Reeaaal Slooow

I have a Compaq computer. 533 speed, 376 RAM, 25 GB hard drive. It is dual boot with 98SE & WinXP. Yesterday it slowed on XP. Takes 7 Min. to start. Takes 1 Min. on 98SE. I am guessing that rules out hardware problems. Everything is slow on XP. I made 2 more User Accounts. They are also slow. I guess that rules out something in only one account. The only thing running in Msconfig is AV antivirus. No changes. The usual services running. No changes. The only thing I can think of that I setup was Nero CD Creater. I removed it, including everything I could find in the Registry. No help. Opening My Computer is slow, opening Control Panel is slow, Opening Folders is Slow, etc. Last Known Good Configuration does not help. System Restore does not help. Ran sfc \scannow last night. Took 5 hours. Did not help. Never had a virus, and checked for spyware last week. This machine was not on the Internet yesterday, before this happened. I have an OEM CD slipstreamed with SP2. It will not do a repair, and I would hate to have to do a reinstall. Takes hours. Just did that 2 weeks ago. This is our second machine.

 

Hi wahlroot,

If you have any other burning programs you may need to uninstall those.

You may have corrupt ASPI layer drivers or a drive/file system problem.

My suggestions:
Go to Device Manager and uninstall the IDE Controller. It will be automatically reinstalled at reboot (do this again if you have not uninstalled additional burning programs beforehand).

Boot into Safe Mode, do a disk cleanup and then run CheckDisk (set on "thorough" and "automatically fix errors "). Do a defragmentation.

Let us know if there is or isn't any improvement.

Matt

 

Tried all of the above, and no change. Everything moves faster in Safe Mode, if that might mean something. Maybe normal speed. Startup seems to take about the same amount of time. That seems to be the place to make changes.

 

Hello wahlroot,

Startup seems to take about the same amount of time. That seems to be the place to make changes.

Start here: http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=39425 In that post I link to startups/processes databases, what they are and if they are necessary.

Regards - Charles

 

Sorry I was not clear. Startup in Safe Mode seems to take the same amount of time. I disabled a lot of Services. I think I kept only the ones needed to run the machine. No change. Does anyone know if I can take some restore points from my other machine and load on this machine, and use them to restore this machine. Where would I find these points.

 

Hi wahlroot,

Does anyone know if I can take some restore points from my other machine and load on this machine, and use them to restore this machine.
No, SR takes snapshots of the OS and is specific to the system, including the environment.

Have you checked your compter physically?

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp Memory

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx Disk check

Regards - Charles

 

I ran chkdsk and did not find Problems. Ran RAM test and did not find problems. Ran Hard Drive test and did not find problems. Still slow.

 

I would suspect hardware or drivers after that.

Shutdown,

Pull and reseat all the connections at the back of the computer or any USB connections, etc. Check in Windows.

Open the case. Pull and reseat the connections to the drives. Check.

Disconnect the cables to the optical drive/s. Check.

Disconnect all added hardware (take out PCI cards, disconnect USB). Boot into Windows. If it runs correctly, reconnect one piece of hardware at a time between restarts. Replace the PCI cards in different slots, Windows will then reinstall the drivers.

Reseat the graphics card and look for updated graphics drivers.

Matt

 

Have done all that and no change. No updates for graphic card drivers.

 

You may have to help us here.
Do you have any "feelings" for where the problem is? Does it get slower when you ask it do certain tasks?

After boot, do Ctrl+Alt+Del and look at the Performance tab in Task Manager. Is the CPU usage very high or the Available Physical Memory getting low?

The other drivers that could be malfunctioning are the system drivers. Look through all the drivers listed in Device Manager and uninstall any listed for the chipset (Intel). They will be reinstalled at restart.

Uninstall the Graphics Adapter. If it has onboard (built-in) graphics, they will be automatically reinstalled. If you have upgaded the graphics, it may be a little more difficult, you wou need to have the graphics driver files available.

After that I would look at doing a repair from the Windows CD, although it may be worth using System File Checker or Dr Watson.

Matt

 

Hi wahlroot,

Read thru this thread http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=49621&highlight=memory on TM and memory. I posted info on resource usage and how to interpert them in that thread.

Regards - Charles

 

I found that this machine is running 100% CPU usage at all times, while doing nothing, except in Safe Mode, where usage is almost nothing. I put all services on Manual and unchecked everything in Msconfig Startup. Still 100% usage. No applications shown in Windows Task Manager. Very few Processes running. Have OEM CD that will not do a repair. Takes what seems like forever to do anything. Opening My Computer, starting Task Manager, opening a Folder, etc.

 

Hi wahlroot,

Sounds like you have an infected system.

Post a HighjackThis log http://radiosplace.com/

Download to/run it from a folder of its own: C:\HighjackThis - not to the desktop.

Also go to the quicklinks > recommended > security at the top of this page and run the on line scanners as well.

Regards - Charles

 

I have to run Virus scan and Spyware scan in Safe Mode because it takes too long. In regular mode they shut down before finishing. I can not get on the internet in safe mode. I also got a notice that I need Activate Within 3 days because the hardware has changed. Of course, it has not changed. Since I am not able to do all of this for several days, I am going to blow this mess away, and start over.
Thanks to all for your time and effort. I can always depend on "BBS ".

 

Hi,

Have you stopped your programs (startup programs... AV, etc etc ) from running when you start your PC?

 

That should fix the problem (Clint ). It may be good to separate the problem from a rogue program or a rogue driver...although this is probably too late and you have already formatted. As Zykan (BTW, welcome) said, you could try disabling all startup programs (services?), that would identify a driver problem. You may find the problem happens again (sooner rather than later) and it may help you identify the culprit....( "Feeling lucky Punk?" ).

Matt

 

That thing about it thinking hardware had changed makes me suspect a corrupt HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). Although it could be caused if you moved something to a different slot when you were checking that they were secure, I suspect instead that it has something (actually more than one item) detected twice once correctly and once as an unknown or malfunctioning device. Probably the motherboard chipsets.
You may need to do a repair install to fix it.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html
Contains instructions .

 

I have deleted XP and reinstalled this afternoon. I reinstalled Firewall, Virus Scanner, and Wireless card. (CPU Usage 100%). These are the same applications I have installed on my other computer, with no problems. (CPU Usage 2%). Both machines with XP SP2. Also the problem machine works fine when I boot to Safe Mode, or Win98SE. I will leave it at that for now because it is getting late. Will try to copy and paste running processes tomorrow.

 

I Erased Win XP SP2, formatted,and reinstalled, yesterday. Reinstalled most of my applications, yesterday and today. So far everything is operating just fine. If things go bad I will be back. Thanks for now.

 

Here I am Back. Things went back to where they were. I tried a Repair with the Win XP CD. No help. I started digging around in the machine today. Decided to try different things. Started to remove hardware from it physically. The first was a wireless card that had been installed recently. The CPU usage dropped. I decided to move it to another slot. Switched it with the PCI Ethernet card. This PCI card is not used now. CPU usage remains Low. Made a Restore Point, just In case. Added some Applications, Made some adjustments, and still fine. I will think it is because of the availibilty of the Restore Point. I would be surprised if anyone else has the same problem and fixes it the same way. This seems to be the way my life goes.