Machine is running slow

C

Cigolon

Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2004
Messages
908
well. it started a few days ago. right after i set my machine up from my move. i dont remember installing anything different. so i dont believe thats it. but then again. i may have. but it wasn't anything big if i did. when i select a file it can take a while for the right click menu to pop up. it just lags out, the folders keep comming up as 'not responding' when i try and rename something or whatever. a lot of jpgs have a greyed over looked.
everything is defragged, adware free, virus free. so i'm really at a loss. could use any ideas.
 
It's probably something running in the background. Use the task manager to try to find any suspicious software. Try closing things one at a time and then checking to see if the problem is affected or not. If you are using a NT based windows (2K, XP) then check running services as well.

Probably it would help if you stated what OS you are using as well as any other pertinant information you can think of.

My susipicion is that something is reading/writing in the background, keeping your harddrive on it's toes trying to do two things at once. Is it accessing a lot?
 
right. i forgot that. i was heading to bed when i posted. i'm running xp with all the updates and such. even when i watch in task bar, when i click on something while system idle is at 99 percent, it will still lag and the cpu usage will jump from 1 to like 14%.
 
Yep, you've got something or other running in the background then.

Since you are in XP, I know how the task manager works. Open the task manager, go to the processes tab, then click twice (not double click, wait a moment between clicks) on the CPU box at the top of the list. This will make it sort descending by CPU usage and it will make it easily clear which program is using the most CPU power. If it goes by quickly, you may have to sit there and watch for it so you can see it when it goes by. It may help to set the update rate to low (in the view menu) so that it won't jump around so fast.

Have you run a spyware check with Spybot and Adaware? Normally spyware doesn't get THAT bad, but, every now and then one does. The idea is that they are supposed to hide themselves so you don't know they are there, and if they start doing that you find out and get rid of them. Still, there are the occasions where they make one poorly or something and it ends up making itself known when it shouldn't.
 
thats exactly the problem. all the processes are normal. all the spyware is gone. i've been scanning about once an hour since i set it back up with adaware and spybot. no viruses. i can't figure out what the deal is. i'm running strong with 25 processes going strong. so yeh. any other ideas?
 
Cigolon said:
thats exactly the problem. all the processes are normal. all the spyware is gone. i've been scanning about once an hour since i set it back up with adaware and spybot. no viruses. i can't figure out what the deal is. i'm running strong with 25 processes going strong. so yeh. any other ideas?
Click to expand...

Here's the deal... all processes are not not normal & the spyware is not necessarily all gone. If everything was normal, you wouldn't have any problems ;)

What version of Spybot are you using and what's the date on those definitions? In Spybot, you cna go to 'advanced mode' and look through the list of startup processes (registry, HKLM, HKCU, startup folder, all condensed into one easy to-read form with help on most processes on the right side of the screen). I would check that to make sure there's nothing there that looks suspicious.

Then, if you click on the tools 'tab,' you can select some additional tools like BHO, ActiveX - check those out just to make sure there's nothing bad there. Again, on the right side of the main spybot window, there's a pop-out that will give you some hints on each item if you're unfamiliar with any.

As far as being virus-free, what antivirus program are you using & what's the date of your definitions. (Please don't answer with "current," give us a date to work with. We'll need specifics if you'd like any real help!) http://housecall.antivirus.com has a nice, free online virus scan.

Here's a big thing that can suddenly slow down your computer if the above things are all fine: Fading menus vs. scrolling menus. In fact, Microsoft has included at least three different ways to disable fading menus in particular because they can be such a resource hog. Go to the display control panel item, go to appearance, choose effects, change to scroll.

How about active desktop? It's a little more difficult to disable in WinXP than in other versions of Windows. The functions that active desktop serve are: Allowing you to use a desktop wallpaper of a different bit resolution than your desktop is set to, letting you have web content on your desktop & slowing down your system tremendously in certain situations. To get tweakui, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp When you install this version of TweakUI, it installs as a start menu item (not a control panel item). One of the options (actually, there are two check boxes) allows you to disable active desktop.

Once you've provided us with all the specifics I've requested & tried these items, I have several more things you can try & I'm sure other people here do as well.

Caleb
 
Oh, and don't forget to check your services. One of those can easily cause such problems. On that subject, be sure windows is not optomized for background services (this is somewhere in the system settings part of the control panel.)
 
alright. well. here ya go.
ad-aware 6 pro- last ref file 24.07.2004 && vx2 plugin installed- clean system.
spybot s&d 1.3- dont see where the date on adware is, but no new updates out.
nav 2004- 7.28.04 virus definitions

that online virus scaner you gave me- no virii. there are 5 programs that start with my computer in blahblah\\currentversion\run\. steam, ramcleaner, nav, quicktime, and cacheman. all the fading menus and active desktops are off in windows. so i really dont believe its a virus or adware. i scan about once every...3 hours when i'm on my computer. whenever i leave it or whatever.

the odd part is the jpg interaction. lemme host this file and show you what i mean by a grayed out overtone. the menus lag when i'm clicking on them mainly. so i think it has something to do with them. i've checked the associations but everythings just normal. its trying to use windows picture viewer..and it does...after a second.
http://www.savefile.com/redir/25387.jpg
 
Hrm. It's beginning to make me wonder if it's video related... Have you played any 3D games lately? Any weirdness at all? Windows, by default, gets a fairly decent amount of acceleration from the video card and, failing that, it can run pretty sluggish -- especially XP -- but I've even seen it slow Win98 down when I turned off acceleration. This is almost just a stab in the dark though.

Have you checked for any suspicious services yet? Of course, I see you've disabled themes there. Probably you have already looked around through your services. (Well, there are two ways to do it, one disable the "normal" way which leaves the service eating ram for nothing, the other, disable the service and that. I just assume -- which I probably shouldn't...)

BTW, if you said before, I missed it. Does your harddrive access a lot when it turns sluggish like that? Or any other physical drives for that matter...

The ramcleaner and cache things don't sound good to me. Caching only works if you always do the same stuff or it just has to keep dumping the cache and reloading things. As for ram cleaning, well, that will often just swap a lot of stuff out to clear up your memory, but, the moment that stuff is needed, it gets swapped back in. Just for kicks, try disabling those. Can't hurt anything to try, right?
 
Nazo said:
The ramcleaner and cache things don't sound good to me. Caching only works if you always do the same stuff or it just has to keep dumping the cache and reloading things. As for ram cleaning, well, that will often just swap a lot of stuff out to clear up your memory, but, the moment that stuff is needed, it gets swapped back in. Just for kicks, try disabling those. Can't hurt anything to try, right?
Click to expand...

I agree! Just use Spybot to temporarily (or permanently) disable these two items. Make sure Spybot is in 'advanced' mode (from the 'mode' drop-down menu) and then go to tools (from the lefthand pane) and select 'startup.' That's an easy way to disable those two items (in case you didn't know you could do it that way :))

Then just reboot and see if the problem is still there.

I also agree with Nazo that it could be a video issue - what brand video card do you have? (right click on my computer -> properties -> hardware -> device manager -> video adapter is one way to check). If it's a geforce, go to http://www.nvidia.com/ If it's an ATi, go to http://www.ati.com/ - both sites have easy driver download links at the top of their sites.

If it's the Intel Extreme Graphics video driver (or something similar), go to intel's website and grab the latest drivers. If you do have onboard video & you have sufficient system RAM, you could go to the BIOS and allocate more memory to be used as video memory - often your choices are 1/2/4/8 MB.

Let us know if any of those ideas help! That screenshot you posted is helpful - now we know what you're talking about. It almost looks like you did a ctrl-a (i.e., select-all) over all the thumbnails...
 
i play far cry all the time with no slow downs. video runs fine. perfect in fact. its a powercolor ati 9200. i need to upgrade *Tear* gripe for later. i disabled both of those and rebooted. still no go.
 
Grasping for straws here, but try fiddling with display properties -> advanced -> troubleshooting -> acceleration
 
Hrm, you still didn't say though. Do you get heavy drive access when it slows down? Even light access? At least, more than what it normally would be expected to do that is. This way we can narrow the problem down a bit more because if you get no hd access whatsoever, then we know it's not something like ramcleaners or caching or any of that stuff (btw, if you are a heavy gamer like me, disable those completely.) That would probably mean the video.

Now that I think of it, I believe the video effect used for most of this stuff is overlays whereas games tend to not use that effect much (maybe for huds sometimes, I'm not sure.) Can you watch videos without any troubles while acceleration is turned all the way up? If you are using a good video player, close it and open microcraps windows media player and watch a video in that so we can be 100% sure. That one uses overlays for displaying the video itself after getting whatever tiny tiny bit of acceleration it gets from the card itself (this is almost completely necessary when getting the card to accelerate the video.)

I'm just guessing though. Lol, if all else fails, I suppose you can always reinstall Windows... ^_^

BTW, I'm amazed you can get a 9200 to run Far Cry with no slowdowns... Tell you what, I'll sell you mine for about enough to buy me a brand new 9800. What do you mean not a chance??? Hidoi ^_^
 
sorry i forgot to mention it. no, no real drive access. i have since disabled cacheman and ramcleaner. movies are opening fine in media player.
its getting to the point where i'm thinking about reinstaling..i mean. i really dont know why it lags so bad for some stuff and what is up with the jpgs.

ps : you wanted to trade me your 9800 for my 9200? was that what you ment to type? :p :confused: :cool: send me a msg. i'll be nice and do that trade for you.
 
I'm beginning to wonder if it's something in explorer causing this, especially with the JPG thumbnails looking funny like that. If so, and windows hasn't detected this already, then I'm not entirely sure what you could do. Of course, if that were the case, then reinstallation would fix it -- provided you didn't reinstall whichever thing broke it to begin with. Of course, I'm always the one against reinstallation (ironic since I do it so much) to solve a problem since that's just avoiding the problem, not repairing it and there's no guarantee it won't just happen again later either. So if you want to keep diagnosing this, I have no objection whatsoever. Now we know it's not hd related, which means not caching or that sort of thing. We've probably narrowed it down to being in some way (perhaps indirectly, such as a messed up explorer) video related. As suggested before, try disabling video acceleration, then reboot and see what happens. It will run a bit slower, but, see if the jpegs still look funny and it still does weird stuff beyond the expected slight delays in responses (don't ask why, it's not as if the CPU can't handle it. Windows just does this.)

Oh, and the trade would be a tad tricky considering that I don't have a 9800. d-: You're supposed to give me enough money to buy one, THEN I'll trade my 9600 for your 9200. ^_^ Er, not a good deal? Well, erm, guess that's why my grades in marketing aren't as good ast they should be. (J/K, they're fine) d-:
 
i turned off acceleration and rebooted. still had the problems. still no help. i generally think a format is a really good idea once and a while because it will generally really speed the computer back up. but i really just want to solve this. way too much stuff installed for me to really want to waste all that time.
i'm completely out of ideas at this point though.

ps. well. if you only have a 9600 pro you're gonna have to throw in that 2600+ barton m chip for my 9200. but its a deaaaall.
 
Logfile of HijackThis v1.97.7
Scan saved at 11:31:52 AM, on 8/3/2004
Platform: Windows XP SP1 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\TGTSoft\StyleXP\StyleXPService.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\system32\srvany.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\navapsvc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
D:\Irc\mirc.exe
C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe
C:\PROGRAM FILES\ATI TECHNOLOGIES\ATI CONTROL PANEL\ATIPTAXX.EXE
C:\Program Files\AIM\aim.exe
C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\YPager.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE
F:\Installs\Hijackthis\HijackThis.exe

O2 - BHO: (no name) - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Reader\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.ocx
O2 - BHO: NAV Helper - {BDF3E430-B101-42AD-A544-FADC6B084872} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {ED657BAF-1EE5-4A07-9D2E-6D0525EFC69B} - C:\Program Files\ICOO Loader\addons\icoourlext.dll
O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx
O3 - Toolbar: Norton AntiVirus - {42CDD1BF-3FFB-4238-8AD1-7859DF00B1D6} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Symantec NetDriver Monitor] C:\PROGRA~1\SYMNET~1\SNDMon.exe
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE/3000
O9 - Extra button: Research (HKLM)
O9 - Extra button: AIM (HKLM)
O9 - Extra button: Yahoo! Messenger (HKLM)
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Yahoo! Messenger (HKLM)
O9 - Extra button: Messenger (HKLM)
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger (HKLM)
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:\windows\system32\ua_lsp.dll
O12 - Plugin for .spop: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Plugins\NPDocBox.dll
O16 - DPF: Yahoo! Literati - http://download.games.yahoo.com/games/clients/y/tt2_x.cab
O16 - DPF: {0E5F0222-96B9-11D3-8997-00104BD12D94} (PCPitstop Utility) - http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/PCPitStop.CAB
O16 - DPF: {166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000} (Shockwave ActiveX Control) - http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/director/sw.cab
O16 - DPF: {30528230-99F7-4BB4-88D8-FA1D4F56A2AB} (YInstStarter Class) - http://download.yahoo.com/dl/installs/yinst0309.cab
O16 - DPF: {33564D57-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71} - http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/6/E/F6E491A6-77E1-4E20-9F5F-94901338C922/wmv9VCM.CAB
O16 - DPF: {39B0684F-D7BF-4743-B050-FDC3F48F7E3B} (FilePlanet Download Control Class) - http://www.fileplanet.com/fpdlmgr/cabs/FPDC_1_0_0_42.cab
O16 - DPF: {74D05D43-3236-11D4-BDCD-00C04F9A3B61} (HouseCall Control) - http://a840.g.akamai.net/7/840/537/2004061001/housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/xscan53.cab
O16 - DPF: {9F1C11AA-197B-4942-BA54-47A8489BB47F} (Update Class) - http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/CAB/x86/unicode/iuctl.CAB?37983.7432291667
O16 - DPF: {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} (Shockwave Flash Object) - http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab
O16 - DPF: {F54C1137-5E34-4B95-95A5-BA56D4D8D743} (Secure Delivery) - http://www.gamespot.com/KDX/kdx.cab
 
Starting to get hard to figure this out. ^_^

Well, for one thing, I notice that StyleXP is running, but, you aren't even using basic themes. You might just as well remove that, no? Also, I notice STEAM.EXE was listed. I couldn't guess what it was, but, a quick lookup suggests that it's for Half-Life patches. Unless that's Half-Life 2, I seriously can't see why you'd need it. Surely they stopped patching the original Half-Life a long time ago?

Oh, and norton antivirus was running. Not so unusual, but, I wonder. Do you have it set to scan all files? Or, do you have the advanced heuristics enabled? Well, just try disabling it for a little bit and let's see what happens I suppose. Lol, at this point, we are running out of things to try, so we have to try stuff like that.

I wonder what's being run through srvany.exe. Hrm. I run the occasional service myself, and I don't have it running on my PC... Have you checked to see if you have any suspicious services running? It might help to visit blackviper.com and install the registry patch that adds useful descriptions in place of the worthless microsoft crap that tells no one anything at all.

PS. I have to throw in my CPU now? You don't really want this deal very much. I guess we'll just forget it. You just keep your 9200.

bwahahaha
 
steam is the counterstrike client. :) gotta keep that running for my compulsive shooting :(
yeh. stylexp is what i used to switch up my boot screen. i guess i can remove it once windows starts though.
i've got nav set to scan all files.
didn't see any services that were weird.
 
What happens if you do this:...Start-Run-msconfig, then uncheck all startup items, then go to Services, hide all Microsoft Services, then disable all the rest and reboot[Don't connect to Internet or other PC's like this]....What happens ?


Also there were a MS patch that were faulty, slowing the PC down with the symptom if you click nothing happens for a feew seconds, but this is probably unlikely.

1-Does you processor temp rise whn it's slow ?

2-Does the GPU processor temp rises when it's slow ?

3-Does the disk get hot of working overtime ?

What heats up, or nothing noticible ?
 
temp stays stable. havent' seen any spikes or anything for cpu or gpu. runs the same with the non ms processes turned off. the only ones running that weren't for ms were 2 ati ones, ati smart and ati hotkey, 3 symantec corp. ones, and stylexp
 
This maybe a stupid question but if you download a tool from Processor manufacturer to identify it, what speed does it states ? Is that as supposed to be ?

What does your BIOS says ?

Also have you got SW modem running ?
 
I don't have anything new on what they have to say, just, a note about StyleXP. Unless I'm remembering terribly incorrectly, the way it replaces the boot screen is to modify the file itself, so it probably doesn't have to be running at all. Anyway, anything not running as a service won't be running at that time anyway.

Oh, and the reason I asked about norton antivirus is it may be trying to scan everything explorer opens enough to look at if you have the antivirus shield running. If you do have the shield running, make sure that scan all files and maybe even advance heuristics are off or at least temporarily close the shield program itself. I was wondering if it might be scanning everything explorer looks at because this could well cause things to slow down. I don't see how it could cause the JPG thing though.
 
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