Ultra Defrag

[David Ragan]

Some time ago, a consultant installed an "ultradefrag" on my shop computer, I recently stumbled onto it, and it seems to have sped it up some.

Can you all direct me to a reputable free ultradefrag for my laptop, which is Windows7, 64 bit system.

CNET is reputable source-software on there should be safe, right?

I have some Avast protection, but have not explored it.

IT is not really my thing.

Thanks All.

[Lee Schierer]

What does Ultradefrag do that regular windows Defrag won't do?

[Mike Trent]

Windows comes with Microsoft’s defrag program, which is sufficient. In fact, weekly defrags are enabled by default, iirc. Ditto full virus scans by Avast.

Pick one night per week, and let your pc run all night (good advice for any version of Windows). The defrag and antivirus programs will detect that your machine is idle in the middle of the night, and do their work then.

CNET is a good place for some software, but you run the risk of also getting bloatware (ie add on junk you don’t need) installed with the product you wanted.

[Grant Wilkinson]

If you want something 3rd party, go to piriform.com and download defragger. It does a great job.

As an aside, if your drive is an SSD, you should not be defragging it with anything.

[Mike Henderson]

As an aside, if your drive is an SSD, you should not be defragging it with anything.

And if you don't have an SSD, you should get one. You'll be amazed at how it improves performance (that is, if you have a relatively modern computer with the fast SATA interface, probably purchased after maybe 2006 or 2007 - SATA revision 2.0 which runs at 3Gbps. After about 2009 you may have SATA revision 3.0 which would give you 6Gbps).

Mike

[David Ragan]

For the most part, I have no idea what you all are talking about.

I do wonder why my computer, as time has gone on, has gotten slower. Even took it into the repair guy-not an expert, just an overall electronics repair guy...no real improvement.

My woodshop computer did speed up significantly when I ran this 'ultradefrag' on it......had already done the %temp% file thing, delete browsing history, and purchased an upgrade to Avast; of course, w intermittent disc cleanup and stock defragmentation.

So...........the 'ultra defrag' by HBDC or something like that-took hours to run. And, after that, it sped up. Excellent.

What does one need to do to get the system back to day one?

This particular computer is just for shop music, FWW podcasts, etc.

Thanks guys

[Grant Wilkinson]

David: We need more info to reply to "how to get it back to day one". However, I'll try.

Your laptop likely came with a restore partition, rather than actual DVD's to re-install windows. If it did, you can use the restore partition to take the laptop back to the condition it was in when you bought it. If you use this, you will lose all your programs, though. Depending on how your laptop's manufacturer built their restore function, you may lose documents, pictures, etc, so be sure to back them up somewhere before you restore. If you use it to reinstall Windows, you will then need to do all the windows updates that have occurred since that partition was installed - likely hours of downloads.

As to SSD vs "platter" HD, if you are interested, just search on SSD. In short, and SSD is a storage medium that has no moving parts. It is like a very large USB stick. Since it has no moving parts, it can read and write information much faster than a platter hard drive, which as disks that spin and heads that move - like a turntable and tone arm. (Now, I'm really dating myself)

I suggest that if you are only using your PC in your shop to listen to music and/or look at plans, and SSD is a bit of overkill for you.

Another option before going with the restore option may be to simply clean up what you have. You've already mentioned defrag. You may also want to try ccleaner. It's another free program from piriform. It will clean up the hard drive of old temp files, unused installation files, etc.

[Pat Barry]

For the most part, I have no idea what you all are talking about.

I do wonder why my computer, as time has gone on, has gotten slower. Even took it into the repair guy-not an expert, just an overall electronics repair guy...no real improvement.

My woodshop computer did speed up significantly when I ran this 'ultradefrag' on it......had already done the %temp% file thing, delete browsing history, and purchased an upgrade to Avast; of course, w intermittent disc cleanup and stock defragmentation.

So...........the 'ultra defrag' by HBDC or something like that-took hours to run. And, after that, it sped up. Excellent.

What does one need to do to get the system back to day one?

This particular computer is just for shop music, FWW podcasts, etc.

Thanks guys
I'm sure the shop music isn't slowed down, right? Probably issues with your web browser - try a different one and see if it works better. or Issue with spyware, anti-virus software. When mine is doing a virus scan everythign I do on internet is slowed waaaaaay down. De frag probably not necessary if your disk is 50% empty. When it gets to 75% range or higher then things really get slow. You can watch the light on the computer on many systems to see the hard drive being accessed. If this is continuously flashing you might have a problem.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Not knowing what condition your computer is in, I would not defrag as your first step. I have seen many computers get worse after a defrag because they had corrupted data and the defrag only made it worse.

First. No matter what browser you are using, clear your cache, cookies and history. It's typically through some sort of Tools, Options or Settings, Advanced. I have seen countless computers brought to a crawl because of their browsing history is so large.

Next. Run a full chkdsk so that it scans your computer on bootup and fixes any possible problems it may discover.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2641432/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors-in-windows-7
(https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2641432/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors-in-windows-7)
Then go ahead and do a Windows Defrag.

If none of that works, do a factory restore based on the brand of your computer but be aware you will lose everything unless you manually save it to an external drive.

[David Ragan]

Thanks for your input. Am going to have to look through all of this Saturday and see what i can do then.