Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well today. I'm alright but also very frustrated about my laptops many problems and not having the know-how to fix it or restore it.
Before I continue, here are the specs:
Acer Aspire One AO751h Mini-Book.
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit SP2
CPU - Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz
2.0GB RAM
BIOS- Acer Brand- V. 0.3212
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500
Hard Drive - ST9160310AS ATA Device
SATA-II 3.0GB/s.
Got specs from Piriform Speccy; Also useful if more in-depth details about system/device specifics are required. If Piriform Speccy shouldn't be relied upon for information then apologize and will make corrections.
Now for the details and perceived problems... Yeah, this may get wordy, sorry.
A few months back my uncle handed me this laptop with a non-activated windows xp on it. I soon discovered it had Too much porn, too many random little programs (things like youtube downloader, limewire, etc etc.) that either didn't work, were not longer applicable, or just plain useless. It was cluttered with so much junk and slow as molasses but my uncle insisted I fix the windows not being activated. I agreed, figuring I would just get an activator or a pre-activated/cracked windows. This may seem really stupid, and I now appear to be an idiot but I have had plenty of experience with installing and using these... Pirated OS' without problems before. Plus, it doesn't have a cd drive, and I don't have any windows discs myself.
At first I didn't notice a difference since it was slow already but after a few days it was slower than before and now everything lags; its so bad a link or button takes a few seconds to a minute to highlight when hovering.
The systems .dll that lets it do automatic updates doesn't exist.
It seems to hate everything; no matter what I've installed, used, tried to watch or whatever else, this laptop always had some sort of complication; whether minor to severe.
CPU seems to either be at 60% to 70% when idle or only having a couple things open, though it does go back down to 5-20% after awhile. If I open task manager though, or sometimes even one too many tabs and it will go to 100% (always sticks at 100 when task manager is open, even when closed)
The graphics card had no drivers and was using some default graphic driver so I downloaded and installed the intel graphics accelerator 500. It was in the drivers information list on the Acer site when I looked up my laptop; don't see any problems with it thus far.
Firefox takes up the most cpu.
There are an unusual (or so it appears to me, compared to my other laptops) amount of services or processes running and bouncing around the lists at one time.
Though I am admin, or should be, my permissions seem random and more often than not like I am a guest; being told I can't do something and need permission. At times it makes no sense, for example; I could do something serious like delete system 32 and it'll be like, yeah sure bud but in that same instance, I could try to delete or rename a picture I saved and it'll tell me to get fucked. I started digging pretty deep and it seems like there are way too many users on this computer that were hidden.
I am concerned that due to all the OS changing and what not the drivers or other system workings are out of wack or mismatched; though I can't be sure. I am not able to update any drivers because that update dll file is missing. I feel like I am at a loss. Which is why I humbly ask for your assistance. I either need a solution to getting this thing in some sort of smooth and working condition without changing OS again or assistance in doing a fresh install of windows xp from an external hard drive; what drivers? how do you fresh install? will a fresh install get rid of everything that was on it before? If not how do I rid myself of the crap on it now so don't have any lingering junk after the install? Will I need a different BIOS driver/update?
Sorry for being so wordy and for anything unnecessary or if I am just stupid. I don't know what would be relevent or not to you assisting me so this took a bit to type as I had to keep thinking of what else to put or what I may have missed
Before I continue, here are the specs:
Acer Aspire One AO751h Mini-Book.
Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit SP2
CPU - Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz
2.0GB RAM
BIOS- Acer Brand- V. 0.3212
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500
Hard Drive - ST9160310AS ATA Device
SATA-II 3.0GB/s.
Got specs from Piriform Speccy; Also useful if more in-depth details about system/device specifics are required. If Piriform Speccy shouldn't be relied upon for information then apologize and will make corrections.
Now for the details and perceived problems... Yeah, this may get wordy, sorry.
A few months back my uncle handed me this laptop with a non-activated windows xp on it. I soon discovered it had Too much porn, too many random little programs (things like youtube downloader, limewire, etc etc.) that either didn't work, were not longer applicable, or just plain useless. It was cluttered with so much junk and slow as molasses but my uncle insisted I fix the windows not being activated. I agreed, figuring I would just get an activator or a pre-activated/cracked windows. This may seem really stupid, and I now appear to be an idiot but I have had plenty of experience with installing and using these... Pirated OS' without problems before. Plus, it doesn't have a cd drive, and I don't have any windows discs myself.
At first I didn't notice a difference since it was slow already but after a few days it was slower than before and now everything lags; its so bad a link or button takes a few seconds to a minute to highlight when hovering.
The systems .dll that lets it do automatic updates doesn't exist.
It seems to hate everything; no matter what I've installed, used, tried to watch or whatever else, this laptop always had some sort of complication; whether minor to severe.
CPU seems to either be at 60% to 70% when idle or only having a couple things open, though it does go back down to 5-20% after awhile. If I open task manager though, or sometimes even one too many tabs and it will go to 100% (always sticks at 100 when task manager is open, even when closed)
The graphics card had no drivers and was using some default graphic driver so I downloaded and installed the intel graphics accelerator 500. It was in the drivers information list on the Acer site when I looked up my laptop; don't see any problems with it thus far.
Firefox takes up the most cpu.
There are an unusual (or so it appears to me, compared to my other laptops) amount of services or processes running and bouncing around the lists at one time.
Though I am admin, or should be, my permissions seem random and more often than not like I am a guest; being told I can't do something and need permission. At times it makes no sense, for example; I could do something serious like delete system 32 and it'll be like, yeah sure bud but in that same instance, I could try to delete or rename a picture I saved and it'll tell me to get fucked. I started digging pretty deep and it seems like there are way too many users on this computer that were hidden.
I am concerned that due to all the OS changing and what not the drivers or other system workings are out of wack or mismatched; though I can't be sure. I am not able to update any drivers because that update dll file is missing. I feel like I am at a loss. Which is why I humbly ask for your assistance. I either need a solution to getting this thing in some sort of smooth and working condition without changing OS again or assistance in doing a fresh install of windows xp from an external hard drive; what drivers? how do you fresh install? will a fresh install get rid of everything that was on it before? If not how do I rid myself of the crap on it now so don't have any lingering junk after the install? Will I need a different BIOS driver/update?
Sorry for being so wordy and for anything unnecessary or if I am just stupid. I don't know what would be relevent or not to you assisting me so this took a bit to type as I had to keep thinking of what else to put or what I may have missed