Lockups and slowdown on my PC

[Kazuya_UK]

I have a really bizarre problem on my PC that has been causing me trouble for ages now. Basically, at random times the PC will either slow down really badly for a short time while the HD light is going crazy (almost like I'm running into virtual memory, despite the fact that I have very little running), or the PC will lockup altogether requiring a reboot. I'm at a loss to explain this and have tried everything I can... I tried new RAM, a new processor, in fact when I originally encountered this same problem, I upgraded shortly after that anyway and bought a new motherboard and graphics card. I've also tried installing a larger cooling fan for the CPU, so that isn't running too hot either.

After I upgraded this problem did go away for a while, but has recently come back, and I can't understand it... I thought maybe it was software, but I've had it happen almost immediately after a fresh install of Windows XP, without any other software on there. Here's the rough specs of my PC:

AMD 2000XP Processor
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro 2 Motherboard
Geforce FX5900XT 128mb Gfx card
512MB RAM

Can anyone shed any light at all on this, or have any idea what could be the problem? Could it be virus related even (although I have tried totally re-installing windows on a number of occasions). At the moment I have Avast Antivirus running and that hasn't detected anything on a full system scan, and I used to run Norton and that didn't detect anything either. This is really worrying me, because it has dragged on for a long time now and I really need the PC to be 100%... if anyone can help or offer any advice at all I'll be eternally grateful :)

Thanks in advance,
Stuart

[IanS]

I have a really bizarre problem on my PC that has been causing me trouble for ages now. Basically, at random times the PC will either slow down really badly for a short time while the HD light is going crazy (almost like I'm running into virtual memory, despite the fact that I have very little running), or the PC will lockup altogether requiring a reboot. I'm at a loss to explain this and have tried everything I can... I tried new RAM, a new processor, in fact when I originally encountered this same problem, I upgraded shortly after that anyway and bought a new motherboard and graphics card. I've also tried installing a larger cooling fan for the CPU, so that isn't running too hot either.

After I upgraded this problem did go away for a while, but has recently come back, and I can't understand it... I thought maybe it was software, but I've had it happen almost immediately after a fresh install of Windows XP, without any other software on there. Here's the rough specs of my PC:

AMD 2000XP Processor
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro 2 Motherboard
Geforce FX5900XT 128mb Gfx card
512MB RAM

Can anyone shed any light at all on this, or have any idea what could be the problem? Could it be virus related even (although I have tried totally re-installing windows on a number of occasions). At the moment I have Avast Antivirus running and that hasn't detected anything on a full system scan, and I used to run Norton and that didn't detect anything either. This is really worrying me, because it has dragged on for a long time now and I really need the PC to be 100%... if anyone can help or offer any advice at all I'll be eternally grateful :)

Thanks in advance,
StuartIt could easily be spy-ware. Not all anti-virus software searches for spyware so running an extra program to find spyware can be useful.

Other things to look at is deleting cookies and temporary internet files. Defragmentation of the hard drive can also alter the perception of the speed of the computer and it's processing.

Constant hard drive activity should be reduced by following the above.

You mentioned that you re-installed the OS, but did you re-partition the drive and re-format it? Installing the OS over an existing installation may not provide the answer to the problem you're experiencing.

[Kazuya_UK]

I did format the drive totally when doing a fresh install of windows last week(the second drive which I have as storage was not formatted though). I suppose I could try defragmenting both the HD's I have and see if that has any positive effect. I have ran adaware though, and that removed a few cookies as well as some reg keys that came from Alexa I believe. I'll see how things go, hopefully I can come to some sort of answer as to what the problem is.

I still wonder if it could be RAM related... when the PC slows down and the HD is constantly accessing, like I said before it's almost as if it is running into virtual memory or something, when there's no chance it could be as it sometimes happens when I have very little running. I'm not the most technically minded person when it comes to PC's though, so I might just be talking rubbish ;)

Thnaks for the advice, I appreciate it!

Stuart

[IanS]

I did format the drive totally when doing a fresh install of windows last week(the second drive which I have as storage was not formatted though). I suppose I could try defragmenting both the HD's I have and see if that has any positive effect. I have ran adaware though, and that removed a few cookies as well as some reg keys that came from Alexa I believe. I'll see how things go, hopefully I can come to some sort of answer as to what the problem is.

I still wonder if it could be RAM related... when the PC slows down and the HD is constantly accessing, like I said before it's almost as if it is running into virtual memory or something, when there's no chance it could be as it sometimes happens when I have very little running. I'm not the most technically minded person when it comes to PC's though, so I might just be talking rubbish ;)

Thnaks for the advice, I appreciate it!

StuartTask manager (right click on status bar at bottom of main screen and choose 'Task Manager') should be able to help you decide on how much of your CPU and RAM is in use, including swap files

[Kazuya_UK]

It seems that there is still a fair bit of RAM left (although not as much as I would have thought), and it says page file usage is 189MB at the moment. One thing I noticed though, access to my C drive seems much slower than access to my secondary drive, and accessing that drive does slow the PC down really bad. Also, I did defragment my second drive, don't think that will make much difference though...

Thanks again,
Kaz

[IanS]

It seems that there is still a fair bit of RAM left (although not as much as I would have thought), and it says page file usage is 189MB at the moment. One thing I noticed though, access to my C drive seems much slower than access to my secondary drive, and accessing that drive does slow the PC down really bad. Also, I did defragment my second drive, don't think that will make much difference though...

Thanks again,
KazA number of things may be slowing down access speeds to drive C:

Q1, how are the drives connected up - are drive c & d on the same IDE cable, or is a CD/DVD Rom drive on the cable with the c drive?

Q2, what are the relative specs of the drives - sizes and access speeds have moved on quite considerably and that alone could account for the difference.

Q3, how full is drive c? Again, a full drive takes longer to access than an empty one.

[Kazuya_UK]

Not sure if they are connected up on the same IDE cable, I'll have to check up on that, same for the DVD drives (I have a DVD writer and DVD drive). I did nptice today though that burning a DVD at the moment is ridiculously slow... my Sony 4x writer now seems to write everything at single speed (meaning a full dvd takes an hour), no matter what media I am using. That's weird... very weird.

I have a Maxtor 2F040J0 40gig drive as the C drive, and a Samsung SP8004H 80gig as the d drive. The d drive is a little full right now, but there's plenty of space on the C drive.

Also had some really funky problems again today; restarted the PC earlier and as windows was shutting down it gave an error saying it couldn't write to a particular address. I also had some strange things like browser windows closing... for instance I had 3 IE windows open earlier on and every now and then one of them just disappeared for no reason. Obviously some very funky stuff is going on with this PC right now, so I really must get it sorted.

Anyway, as I said before I really appreciate the advice you have given! :)

Stuart

[LarryH]

With that much RAM, you should be fast.

Have you installed Windows XP Service Pack 2? While there are reports that it slows things down, it is the best MS has to offer.

Do you have a broadband connection? If so, are you running a software firewall? Either the one in XP SP2 or something like Kerio Personal Firewall (free for all uses), or do you have a router with a built-in firewall. I read a few months ago that a pre-SP2 PC with no firewall was infested within 20 minutes of going online with a broadband connection.

How many programs are loaded at startup? Some programs hog a lot of resources. Try MSConfig: Start > Run > type "MSconfig" without the quotes and hit ENTER. This will tell you what is loading at startup.

Other utilities to try are ScanDisk - maybe your disk has some bad sectors, although I have not seen it in a disk less than 5 years old.
DiskCleanup can find files that you can delete.
Fred Langa has a batch file for weeding out junk, http://www.langa.com.
I recently ran across a freeware program, CCleaner, http://www.ccleaner.com/. It finds all kinds of stuff you would not expect.
Once you have the disk cleaned up, then run Disk Defragmenter.

SysInternals, http://www.sysinternals.com/, has PageDefrag, that defragments the pagefile. That seems to make a difference on both Win2k and WinXP.

NTRegOpt, is a good utility for optimizing the registry, http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/. It is amazing how big the registry can get.

I see that you are using Internet Explorer. If it is acting weird, it is usually a sign of spyware.

I use Firefox for most of my browsing, and have very few problems.

One last thing occurred to me. Was your internet connection on when you were loading everything? That would leave a big hole in your defenses, unless you have a router. If you do not have a router, make sure you have everything you need and turn off your internet until you have your system with a firewall installed, then turn on your internet.

If you are using AOL, or another service that loads lots of frills, that could be slowing things down too.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.kairoscomputers.com/

[Kazuya_UK]

With that much RAM, you should be fast.

Have you installed Windows XP Service Pack 2? While there are reports that it slows things down, it is the best MS has to offer.

Yeah I'm on SP2, and all the latest MS updates.


Do you have a broadband connection? If so, are you running a software firewall? Either the one in XP SP2 or something like Kerio Personal Firewall (free for all uses), or do you have a router with a built-in firewall. I read a few months ago that a pre-SP2 PC with no firewall was infested within 20 minutes of going online with a broadband connection.

I don't trust the firewall in XP, so I use Zonealarm. When I do a fresh install of windows I install the anti-virus and firewall first before connecting my cable modem :)


How many programs are loaded at startup? Some programs hog a lot of resources. Try MSConfig: Start > Run > type "MSconfig" without the quotes and hit ENTER. This will tell you what is loading at startup.

I did check that before, there's very little in there to be honest, and right at this moment I only really have the bare minimum installed... antivirus, firewall, and a burning app for my dvd recorder... not much else.

Other utilities to try are ScanDisk - maybe your disk has some bad sectors, although I have not seen it in a disk less than 5 years old.
DiskCleanup can find files that you can delete.
Fred Langa has a batch file for weeding out junk, http://www.langa.com.
I recently ran across a freeware program, CCleaner, http://www.ccleaner.com/. It finds all kinds of stuff you would not expect.
Once you have the disk cleaned up, then run Disk Defragmenter.

SysInternals, http://www.sysinternals.com/, has PageDefrag, that defragments the pagefile. That seems to make a difference on both Win2k and WinXP.

NTRegOpt, is a good utility for optimizing the registry, http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/. It is amazing how big the registry can get.[/quote]

I'll try those for sure, thanks :)

I see that you are using Internet Explorer. If it is acting weird, it is usually a sign of spyware.

I use Firefox for most of my browsing, and have very few problems[/[quote]

Yep, I do use Firefox normally, but since I did the re-install I haven't put it back on here yet (I will do though :)). i have ran adaware though, and that found a few random things like tracking cookies etc, which have been removed.

[quote]
One last thing occurred to me. Was your internet connection on when you were loading everything? That would leave a big hole in your defenses, unless you have a router. If you do not have a router, make sure you have everything you need and turn off your internet until you have your system with a firewall installed, then turn on your internet.

If you are using AOL, or another service that loads lots of frills, that could be slowing things down too.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.kairoscomputers.com/

As I mentioned above, I usually make sure anti-virus and firewall are installed before I connect the PC up to the internet at all, as I wouldn't want to run the risk of anything happening. And nope, I'm not with AOL thankfully :D

I just flashed my bios to the latest version, as I've just noticed on Gigabytes site that a few of the bios updates they released fix issues with certain types of RAM... it might not be relevant to what I have, but it's done now, so that's another thing off the checklist. I also checked the IDE cables, and it seems the two HD's are on the same cable, while the DVD drive and burner are on another... is that how it should be?

Thanks for the lengthy post, it was very helpful too. I'll try those programs you mentioned and see if it makes any difference.

Cheers,
Stuart

[IanS]

As I mentioned above, I usually make sure anti-virus and firewall are installed before I connect the PC up to the internet at all, as I wouldn't want to run the risk of anything happening. And nope, I'm not with AOL thankfully :D

Anti-virus and firewall software don't stop all spyware. A real-time program like 'Spyware Doctor' monitors your computer for attempts to load spyware (others do similar jobs) as well as being able to scan if it is turned off. I'd recommend a real-time anti-spy/ad program be installed.

If the 2 hard drives aren't on the same cable then I'd suggest reconfiguring the connections so that they are. A DVD drive can slow access speeds if on the same cable as a hard drive.

[Kazuya_UK]

I guess I'll have to install a real time scanner - will probably get Adaware pro on here or something. As I mentioned in the last post, I check and found that both the HD's are on the same cable, with the DVD burner and other DVD drive on the other.

Since flashing the motherboard bios to the latest version last night, the PC has been running a lot smoother. Maybe it's just coincidence but it definitely seems better... I'll see how it goes anyway. ;)

Cheers,
Kaz