System lag

I had this convo with a friend of mine, i have no idea whats wrong with her pc.

X: I just need a better computer that will stay good...that's my problem...it's always good and fast when I get it and then it runs so darn slow it's unreal and I have no clue why...it's not cuz of the memory either


LiquidCyanide17: whens the last time u cleared the temp files
LiquidCyanide17: or defragged, or uninstalled un-used software

x: not too long ago...not even a week ago

x: I do it all the time

LiquidCyanide17: clean the registry?

x: I defragged not too long ago
x: I did all of that

LiquidCyanide17: hmm
LiquidCyanide17: do you shut it down

x: the only thing that helps, but only temporarily is to reformat my computer
x: yea

LiquidCyanide17: so that tells me your o/s is getting clutterd somewhere

x: what's o/s?

LiquidCyanide17: whens the last time u wiped out the cookies manually

LiquidCyanide17: operating system, windows

x: not that long ago...I do that less often than the temp. files

LiquidCyanide17: hmm
LiquidCyanide17: i'll see if i think of anything.

x: this always happens to my computers...every one that I've ever had

I think its her, but *shrug*, any ideas?

Spyware , viruses. Who knows how careful she is when using the internet. I mean , it doesn't matter how many times you reformat your hard drive if the first thing you do is go download a bunch of stuff without using a virus checker. Just a thought. Could be winME. It could be many things, we need some system specifics here. Tell her to quit downloading pr0n also :D

It's called Windows rot......

alrdy ruled out spyware and its windows 98 SE.

I run 98 and it's fine. What operations are slow? Is there something common? High CPU usage, high disk IO? Lots of programs running? Does it get worse if the PC is left on for a long time?

To see what programs are running on Win98 you'll need a task manager... try this one if you don't have one already.

Maybe get a RAM monitor app as well to help with diags.

how long has she had this install?

i ran monitors on it and of 512mb ram she has more then 350 free....only one program, the devil made aol.

She has had this install for one week only, i know its not aol cause its done it even with other things like juno.

ok, you have 98SE....look in the lower right of the taskbar....how many icons are there? if it's more than 5 you have a problem....those aren't shortcuts, those are running programs...go to start, run, msconfig go to the startup tab and deselect all your programs that you installed. They'll still open up fine, but they won't open and run when windows boots up. that should fix quite a bit

>>msconfig...


done it : /

I got nothing left, even her registry is cleaned up AHHHH.

>>I got nothing left, even her registry is cleaned up AHHHH.
scandisk? you done that one?

hmmm...that just sucks now doesn't it?

i have a question...when exactly is it slow...when you boot up? when you go to open an app? when you write to disk?read?both?
also,
do you do a lot of installing and re/uninstalling large programs, etc.? If so then perhaps your hard drive is damaged physically, one which defragging can't detect or fix...the plates could be wearing and warping...or the needle could "need oiling"...anyhow i'm starting to think there's something physically wrong with your computer, and it seems to be a patern with you from what your first post said, so i'd look into that.

Weird. And interesting. Need more information though. How exactly is it running slow?

Doesn't sound like a hardware problem, although you can never be sure. Sounds more like something software/os. And it is very likely that it is something she is doing. Even minor hd errors should be kicking up the "blue screen of death". How is her swap file configured? Also, could she be accessing a drive in compatability mode?

I wonder if there is a specific app she's installing after she reinstalls the os that is the source of the problem?

Whatever it is, it's probably something really simple.

It HAS to be her. I replaced every piece of hardware already, even the mobo and processor.

Its slow ALL the time, cept shutdown, that goes really fast. I've replaced, formatted, scandisked, defragged, tweaked, cleaned, you name it.

Beats the heck out of me. Probably one of those things that are too obvious to see. I've butted my head against more of those than I care to remember.
One last thought. She isn't networked fulltime is she? Dedicated phone line or something. Problem in the network slowing down her system in the background. Long shot but I'm out of ideas.
Goodluck.

Damn kev you the man.

I never even thought to look at her network connections and all that. Her brother has been, without informing anyone, connecting to the net thru her aol while shes on to run his big kazzaa downloads!!

Soon as you said it i checked for internet connection sharing, and sure enough he wasn't supposed to have it lol.

Thanks man!

Glad we got it figured out.

Got lucky with that one. After you'd ruled out hardware and software problems all I could think of was the network.

Bet her brother catches it. :D

Kazaa and aol are both spawns of satan....
lol

How can internet connection sharing slow down the PC that much? I presume you mean that the bro was using his PC to talk to the net via hers? I could understand if the app was being run in the background on the same PC, was it? ... :confused:

I agree wald...

Ok hammer i'll elaborate a lil : )

Internet ------ Her computer-----Her brothers computer.

Now her brother pc is networked to hers, but shes the only computer that should be connected to the internet. While on aol on her pc, her brother was useing her internet on his pc. IE when he ran his internet explorer, it reached the internet through her pc, through her connection.

Being as aol is such a resource hog, having his big ass kazzaa dloads going ontop of whatever hse was doing was slamming her resource usage through the roof.

lil clearer?

The good news is that once you get past 1.5GHz-- most of Microsoft's bloatware issues are tolerable.