Fresh Start to my Computer Problem

[leon]

Hi Guys I thought I would start a new thread on this computer problem that has occurred after it (The Computer) had a bit of a rough ride on our travels. :sadeyes:

It runs terribly slow since that event. :shrug: but dose function normally, but it sure takes it time doing stuff, not like earlier when it was lightning fast. :shrug:

Anyway here is where I'm at in trying to remedy the situation.

It has no virus, check :thumbsup:
Checked and reseated all connections wires etc. :thumbsup:
Reseated, dusted and cleaned the RAM. :thumbsup:

Runs normally when loaded, but slow. :shrug:
It has 4 GIG of RAM, but tells me it has 512 MB of shared memory at start up, could this be a clue :shrug:

Could there be a crack in the mother board or HD or somewhere that might be causing this :shrug:

Any other suggestions would be appreciated, many thanks.:thumbsup:

Leon:thumbsup:

[Tandum]

Is this Win7 leon? It's probabaly worth doing a hard drive scan for errors. If you get my computer going and right click on the C: drive and select properties. Look at the tools tab and click the check now button. Tick both check boxes, click ok and you will get a warning that the drive is in use, do you want to schedule a check. Pick yes and reboot. The machine will do a drive scan as it boots up. Depending on the size of the drive, this could take some time, possibly some hours to complete.

Where is says 4gig of ram installed and 512 shared, that is normal, it uses some of the system ram for video.

[mplanet62]

There might be a few reasons for computer slowdown. Without seeing the computer it's hard to pinpoint the cause, but a few primary suspects may be :
1.Hard drive overload. Symptoms that show it are:
- Very slow boot-up, system keep reading the drive non-stop while loading and often when working. You will hear whirring noise and see HDD light blinking at all times. In my experience all windows systems slow down significantly when you have less than 25% of drive free of data.
Remedy: Cleaning all unnecessary data/rubbish off it and defragmentation after that.
2. RAM and processor overload by resident programs. Symptoms: Very slow bootup-see above and sluggish performance with memory hungry applications (esp. photo-video). You see a lot of small icons sitting in quick start panel (right bottom of the screen).
Remedy: Kill all the resident programs that you don't need at all times - like camera recognition and download, system widgets, etc.
3. Virus or trojan. Easier to avoid than to fix, the only way to deal is a fresh system and reliable antivirus.
4. Hardware problem. Mainly, power source and HDD problems, motherboard can take a lot.
Diagnostics and remedies:
HDD may be checked from the system - right click on HDD in My Computer and choose Tools.
Power source is not easy to diagnose without system disassembly and special instrument. Telltale signs are overheating, excessive noise and performance of the system largely dependent on ambient temperature.
Any faulty hardware units need to be replaced - not serviceable.

Now to software that can be helpful. I would advise only free soft at this stage.

Ccleaner is downloadable from the NET. Helps with cleaning rubbish off HDD and programs, killing unnecessary start-up resident programs and fixing of minor registry problems. The system accelerates considerably after the first run that may take more than hour - depends on how "dirty" the system is.

Live Ubuntu disk. Most of Ubuntu distributions may be downloaded for free and burnt on a live disk. The system starts from disk and allows HDD access for data backup - even when the Windows is down completely. Helps to see if the problem lies in hardware or software domain - if windows stalled but Ubunty flies, Windows is the problem.

Hope this helps

[silv]

Hi Leon,
if you suspect the RAM, check how much RAM the system has actually recognized by
Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
(on windows vista and Win7)
Or, if you're on a Mac, click the Apple icon, About This Mac, More Info.

That window shows info about the installed and recognized RAM of your system. If that is less than you know it should have, open the enclosure again and carefully re-seat the chips.

"Virtual Memory" is a hidden swap or "page" file the system maintains on your hard drive. On Windows, it should be double the size of the installed physical RAM for best performance. e.g. if you have 2GB RAM installed, the ideal virtual memory would be set to 4000 bytes in size.
Usually, the operating system governs the size automatically; but you can tweak that. AFTER you have made sure that your RAM is recognized as described above....
Here's how to:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-the-size-of-virtual-memory

checkdisk - is as described in previous post - would also be my recommendation.

Good luck!

[silv]

oh - and since you were speaking of "travels", I assume you took many photos? Maybe, your hard drive is simply running out of disk space.
If it's low on disk space, the file for the "virtual memory" suffers.

Empty the trash. Move your pics to an external drive - those would be quick&easy remedies.

:)

[leon]

Many thanks guys, lot of useful info here and seeing that i have plenty of time on my hands i will sort through it and see how we go.

Silv, the HD has heaps of free space, and i don't ever keep and trash, so to speak so i expect that this is not the issue, however i will check all scenarios anyway

Leon

[leon]

The problem has been fixed, thank you so much for all your suggestions and advice however things may not have as bad as once thought. :shrug:

I thought I would do a simple system restore first, couldn't really hurt so I restored it to last week prior to its bumpy ride, and it has fixed itself, :eyepop:amazing. :D

Anyway I am happy :) and so is the machine, your help was much appreciated however, ;)

Leon :thumbsup:

[astroron]

Glad to see you have your computer sorted out Leon :D
Where are you now :question::question::question:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[jenchris]

No one suggested dual virus checkers -
It's not relevant now, but sometimes people load two virus checkers (to be sure, to be sure) and they fight each other ALL THE TIME

[JohnH]

Hi Leon,

Sounds like you have eliminated hardware as the source of the slows - connectors, ram, CPU etc all well seated. You mentioned earlier it is slow start up and then running improves.

To me this smalls of anti-virus/firewall/patches.

What anti-virus product have you go loaded? AVG is a real resource hog, so are some versions of Norton. You may need to consider swapping or changing the config (when scans are triggered etc). How about widows update - are you using that - patching can cause slows either temporary or permanent. This could manifest after a road trip (ie off the net) when you get home (many updates/scans triggered).

It might be worth having a look at your network settings also - I know some machines will attempt to connect to all the shares they have ever seen - and if the location changes can send a fair bit of time looking for "missing" resources.

Have a look at the the task manager also - lots of apps load little "helpers" so over time as you install/uninstall you can find the perfomance degrades as there are orphans left on the machine that unistalls did not quite get rid of.

Bottom line in my experiance - unless the config of your machine is stable you will suffer form "rusting" of the o/s over time. You can only really get back to clean with a re-install of the o/s.

XP - even sp3 - theswe days is so out of date that after installs you need about 200 patches plus a security product (MSE is fast/lightweight).

It is a PITA, drives us into the upgrade cycle.

Last though - how old is the machine, could the battery have failed and if it has - are the BIOS settings still correct?

[leon]

Jen and John, thanks for your advice, I am not a computer wizard, so this simple fix has been very helpful to me.
I will seriously look at all the helpful hints and advice given to me and make sure that this dose not occur again, I hope.:rolleyes:

Ron we are presently staying at a property at Angus Water, near 1770, my family own a 5 acre lot there with beautiful landscaped gardens and stretches of green lawn and shady trees, it is an awesome spot.:eyepop:an is free mate :lol:

Leon :thumbsup:

[astroron]

Great to hear Leon, I saw rig like yours in Kenilworth yesterday and thought it might just have been you ;)
Cheers:thumbsup: