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Q: I am working on a Dell laptop, Inspiron E1505, with Windows XP home edition, service pack 3, which I purchased in 2006. I use Mozilla Firefox as my web browser. Up until 10 mos ago, everything seemed fine – now, I keep getting a notice from my Norton Antivirus program that there is high memory usage- it is correct, according to my Task Manager, I do try to close out other applications that might be running; so as not to use too much memory. I have disabled most of the plug ins; but this doesn’t seem to help. The second problem is – when I log in for the first time, and click on my the welcome screen, which would then load my personnel settings, I’m now getting a blank “blue screen” – then it takes about 2 mins to load.

Different links have suggested different solutions; for the first problem – I should add more memory. The laptop came with only 1 GB; 1 more can be added.. For the problem with the blue screen, I’ve read that it could be a number of things (a) the Event Viewer ; (b) that my network card driver needs to be update. .and I just read that it could be the “service” plug and play (which I did un-check, but it didn’t change anything). I don’t know what to do to correct these problems; or if they can be corrected. I am not familiar with computers and the person that used to look at it is not doing it any more. Everything I need to know must be looked up and even then, I’m afraid to do too much, since I don’t fully understand these computers. I use my laptop just for emails, playing games, saving pictures and Facebook. . I guess I’m asking you. Is there anything you can suggest that I might do to correct the “blue screen” problem, and do you think it’s worth while trying to fix my laptop? 

– Ginny K.
Freeport, Florida

A: Well, Ginny, let me take your questions in reverse order, and start with what’s really the most important question.  The one who needs to answer it is not me – it’s you.  Is it worth it to you to try and keep that old laptop going?  Brand new laptops with way more memory, significantly faster processors, far larger hard drives, and the latest and greatest version of Windows can be purchased for only a few hundred dollars these days.  But I don’t know what unusual attachments you might have to that old machine, or what financial stumbling blocks might stand in the way of you buying a new one.  So, rather than simply tell you that it’s not worth it, I’ll let you decide that, while I tell you a little about what I think is wrong.

It seems obvious to me from your description that you have at least one, probably several pieces of malware on your system.  That could account for all the symptoms you described.  Ridding your system of them is not as easy as simply disabling plug-ins, because most malware hides itself and has to be hunted down with a scanner.  In fact, that blue screen could very well be a piece of malware loading itself and hooking in to vulnerable parts of your computer’s operating system.  Now, you could try scanning for that malware, but some of the worst offending malware is very good at hiding from even the best scanners.  The only way to be completely sure you’ve eradicated them is to re-format and re-load Windows.  This assumes that A) you still have the original disks from this rather old system, and B) you have the know-how to perform that kind of restore.

So think it over, and weigh what’s right for you.  If you can afford a new system, then why burden yourself with that old PC that’s well past its prime?  If you cannot, then do what you can to get rid of the malware, and by all means, max-out its memory for optimum performance.

P.S. – Merry Christmas my fellow Geeks!