Computer Slugish, can't figure out why.

I've noticed over the past few weeks that my computer has been abnormally sluggish especially regarding hard drive read/write times. When I load a program, lets say Word2003, it just seems like it hesitates (hard drive makes normal hdd reading noises) and then finally the program launches and works fine. So basically there is abnormal lag time in launching programs etc.. I've compared my laptop with my friends who has a similar speed Celeron with 512 and it seems like his blows mine away!

I am running WindowsXP Professional on an HPze4325 NOTEBOOK.
It is an AMD2000+ (runs at 1.67GHz)
512megs of ddr Ram
40Gig Hard drive (23 gigs of free space still)
64 Meg ATI video card

I have done all the regular maintenance checks...
Spyware programs are run regularly
Anti-virus checked
Defragged (several times)
Check system processes running (nothing big or unusual)
Cleared the startup folder
Ran MSCONFIG, cleared startup programs from taskbar.
Virtual Ram is system managed (i think its at 644 usually).
Cleared TEMP Folders, IE Temps Etc.
Ran Burnin tests, said everything was fine but the hard drive was kinda slow? Not sure what they compare it to, ofcourse its slow compared to a desktop hdd.
Ran Memtest86, no errors found.
Last night I ran scandisk for the first time in a LONG time.
It breezed through everything UNTIL it got to step (4 out of 5) which is the File Checking System? That process took FOREVER. I mean I started it at 1:50am and it was on about 25% around 2:15am and I fell asleep. When I woke up the computer was on the windows logon screen so I assume everything is ok!?! How do I know if there were errors?

Are there any other tests or benchmarks that you could recommend so I can figure out where my problem lies? Anything I should checkout or test?

One last thing... I have 2 slots for ram, each is filled with 256 chips to = 512.
I have a best buy gift card for $150.00 and I was thinking about going out and getting two 512 chips to = 1024 of ram. You think that would make a drastic difference? I don't really do anything intense, just web browsing and word processing. I occasionally draw maps in Illustrator 10 but other then that, I do nothing intense. I have maybe but one game on the computer and it doesn't use graphics.

Thanks,
Mike

 

"How do I know if there were errors?"
There'll be a report on that scan in the Event Viewer.

There's definitely sthg wrong when chkdsk takes that long. Runs on mine in under a minute for a 40 GB partition with 4 gigs used.

Somebody who knows this stuff will be along, but possibly not until the morning (Eastern).

I hate to sound negative, but the behavior, the disk scan, and the read-write test make it sound like you'd be ahead spending your $150 on a new HD instead of RAM. The RAM you've got sounds perfect for the stuff you say you do. You don't get any significant performance change in WORD by jumping from half a gig to a whole one: you'll just avoid crashes when you try to open 20MB doc files full of screen caps. Even then, 512 would haul it.

HD still under warranty, by any chance?

 

Well I called HP and it looks as if my HDD is STILL covered under warrenty. They walked me a bunch of steps (disk cleanup etc. nothing major) and gave me a case number and said to call back. Not sure what to do about this... I don't know if I can go without the computer for a few weeks. Does HP have a repair center I could go to?

By the way, I don;t know if they're the same thing but it wasn't chkdsk... I ran scan disk and had it set to auto fix erros and whatever the other checkbox is.

The guy on the phoen said scan disk does take extremely long. I didn't think so but I could be wrong.

 

You went to the tools tab of the Properties of the drive and there were two things there: Error-Checking (Check Now) and Defragmentation (Defragment Now), right? There are two check boxes in Error-checking: Check for and fix file system errors and Find and fix bad sectors. If you check either of those boxes, you get a popup that says the scan can't be run while files are in use, and asks if you want to schedule it for next boot. Right?
You shouldn't have scandisk.exe on your XP machine. It comes with chkdsk.exe as the disk checker.
If you go to Start, Run, and type
chkdsk C: /f
and click OK, you'll get the same popup, and if you reboot, chkdsk will run and you can see the report onscreen if you watch closely while it runs. Might be worth a try now, to see whether you can see anything in the report.

 

Ok I tried that and thats the program I used originally to check for errors.

 

Too Bad. Try chkdsk again, then try repair if it is the HD.

Okay, well you shd go back there and run it again and reboot and watch the screen (it's a blue screen with white lettering, and you have to watch as the printing shows you how much is completed) ... until it finishes, and then it gives you a report. Write down what it says and tell us.

I don't know what to say about having to do without the computer while you send it in for repairs. Got any friends who'd let you borrow a spare computer and put some of your stuff on it from the notebook? I dunno anything else to suggest. Bad luck, man.

(I'd go absolute bonkers without mine. Maybe that's part of the reason I've got three running and one still in the box. No, I will NOT send you the one in the box for three weeks. Sorry.)

 

When you run chkdsk D: /f, when it reboots, boot into safe mode (press f8 at startup, and select safe mode). This will allow it to fix errors (sometimes it cant if you boot normally)

But your problem isnt normal wear and tear, id think. If you can, make a backup of all your stuff and try restoring the computer. HP's have a restore partition on the hard drive, so, its easy to format/reinstall, as it does it all for you. Just make sure you have your data backed up.
On a fresh install, it should be much faster. If it slows down again, theres a hardware problem (hard drive failing)
Oh, enable SMART in the BIOS, see if it finds any errors.

 

just in case, you should start backing up your important data. We don't want you to come back here with a thread like "PC won't boot, need to get data off disk drive"

 

I think the key paragraph you said is that the file system seems to be corrupted (i.e. takes excessively long to use scandisk, often indicative of an 'irrecoverable error').

My advice would be to:-
(1) Back up any important data, such as documents, downloads, email, doc & settings, favorites etc., as Kodo just said.
(2) Do reformat of your H.D.D. Maybe even a low-level format.
(3) Re-install the O.S. etc.

If you still have problems - then it may be time to replace the H.D.D.

 

dont do a low level format, that will destroy the partition that HP uses to store all the backup data.
Look at your users manual, itll tell you how to use the HP recovery to format your harddrive and restore the computer to its original condition using the data on the hard drives hidden partition.