Is it time to buy a new computer?

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message
...
I'm thinking you are too prone to messing with your system for us to be able
to
draw any logical conclusions from your experiences. Just a bit too chaotic for
that, s.

Sadly, but very true about 'chaotic'. :-)

Well there you go, Mary. Obviously, your system is just not up to the rather large
drag that some A-V suites will put on it. As Gary stated, avoid McAfee and Norton
(Symantec) on that machine. AVG would be a much lighter drag, but it is not too
good at detecting the newer trojans. I use another free A-V named AVAST, and am
happy with its performance. I have it installed on systems as slow as PII and AMD
333MHz, with no problems. You might want to give it a try (www.avast.com). I have
also gotten good reports about an A-V app named Anti-Vir.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Mary" wrote in message
oups.com...
I followed Glen's suggestion and disabled McAfee (and stayed offline!)
and ran Word, Excel and some other programs. Lo and behold my computer
ran MUCH better - faster and with no hesitation. Mr. Martel was right
- with McAfee running, it's like driving a car with both feet on the
brake. Seems like the people at McAfee would be sensitive to the speed
issue. I think when my McAfee subscription runs out, I will check out
alternate AV software. Although all AV software is going to result in
computer slowdown, yes?

And yes, Gary, I did do a clean boot and followed the instructions at
auhma.org site (lots of info there). I've learned alot of stuff from
all of you - thanks.

Well there you go, Mary. Obviously, your system is just not up to the rather large
drag that some A-V suites will put on it. As Gary stated, avoid McAfee and Norton
(Symantec) on that machine. AVG would be a much lighter drag, but it is not too
good at detecting the newer trojans. I use another free A-V named AVAST, and am
happy with its performance. I have it installed on systems as slow as PII and AMD
333MHz, with no problems. You might want to give it a try (www.avast.com). I have
also gotten good reports about an A-V app named Anti-Vir.
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Mary" wrote in message
oups.com...
I followed Glen's suggestion and disabled McAfee (and stayed offline!)
and ran Word, Excel and some other programs. Lo and behold my computer
ran MUCH better - faster and with no hesitation. Mr. Martel was right
- with McAfee running, it's like driving a car with both feet on the
brake. Seems like the people at McAfee would be sensitive to the speed
issue. I think when my McAfee subscription runs out, I will check out
alternate AV software. Although all AV software is going to result in
computer slowdown, yes?

And yes, Gary, I did do a clean boot and followed the instructions at
auhma.org site (lots of info there). I've learned alot of stuff from
all of you - thanks.

glee wrote:

Well there you go, Mary. Obviously, your system is just not up to the rather large
drag that some A-V suites will put on it. As Gary stated, avoid McAfee and Norton
(Symantec) on that machine. AVG would be a much lighter drag, but it is not too
good at detecting the newer trojans. I use another free A-V named AVAST, and am
happy with its performance. I have it installed on systems as slow as PII and AMD
333MHz, with no problems. You might want to give it a try (www.avast.com). I have
also gotten good reports about an A-V app named Anti-Vir.

I have used AVAST free (currently v4.6.691) with ZoneAlarm free
(currently v6.0.667.000) for three years on a PII Celeron 466MHz with
absolutely no conflicts. I have had no problems using Outlook Express,
I.E.6 sp1, Avant Browser shell for I.E., and Mozilla suite.

Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis

glee wrote:

Well there you go, Mary. Obviously, your system is just not up to the rather large
drag that some A-V suites will put on it. As Gary stated, avoid McAfee and Norton
(Symantec) on that machine. AVG would be a much lighter drag, but it is not too
good at detecting the newer trojans. I use another free A-V named AVAST, and am
happy with its performance. I have it installed on systems as slow as PII and AMD
333MHz, with no problems. You might want to give it a try (www.avast.com). I have
also gotten good reports about an A-V app named Anti-Vir.

I have used AVAST free (currently v4.6.691) with ZoneAlarm free
(currently v6.0.667.000) for three years on a PII Celeron 466MHz with
absolutely no conflicts. I have had no problems using Outlook Express,
I.E.6 sp1, Avant Browser shell for I.E., and Mozilla suite.

Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis

"Dennis Rekuta" wrote in message
.. .
[snip]
Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis

I was using the latest version of Avast and I did do a clean install of ZAPro
when the version changed.
It may have been due to the fact that I, when I originally tried Avast! free,
only uninstalled the anti-virus portion of NSW2003Pro and then installed Avast.
It worked fine for aprox two days (this was about a week or so ago).
Thanks for your information.

"Dennis Rekuta" wrote in message
.. .
[snip]
Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis

I was using the latest version of Avast and I did do a clean install of ZAPro
when the version changed.
It may have been due to the fact that I, when I originally tried Avast! free,
only uninstalled the anti-virus portion of NSW2003Pro and then installed Avast.
It worked fine for aprox two days (this was about a week or so ago).
Thanks for your information.

Buffalo wrote:

"Dennis Rekuta" wrote in message
.. .
[snip]

Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis


I was using the latest version of Avast and I did do a clean install of ZAPro
when the version changed.
It may have been due to the fact that I, when I originally tried Avast! free,
only uninstalled the anti-virus portion of NSW2003Pro and then installed Avast.
It worked fine for aprox two days (this was about a week or so ago).
Thanks for your information.


I was using NSW2001 (not PRO) for Win98 SE and uninstalled only the NAV
as well. Maybe the difference in versions makes the difference in
results. You might have had better results with a complete uninstall of
NSW, install of Avast, and then a clean install of NSW without the NAV.
Then again, maybe not.

Avast had a lower footprint on my resources and has separately
configurable components for Outlook/Exchange, IM and P2P as well as the
regular Web, Resident, and other E-mail programs. If I was given the
budget, I would probably go with the pro version, or possibly NOD32.

Dennis

Buffalo wrote:

"Dennis Rekuta" wrote in message
.. .
[snip]

Buffalo may have had a conflict with an older version of Avast and
ZoneAlarm Pro, but the free versions have never bothered me. There was
an issue of upgrades versus clean installs of ZoneAlarm Pro causing
problems in the past, but I have always done simple upgrades of the free
versions of ZA and AVAST.

Dennis


I was using the latest version of Avast and I did do a clean install of ZAPro
when the version changed.
It may have been due to the fact that I, when I originally tried Avast! free,
only uninstalled the anti-virus portion of NSW2003Pro and then installed Avast.
It worked fine for aprox two days (this was about a week or so ago).
Thanks for your information.


I was using NSW2001 (not PRO) for Win98 SE and uninstalled only the NAV
as well. Maybe the difference in versions makes the difference in
results. You might have had better results with a complete uninstall of
NSW, install of Avast, and then a clean install of NSW without the NAV.
Then again, maybe not.

Avast had a lower footprint on my resources and has separately
configurable components for Outlook/Exchange, IM and P2P as well as the
regular Web, Resident, and other E-mail programs. If I was given the
budget, I would probably go with the pro version, or possibly NOD32.

Dennis

This slowdown is less of an issue in a more recent, faster, more RAM, PC.
McAfee is probably the worst in the slowdowns as far as AV packages. NAV is
a strong 2nd. The more recent versions do more, and has consequential
overhead. They look for more than viruses. Some up to date AV versions,
will not perform all their capabilities in 98, requires XP for that.

If you're running a slower PC, its probably best to go with lighter weight
AV, a firewall, and some careful web browsing, careful attachment opening
habits.

"Mary" wrote in message
oups.com...
I followed Glen's suggestion and disabled McAfee (and stayed offline!)
and ran Word, Excel and some other programs. Lo and behold my computer
ran MUCH better - faster and with no hesitation. Mr. Martel was right
- with McAfee running, it's like driving a car with both feet on the
brake. Seems like the people at McAfee would be sensitive to the speed
issue. I think when my McAfee subscription runs out, I will check out
alternate AV software. Although all AV software is going to result in
computer slowdown, yes?

And yes, Gary, I did do a clean boot and followed the instructions at
auhma.org site (lots of info there). I've learned alot of stuff from
all of you - thanks.