Very very slow now....

[Dragon2k4]

When i start apps on me desktop pc it takes like forever now to start, for example Nero, that takes around 30secs to load the logo - other activities are painstakingly slow too and act funny eg. Start menu>Help and Support, doesnt load up first click, loads up second click???

Backing up, got a 12x cd writer, took under 10mins before now it takes just over an hour and a bit to burn 700mb of data??

I've defragged and scandisked, scandisk took 19hours on a Maxtor 30gb drive....

Is the drive dying?

Cheers.

[csuzw]

Could be but I'd be a bit surprised. How long have you had the drive and do you ever move your PC/mess about inside it.

Could be you have a virus.

How many apps/processes/services do you have running in the background. If you have a lot of things running in the background this could be the cause.
Have you tried reformatting? Could just be you have a lot of junk lying around although I can't see it slowing down as much as you've said just from that.

Sorry if these aren't helpful but these are some of the things I'd check before I wrote off a drive.

[Dragon2k4]

Righty'o, just burnt another cd, 703mb, done it in 17mins, and another 2 just over 10mins, hmmm seems to pick up as the day goes by, nothing in the background or many apps going in the task manager. Tried copying 300mb of data onto a usb drive, that took 20mins or so... and when i delete a few files under 1mb the recycle bin animation takes around 15secs to complete hmmm, i'd do a scan later and see if there are any virus's around. cheers.

[Tom Salter]

Is your drive set to use DMA or PIO. Go into device manager and check.

Take a look in the event log and let us know if anything funny is there. Or upload the .evt (System and Application) for one of us to look at.

[Dragon2k4]

Cheers, Ok done a Virus Scan, took 297mins @_@ - had backed up a load of stuff previously and deleted loads, done a disk cleanup, yet it stil takes an age, should take bout half hour normally i imagine for a 30gb drive to be scanned - no virus' were found btw.

I've tried re-allocating ma ram (1gb RDram) in the Virtual memory settings, let windows auto manage it (it was custom before) it went a bit faster but still not fast enough, even at bootup takes well over 30secs, used bootvis, games such as typing of the dead lag like mad even w/o the CD, which renders it unplayable...

I thought with this much ram, a large portion would be used as virtual ram to shift/transfer all the data, thus less strain on disk activity?

I checked the drive settings, under properites in device manager doesnt give any info on DMA or any other settings - i've enabled cache writing on the disk also. Set the system up for best performance, done the performance settings, nothing else i can think of really.

Only thing i can think of would be that the drive has had its days.

Any disk diagnostics software to try out or otherwise, to check read/write times?

[Tom Salter]

In device manager you have to look at the disk controller, not the device.

AND POST US THE EVENT LOG!!!!

[Dragon2k4]

Ok hope this helps:

Primary
Secondary

Erm, event log, where would dat be's?

[Tom Salter]

%SystemRoot%\system32\eventvwr.msc /s

Just run that path, and export the System and Application logs

[Dragon2k4]

ok here goes:

Application
System

[Tom Salter]

For some reason your Netbeui service isn't starting, I'd disable it completely. Go into control panel, administrative tools, services, find the service, goto properties, and disable it. You shouldn't really need it.

Windvd.exe, musicconverter.exe etc are all hanging, I suggest reinstallation of all them applications. Your CD-Rom is reporting a fair few errors - I reckon that's fooked, but I'd reinstall them applications just to make sure.

Your machine seems very unstable - try them first, but I fear a windows rebuild :S

[Dragon2k4]

Ok cheers mate, i'd do that - last thing i want to do is a reformat as you know what its like when you've got lots of apps, emus n dat set up ready to go, it's like moving house and starting over again!

[Jason]

I had exactly that problem. Mine was when opening Alcohol 120 or 7zip programs. Even when opening a directory with these programs in using Windows Explorer gave a 30 second wait. I managed to remedy this by running a virus scan using AVAST. It found loads of little trojans that Norton hadn't. I think it was little **** called money tree, puting some java worm onto the PC that was causing problems. Removed these Trojans using AVAST, which was is a bloody good little virus tool. Anyway, got rid of Norton now, got ZoneAlarm security Suite and AVAST and my PC is running like a little bad boy.


Oh I am running Windows 98SE.

Edit: Re-reading your problems again, I must admit your PC sounds in a bad way compated to mine.

[Dragon2k4]

Well i tried everything i could think of - bar refomatting - done registry clean up, deleted load of temp tiles, scan disk, defragged, virus scanned, spyware scanned - the performance is still the same, takes an age to open apps.

My initial concerns was of the hard drive and it looks like i was right - i've removed typing of the dead from desktop hdd, installed typing of the dead on usb 6gb ibm drive, ran the game from there and lo and behold, it ran smoothly! no more ridiculous lagging!

Cheers for all the help guys!

[FelixofMars]

All this to play typing of the dead?

[Dragon2k4]

hheh well its nice to be able to play when i'm downstairs

Things do seem to run faster now, burning, apps opening etc, i think also its due to the fact that i havent used the system for a while, 6-8months, left it aside and been using the lappy instead...