computer going REAAALY slow - what to do?

[87coupe]

Do you by chance have the Windows 2000 disk? At this point a repair install would probably be the quickest way to get your system sorted out. It's not a lost cause if you don't so don't worry.

Here is a standalone virus scanner offered by McAfee. Stinger Try this and report back.

[masraum]

I think that something during the defrag caused the problem, but I'm not sure what. I doubt it's a virus issue.

[87coupe]

Open up task manager again (Ctrl+Alt+Del or right click on the start bar and select "task manager"), resize the window so that the whole list of running processes is visable, and take a screeshot (Alt+Print Screen (Prt Scrn)), open up your image program, select file -> new, and press Ctr+V to paste the screenshot in, select file->save as, and post the image here.

P.S. Quit being such an instigator to the newbs who ask about V8 conversions in the Tech forum

[StevoRocket]

Rebooting possibly allowed the trojan/virus to reload itself.
Machines which have not been defragged for some time take a long time to complete the defrag. I have a windows 2000 machine with a lot less free space than yours which takes ages to defrag too - but only if it has not been defragged for months.
Shut off the screen saver and any other programs which you run before running the defrag - otherwise it spends a lot of time scanning the disk from the beginning every few minutes.

One other problem can be disk errors - its always worth running a dskchk (disk error check) before running a defrag on older machines.

[87coupe]

Lol, well that's one way to take a screenshot. Ok, when you say your machine is slow, what are you trying to do when it's going slow. Is it slow launching applications or slow running them, or is it just your internet browsing is slow?

[87coupe]

So you have some info, you have no suspect processes running and your definitely not CPU bound - 99% idle.

[slodave]

Hi,

Most of the warranty Toshiba laptop's I work on have a poor cooling design. The cooling fans pull air in from the bottom and really suck in the dust, cat hair, etc. and block the radiator. I don't remember how Dell's work, but is the laptop getting very warm? Does the fan turn on at all?

A long shot is that the memory is corrupt. Ask your IT guy to download a program called memtest86.

http://www.memtest86.com/

Have him burn it to CD or make a floppy. Boot it and see what happens. If mem is bad it'll show up in red giving the address and how much.

All I can think of at the moment.

Dave

[singpilot]

My G/F had almost the exact same thing with her Dell of about the same vintage. She (thank gawd) had bought the extended warranty. 3 home visits later, they changed the motherboard for the exact same complaint. They found the cooling fan blades had shattered, replaced the fan assy. Worked OK for a week or so, same again. Then I reloaded everything after a format at their suggestion. worked for a week, then slow again. Then Dell came back to the house again and put new HD in. Worked for a week. Third try, changed out motherboard. It worked long enough for her to sell it.

Maybe it's time.

[slodave]

>>Have him burn it to CD or make a floppy.

Um, if your Dell does not have a floppy drive, don't bother having your IT guy making a floppy disk :-).

It's late, what'd ya expect?

Dave

[RickM]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
Very odd, but when I run the defrag program, within 1/2 hour into the process, the computer just suddenly shuts itself down.

That could be because of a cooling issue. When CPU gets too hot it will become very unpredictable and either shut off or reboot. Does the fan come on at all? I wonder if your CPU can report tempthrough a utility. What model is it?

[RickM]

Here's a Core temp utility for Dell laptops that alos reports on cooling fan performance: http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/

[87coupe]

Ok, so we have narrowed it down to launching applications that is the slow part - this most likely means that your disk access is the bottleneck. Here is another question to further confirm that suspicion, when the computer is going slow do you here the hard drive making lots of noise (thrashing)? Does the disk access light blink or go solid in correlation to system speed?

[87coupe]

Yep, as I was expecting. First guess is your HDD is on the outs, especially from your description of "gravel or marbles in the HDD". What can happen is that over time (especially in laptops which experience a lot of minor impacts and vibration) the hard drives heads (think record player arm and needle) get loose and skip around on the platters, causing the drive to have to find the spot (data block) it was last reading at. I would look at getting a new HDD for the laptop, unfortunately you will have to reload your operating system The reason you haven't heard me go along w/ the others who have suggested a fragmented file system is that all modern file systems (Fat32 or NTFS in your case) are only marginally effected by fragmentation. Your HDD was designed w/ these file systems in mind and utilizes an on-board cache to store information about where what data blocks are stored on the individual platters. If the drive is functioning properly it will only show a marginal slow down in the most fragmented of scenarios - not the massive slow down you are describing. To further show the validity of this scenario look at the last few generations of IBM laptops, they have implemented a small sensor on the bottom of the laptops that is not depressed when the laptop is not on a solid surface and in turn applies a small amount of tension to the disk heads. This greatly improves the durability of the HDD and it's ability to withstand minor impacts and vibration.

Sorry there is not a quick and easy solution to this one.

[slodave]

Hi,

If the HDD is bad, do back up ASAP and consider a new drive. It would not surprise me if the fan is blocked as well. Find out where the the hot air is blowing out. If the fan sounds as if it working as fast as it can, feel the air, is it very hot, does it seem like there is a nice breeze or is it fairly calm. If you have a can-o-air, carefully try and blow any dust out. Careful not tip the can and spray the liquid all over the inside of the laptop - this will do some nicee damage. Toshiba's are notorious for overheating. defrag will cause the CPU to work full bore causing loads of heat. 95% of the Toshiba's that come in with similar problems have a nice carpet of dust on the copper radiator. Blowing them out works. I let them run for hours after cleaning and no more random shutdown.

Dave

[slodave]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
Is a new drive really worth it?

Depends, if you really like the computer (mine dates to 1997, no battery anymore, slow - p2 266 96 megs win2000, but is bulletproof and I deal with it). I probably would not spend the money to upgrade RAM, replace HDD and transfer or reinstall the OS and Apps.

Seems to me it's best if this thing is dying to just buy a new laptop for $700 and be done with it. It is only needed for home use (Internet, email, storing photos and video, and iTunes is all it is used for).

A new laptop would give you a faster CPU, more RAM, bigger HDD. Maybe a bigger screen.

Anyway, it's up to you. Be careful with Toshiba not too many models that are good these days.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Just put a new motherboard in my Dell. Cost was $300 or so with overnight shipping. Also bought a new 80 gig HD that I am now loading with programs.

The laptop is about a year old, so is worth keeping. If it was another few years older would not spend the money on a motherboard. A hard drive cost around $100 so is well worth it.

JoeA

[StevoRocket]

try ebay....

search for laptops - $250 dollars should sort it - xp software , word, excel etc.

example
http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-C600-FAST-P3-1-0GIG-DVD-UPGRADEABLE-TO-WIRELESS-NR_W0QQitemZ6813454712QQcategoryZ3713QQrdZ1QQcmdZV iewItem

Or like I said - save the stress and see your local computer shop.

[kqw]

First of all...Do not format your hard drive before you back up to an external drive, any and all files/programs you want to save. If you do you will blow away everything on your hard drive. I don't think you want to do that.....

As mentioned here, you may have a thermal problem....

Turn off the computer...let it sit for a while.

Elevate the computer so as to have air flow both on top and bottom. If you have a small fan, all the better to enhance cooling.

Run your Anti-Virus program again.

Clear all your temp files found in windows. (Windows explorer, windows, temp) If you haven't cleared this file is a while...it will probably have hundreds of files in there....Clean them out....

Clear your Temporary Internet files (From the internet: Tools, Internet Options: click to delete cookies and also those temporary internet files.) This will clear your previously visited internet web sites. If there are ones that you want to keep, write them down and then go back and visit their web site.

Defrag. can take literaly hours to complete.

Does win2000 have a system restore program? Check and see...You may get lucky and restore your system back to a previous date. Make sure that date coincides to when your computer was running normal.

Run Check disk (start, run, type in chkdsk, then enter)

[87coupe]

W2K doesn't have System Restore natively.

Don't try defragging the drive again. It's like driving a car with a dying clutch in stop and go traffic. Your just gonna wear it out quicker - I already explained why your not gonna see any real performance gain from a defrag anyways.

Don't run Check Disk, same reason as above.

Do backup any data you don't want to be without. Although you mentioned most of the important data is on your other machine.

Keep the machine turned on sitting on a hard surface that will allow optimal cooling. Turn off any power saving settings that will spin down the HDD, this will also prolong the life of the HDD.