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#1
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
No changes that I can remember.
1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always. 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful. 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete. 4) No network activity unless I access the network. 5) Some programs are slow to start. 6) Virus scan finds no problems. 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems. 8) Spybot finds no problems. 9) Event Viewer has no errors. What now? |
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#2
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
On 04/10/2014 07:56 PM, OldGuy wrote:
No changes that I can remember. 1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always. 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful. 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete. 4) No network activity unless I access the network. 5) Some programs are slow to start. 6) Virus scan finds no problems. 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems. 8) Spybot finds no problems. 9) Event Viewer has no errors. What now? Is the correct amount of RAM shown? |
#3
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
philo* explained on 4/10/2014 :
On 04/10/2014 07:56 PM, OldGuy wrote: Is the correct amount of RAM shown? Shows 3.4G RAM. There are 2 x 2G RAM sticks. |
#4
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
OldGuy wrote:
philo explained on 4/10/2014 : On 04/10/2014 07:56 PM, OldGuy wrote: Is the correct amount of RAM shown? Shows 3.4G RAM. There are 2 x 2G RAM sticks. My machine can slow down a bit, when paged pool is full. http://i58.tinypic.com/j7vymr.gif I "fixed" that a bit, by using a Ramdisk (using PAE memory above 4GB) and putting a pagefile on it (1GB page file). The end result is, if the Paged Pool wants to "slosh around", it uses less of the hard drive while doing it. The pagefile split is supposed to be based on performance. The 2GB "regular" pagefile on C:, is still there, and runs at 135MB/sec. The 1GB pagefile sitting on F: RAMDisk, runs at 4GB a second. Yet, the OS puts a percentage of paging on the hard drive, and the RAMDisk doesn't get all of the activity. Still, it has resulted in a bit better behavior of the OS, when the OS is under a bit of stress. I no longer hear long periods of "grinding" on C:, since some of the paging is now on the RAMDisk (quiet). That makes the C: disk more responsive for other things. At one time, I'd assumed the Paged Pool would just sit there at the high value forever, but once the stress is removed, it seems to "drain". And I no longer have to reboot the thing. By the next morning, with the programs on the machine shut down, the paged pool drops from 298xxx to 150xxx or so. The machine in the picture above, is running 7ZIP on a rather large file. ******* I mention that, assuming you checked Task Manager for busy stuff. Have a look with Process Explorer, if there are any questions about Task Manager. (Process Explorer can also hint at Interrupt Storm problems. Check Interrupts or DPCs as in the picture below.) And you don't happen to have something like a rootkit running on there. With the right kind of malware, it can fake just about anything it wants on the machine. http://i60.tinypic.com/mto2nl.gif Paul |
#5
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
In addition to Paul's tips, and assuming you're
unplugged from the Internet to be sure of no activity like updating, there are a couple of other things you might try: * Make sure any AV/Malware hunter only runs as needed and not every time you select a file. * Delete TEMP files. (They can be in several different places.) * Check the IE cache size. Delete the IE cache and then set it with a small limit, like a few MB. By default it's nearly unlimited, and the tie-in with Explorer can bring Explorer to a crawl. "OldGuy" wrote in message ... | No changes that I can remember. | | 1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling | around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always. | | 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful. | | 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete. | | 4) No network activity unless I access the network. | | 5) Some programs are slow to start. | | 6) Virus scan finds no problems. | | 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems. | | 8) Spybot finds no problems. | | 9) Event Viewer has no errors. | | What now? | | |
#6
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
OldGuy wrote:
No changes that I can remember. 1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always. 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful. 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete. 4) No network activity unless I access the network. 5) Some programs are slow to start. 6) Virus scan finds no problems. 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems. 8) Spybot finds no problems. 9) Event Viewer has no errors. What now? Please identify your virus program. Also, are that program's and Malwarebytes' anti-malware definitions up to date? This is crucial! Also, sometimes there are remanants of previous antivirus programs on the PC and they still take up resources. Please tell us the antivirus history of your laptop. For instance, did it ever have Norton or McAfee? It can't hurt to see if your hard drive's access mode didn't change from DMA to PIO: http://www.technize.info/is-your-har...while-copying/ and http://winhlp.com/node/10 Finally, open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit, and Peak. The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you used since last bootup. What are these values? (If both these figures are below the value of Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.) Let's also see which programs and processes are running: Use the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You should be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good ideas which ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down the names of these processes for future detective work (or take a snapshot and print it out). And let us know what they are. If the above troubleshooting doesn't help, we can later have you do an online virus scan as well as check out the condition of your Windows Search and Windows Update. |
#7
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
"OldGuy" wrote in message ...
No changes that I can remember. 1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always. 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful. 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete. 4) No network activity unless I access the network. 5) Some programs are slow to start. 6) Virus scan finds no problems. 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems. 8) Spybot finds no problems. 9) Event Viewer has no errors. What now? As mentioned by other posters, press "Ctrl-Alt-Del" and see what is using the processor. Ben |
#8
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XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug
Thanks all for the suggestions.
I will get back on that laptop later today. |
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