"Let me know Should I stay or should I go"
-
blackbird71 last edited byGood! But do realize you're down to 4+ weeks and counting down. Since you've already downloaded CCleaner, when the day of reckoning does arrive for MSE, you might want to try just going ahead then to uninstall it and simply try to install the new AV. If all goes well, you may not need CCleaner to do any removal work; if something misbehaves, you've already got it on your system. Anyhow, I hope it all goes smoothly when the day arrives... :yes:
-
A Former User last edited by
@davehawley
I assume you're talking about the Microsoft "Malicious Software Removal Tool".
If you're still on XP you can get a lot more than that still from Windows Update if you put the POSReady hack in your registry (Google for it).
This should last until 2019.What will it take on the system?
And wouldn't it be kinda late for me to insert here such a thing now?
-
-
A Former User last edited by
Even worse. I seem to have reached the ceiling of my processor.
Well, I'm not certain, but the current trouble that I've stopped being able to watch videos (movies) in my Opera 11 (CPU reaches 100% and everything freezes significantly) - its start coincides with the recent Adobe Flash update I got on my system.
Well, Chrome has always been a pain in the arse; however, I'm still able to watch videos (not heavy) in my Firefox. CPU climbs up to the hundred anyway, but the system manages to cope with the load, only minor freezes occur.Is it the Flash update indeed? :|
Well, how much of a processor should one have to cope with the current software anyway? Mine is under 1GB.
Is there any other browser taking it easy on CPU? -
blackbird71 last edited by
Do you mean 1 GHz for processor clock speed or 1 GB for RAM size?
Regardless, videos will eat up system resources like nothing else can. At any given time and for any given media, one browser may show efficiencies for CPU and RAM loading compared when with other browsers. But things are so dynamic in this area that other media or at other times, the resource-loading rank of some of the browsers may reverse. At the present, Firefox tends to be less resource-loading than Chrome-based browsers, and that will probably remain true until Firefox deploys multi-process browsers (which it will, eventually). The main problem is that for watching videos, it seems as if you're fast approaching the limitations of your hardware, regardless of browser. At some point, perhaps near at hand, you're either going to have to upgrade equipment or else modify your viewing behavior to accommodate the limits of your existing system. One thing seems certain: website graphics loading will only increase as time goes by.
One area to explore might be whether you are using a 'built-in' graphics processor. If so, that will inflate both your CPU and your RAM usage. However, your system structure and power-supply capacity might not accommodate a separate plug-in graphics card which could bring some relief to both system RAM and CPU usage. If it can fit and supply such a card, it might be worthwhile checking out a cheap one.
-
A Former User last edited by
Do you mean 1 GHz for processor clock speed or 1 GB for RAM size?
Sorry, it was RAM, right
My CP is said to be 1.60 GHz. -
A Former User last edited by
One area to explore might be whether you are using a 'built-in' graphics processor.
Is it the same as "video-card"?
However, your system structure and power-supply capacity might not accommodate a separate plug-in graphics card which could bring some relief to both system RAM and CPU usage.
Means saving computing I drain the power sockets more, I guess.
If it can fit and supply such a card, it might be worthwhile checking out a cheap one.
Well, can this - videocard? - get sorta 'worn off'? I mean if it makes sense asking to have it checked up during my (still) pending hardware maintenance?
-
blackbird71 last edited by
No. A built-in graphics processor is a chipset built onto the mother board, and that by design shares your RAM as well as using borrowing CPU processing functionality to do some of its work, possibly slowing down the other things going on in the CPU for the rest of the computer. A video (or graphics) card is a plug-in card that has its own RAM and dedicated graphics 'CPU' so that it doesn't have to share much of anything with the main CPU other than handshaking. Unfortunately, it has to have its own power supplied, so it has to does present a load to your system's power supply. The PS's ability to supply that extra load depends on the 'surplus power margin' of the supply as well as the power demands of the graphics card. Video cards will have their own software drivers, which have to be installed into the OS.
A video card's power demands varies greatly, depending upon design and brand and typically driven by card performance capabilities (frame rate, shaders, on-card RAM, etc) and the media being played. Because of the power used in 'challenging' video applications for gaming and which must be dissipated as heat, many of the bigger cards have built-in air fans or are even dualed-up (requiring 2 adjoining plug-in sockets to physically install). Such large contraptions would be gross overkill for what you need, since all you would trying to do was supercede an onboard, low-performance chipset to save some RAM and CPU for playing simple video. So you'd be looking for a distinctly low-end, low-power video card from the various makers or distributors.
As far as 'wear' on a built-in graphics processor, that doesn't usually exist. Chipsets either work or not, they don't have a gradually-declining performance mode. About the only thing that really exhibits 'wear' are system-drives, chassis fans, and power supplies (whose internal capacitors, etc can age out of spec and show a fall-off in performance).
The real questions here are whether in fact you do have a built-in graphics processor, whether a plug-in card will physically fit in the case, do you have an available socket for it, and whether your power supply has enough margin to supply a simple-performance card.
-
A Former User last edited by
The real questions here are whether in fact you do have a built-in graphics processor, whether a plug-in card will physically fit in the case, do you have an available socket for it, and whether your power supply has enough margin to supply a simple-performance card.
How do I check it?
For the starters (right grammar?), it's anetbook, or 'nettop' - a smaller laptop, with a bit less major capacities as I reckon.
It's Samsung NP N-110. I can check it on the net or call the hotline, or both.
Anyway I reckon, a good maintenance with cleaning the fans etc. would help. To an extent. -
blackbird71 last edited by
The N-110 has a built-in graphics chipset (Intel GMA 945) which shares 128 MB of the computer's RAM. The netbook's small size just about guarantees you can't add a separate video card plug-in. The 110 has an 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, which is single-core (so my earlier guess about what you were seeing in the Task Manager display was in error). Such a netbook is fine for what it does with occasional regular video, but it will start to struggle for hi-definition or complex graphics tasks. There's simply no way you can get desktop-grade overall graphics performance from a netbook, if only because you can't apply a dedicated graphics card in such a small package, plus the limitations introduced by a single-core processor. The 110 is a computer optimized for portability and battery life, not for CPU/RAM-demanding apps.
-
A Former User last edited by
If I buy a new laptop, what parameters should I pay attention for if I want to watch videos up to a considerable quality while other processes are up and o'k, and play some, say, 3D games?
The processor's capacity? (Should be dual-core?) RAM? -
blackbird71 last edited by
Regarding a new laptop, probably your biggest issue will be cost, unfortunately. The key things you'll want are RAM, CPU horsepower, graphics card quality, and screen resolution - and those are often big cost drivers. RAM is major: I'd go at least for 4GB, and more if you can possibly afford it, aiming for DDR3 1600 or faster RAM chips. CPU: I'd aim for at least a quad-core - Intel Core i5, i7 or an AMD equivalent (A10), if you can afford it. Graphics card: seek a discrete GPU from Nvidia or AMD Radeon (though the graphics card is where you're most likely to have your cost-control veer off the rails, so it's hard to recommend a model since it's such a strong cost driver - get as good as you can afford containing/addressing as much Video RAM as you can afford). Screen resolution: high-def - 1,366 by 768 minimum with a goal of 1,920 by 1080 or higher. If you set up a laptop for top-notch graphics, it will consume more power compared to otherwise, so expect a lower battery life the more you push to the higher end of performance.
If cost is a critical issue, go for max RAM and highest CPU horsepower, then consider the best graphics chip or card with the most video RAM capacity you can afford after that.
-
blackbird71 last edited by
Java 7 has been "update at your own risk" since mid-2014 for Win XP users. That is, Java 7 updates aren't being tested with XP any more at Oracle... so what happens after that date with Java 7 is on the user's own head: it may or may not work, and it may or may not update. Java 8 isn't usable at all on Win XP. Considering that Java has historically been one of the great pathways for malware exploits because it is by nature a scripting language with full system access, any unpatched vulnerabilities in Java are a wide open pathway for possible exploitation from outside.
I've not run Java for a number of years on my systems, simply because it's been such a huge security problem (though I realize there are a few applications that some users may need it for). I seem to recall there being some way to block Java from outside access (at least via a browser?) using its control panel, and that would definitely be a minimum security measure going forward if it can't be updated any more. The question might still remain, however, if something did partially infect the system, might it still be able to search and call up Java from elsewhere to do its bidding? As I noted, it's been too long gone off my system to remember the answer. If it were me, I'd banish it completely as too great a risk if I were to keep using XP.
-
A Former User last edited by
Firefox got updated only to the 12th version.
Firefox is o'k now, actually
-
-
A Former User last edited by
Screen resolution: high-def - 1,366 by 768 minimum with a goal of 1,920 by 1080 or higher. If you set up a laptop for top-notch graphics, it will consume more power compared to otherwise, so expect a lower battery life the more you push to the higher end of performance.
If cost is a critical issue, go for max RAM and highest CPU horsepower, then consider the best graphics chip or card with the most video RAM capacity you can afford after that.Cost is an issue, yes.
What's with the resolution? What does it affect?
-
blackbird71 last edited by
What does exactly Java do, actually?
Java is a scripting-language platform most popular in the 1990's and early 2000's (and of course, not at all the same as JavaScript). It allows application programs and applets to be written in Java and to be run on a user system via the installed Java runtime software, even remotely via a website. It was originally developed by Sun Micro, but was later sold to Oracle (its current owner). Over the years, Java was quite useful at one point, but has unfortunately and consistently manifested more security holes than a sieve. Its biggest security 'issue' was for a long time its intentional failure to auto-uninstall a flawed/vulnerable older version when installing a newer patched version. This was done to avoid compatibility problems with some apps and applets that needed Java code processing from an older version that was deprecated in a newer version, but which left the system wide open to external attack of the security flaws in those older versions. That has since been altered in later versions, but security issues still arise frequently.
Unless you've got specific programs or websites that require and invoke Java, it doesn't do anything on a system - it just sits there with a big hack-me target painted on it. Some web games require Java, some web animations (eg: weather animations) required it at one time (though those are rapidly being replaced by other techniques), and some DSL speed test sites once required it (though many now have gone to HTML5). It still has application in various mostly-offline industrial apps software.
The soundest advice from a security standpoint is to completely remove it from a system unless it's absolutely required for something specific and important, but that remains a user's own call to make of course.
-
blackbird71 last edited by
What's with the resolution? What does it affect?
Used in this sense, 'resolution' is the number of dots or pixels of color that make up a display screen image of a given shape. The more dots in the image, the sharper, clearer will be the detail apparent in the displayed image. For displays, typically the first number is the number of pixel columns, the second is the number of rows of pixels. So, the higher the pixel count, the better the display should look (assuming the media source supports that level of detail in the original image). If a smaller display has its pixels spaced closer together, it can display a high-resolution image as clearly as a larger-sized display - only smaller in image size, so even small displays can potentially display high-resolution images if the screen and video system support it. If a high-resolution image source is displayed on a low-resolution display, the image will be more blurry by comparison with the original, so usually one wants his display to support as high a resolution as any media material he might view. Obviously, both the display and the video chip/card must both support a given resolution for it to display onscreen.
-
A Former User last edited by
The soundest advice from a security standpoint is to completely remove it from a system unless it's absolutely required for something specific and important, but that remains a user's own call to make of course.
How do I know if it's required, or by what if any? I'm not a geek.
-
A Former User last edited by
No, I meant if it affects the system load or not.
I don't give a crap if I can't see finest detail pointing a microscope onto the screen. I'm not sharp-sighted myself, and one usually can always use some zoom feature.
