Uh... kay...

[Imogene]

I have recently been having problems with my comp... (just a preface, it's old... almost ten years old, and Frankensteinian with its patchwork of pieces, upgraded as I find the money)
This morning, I decided I would try to defrag my comp... only to find out my comp could NOT load the defrag prog provided with Windows... So, I started clearing old programs from my comp, hoping it just didn't have enough free space to run the program... no, no matter how much I cleared off, it just wouldn't work. So, off I wandered to the Net, and found a freebie defrag program, and ran it while I was out for an interview. Came home, and the defrag program had done its deed, and was suggesting I should do a junk file sweep... plus a link to that online, which I followed, to find out it was a "Buy this program to speed up your comp a bit more" page.
Also ran a registry defrag prog from the same company, and it cleared up 10% of my registry.
Comp's no longer skipping at me with music playing in the background.
Working much much better. Note to self: once I have money again, definitely look into buying that junk file removing program to support the company.

[SteeleDragon78]

while buying a proven and reliable diagnostic tool is a good thing, there are enough free "cleaners" out there that you really dont need to buy one. i run iobits advanced windows care on my pc, and it will clean the "junk" files in the temp folders. also the main disk cleanup found in windows will do most of what the pay cleaners do. as for the defrag not wanting to load on your machine, it may be time to increase the disk capacity or start looking at a full upgrade, while they can be pricey, are worth it in the long run. but i understand the strapped for cash issue. anyway theres my 50 cents, (damn inflation)

[otakuneko]

I wonder what else it did. I've never had, or seen, fragmentation so bad as to cause mp3 skipping.

And I don't defrag.

[Imogene]

I've never had, or seen, fragmentation so bad as to cause mp3 skipping.

I don't think that was defrag causing that, I think it was lack of RAM... but I'm not 100% sure on that...
In other news, Firefox would randomly stop loading webpages, for no discernible reason... and has started popping up Google links to car trading sites... The only thing I can think that might be linked to would be the MegaUploader bar, which was removed...

[Evil Queen]

You should see if your Adblock Plus program is working on Firefox (it'll block a shit load of ads if you subscribe to ezlist and ezlist+elements).

[otakuneko]

I don't think that was defrag causing that, I think it was lack of RAM... but I'm not 100% sure on that...

Ah, I suppose it is possible, but the only time I've ever seen (or rather, heard) mp3 skipping was when I tried to play mp3s on a 486/80. ...or back in the 200-400MHz days, when something spiked the cpu hard.

Firefox popping up Google links to car trading sites?
As in, pop up windows? Intellitxt-ish balloons showing up when mousing over certain words?

Does it occur in other browsers?

[MrSmiley]

I don't think that was defrag causing that, I think it was lack of RAM... but I'm not 100% sure on that...

Well if you think it's to do with memory, you might want to grab a freeware program called FreeRamXP . In it's default settings it will sit in the system tray and give you a number or percentage of your free RAM. Configuring it a bit you can also get it to display VRAM & Page File usage. And at any time by double clicking the icon you can have it "smartly" try to recover ram to get things done (note that while this frees up memory it can also cause programs that are open at the time to behave sluggishly while they have to reload all their pretty icons or re-check their dll file or whatnot. Firefox seems particularly vulnerable ). I don't know, it would give you something to keep an eye on.

Note that it doesn't say Vista is supported and I haven't tested if it is or not, but the program also hasn't been updated since 2006 so...

Also might want to keep an eye on the Task Manager Process menu from time to time (either right click the taskbar > Task Manager or hit CTRL-ALT-DEL > Task Manager. I recommend sorting by CPU or Memory Usage and seeing what rises to the top... especially when you're having these problems).

In other news, Firefox would randomly stop loading webpages, for no discernible reason... and has started popping up Google links to car trading sites... The only thing I can think that might be linked to would be the MegaUploader bar, which was removed...

That sounds more like adware/spyware. And depending on the type, THAT could definitely be slowing down the computer. I'd start with taking a look at the computer using Spybot Search & Destroy as well as Ad-aware.

Ah, I suppose it is possible, but the only time I've ever seen (or rather, heard) mp3 skipping was when I tried to play mp3s on a 486/80. ...or back in the 200-400MHz days, when something spiked the cpu hard.

While I do agree, not all media software is created equally. An old version of winamp can play music reliably all the way back to early pentiums and even the 486... even old versions of Windows Media Player can manage a lot on a little. But more modern versions of the same program are more demanding and more sensitive to system usage. (bells and whistles and DRM...) *shrug*. The software I use to watch DVDs for instance, is great at that task but is lousy as a music player just from the amount of overhead and memory usage.

[otakuneko]

Hehe, I still use Winamp 2.91.
Though I keep foobar around as well, if only to convert those annoying FLACs to something more useful and portable.

[MrSmiley]

Hehe, I still use Winamp 2.91.

So do I. Well 2.95 actually but the differences should just be bugfixes. Thank goodness for http://www.oldversion.com/ (though if it didn't exist I'm sure Google would be able to find something somewhere).

I never assume other users are as stubborn as I am however.