CD/DVD's and rebuild. You will be AMAZED at the speed increase and the simplicity of a rebuild. You need to make sure you have install CD's for any products that you installed after the initial purchase.
Doing a System Recovery
Years ago, when you bought a computer you received a recovery CD. You only use this CD to return your system back to factory contents. As of four years ago, they started putting this information on the C: drive. It's now called the recovery partition. They did this so they wouldn't have to make and package them with all the systems. You need to see if this partition exists on your system.
Checking for Recovery Partition
Right click “My Computer”, pull down and click Manage
Click “Disk Management” on the bottom left
You will see the partitions in the right window.
The Recovery Partition is usually less than 5GB
You should also see on the bottom right, your C: drive in 2 separate pieces
At this point, you should either know if the recovery partition exists, or you need to find the CD's that came with your system. You should also look for any software that you have purchased and installed on the system.
Next, you will have to burn your data to CD or copy them to a flash or external drive. Once you have your data saved, we need to find out which key gets us into the recovery console.
Restoring Your System to Factory Contents
Shutdown your system
Hit the power button to start it
During the IBM, Dell, etc. splash screen hit the key necessary to enter the system recovery console. It’s usually F8-f12.
For Dell use Control F11
For HP/Compaq use F8
For IBM/Lenovo Use F11
Click Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management
Click the + to the left of “Local Users and Groups”
Click Users
Right Click Administrator in the right window, pull down and click on “Set Password…”
Change the Password to something you will remember
If you have recovery CD's, you need to set your boot order and put the first one in and start the system with it in the CD drive.
Setting your Boot Order
Enter the BIOS
Locate boot order
Set it to CD then Hard Drive
If you don’t know which key is used to enter the Recovery Console, go to the OEM website and search “Recovery Console”. Now boot off the CD, or get into the recovery console and do a full factory recovery. When complete your software will be fresh and if you are still having problems, they are hardware problems.
Downloading Drivers
Go to your system manufacturer’s website, Compaq.com, Dell.com, HP.com, IBM/Lenovo.com, etc…
Click Support and look for Downloads or Drivers
Enter your system information and OS
Download the latest drivers
Note: Some of these sites keep a physical list so you may need to sort by Newest First and then keep track of the drivers you download. This is because they may have updated video drivers 3 times and you just want the latest.
