Extremely Slow Computer (85% of the time)

Greetings.

First let me say that I have done all the work in the Malware Forum and have had TimW tell me my logs are clean. He recommended that I post here next for further help. That thread may be found here: Malware Thread. You can also reference all of my logs from this thread as well.

I have also read the similar threads that were recommended when I began this thread, but they don't seem to address my particular problem.

So, that being said...

The basic problem is that my computer is running extremely slow most of the time. One or two days out of the week it runs extremely fast and normal. I have taken care to make sure I am not running anything different on the fast days and I am not. In fact, this machine is basically used for web surfing (Firefox mostly) and Word documents. Some days I can just have one browser window open and it is extremely slow; and then a few other days I can have multiple tabs in a browser and a few word documents and it is fine.

Now, I have 1.28 Gig of RAM and since this is Pentium 4 at 2 Ghz I really think I should be fine with what I'm using it for. This would would make sense since there are times when it runs normally.

This slow behavior has been taking place for over 6 months and I cannot link it to any particular install or change on my part.

Thank you so much to all who try to help!

 

Maybe your computer is running too hot.

Most CPU's will protect themselves from damage if they start getting too hot and so will run at a lower speed.

If it's a PC then open up the case and use your mouth or a can of compressed air to blow off all dust that is on all the components.

Dust retains heat and if it is on the computer's components it will cause them to overheat rapidly.

If it's a laptop you're using then I wouldn't recommend opening it, but instead what you can do it blow strongly through the air vents. You'll be surprised how much it makes a difference in how hot you computer runs.

Also, you can check what programs are starting when Windows starts. You can go to Start ----> Run then type in 'msconfig', then go to the 'startup' tab and untick any programs that are not essential for the computer to run correctly. For example, you will want to leave your antivirus ticked, but untick programs like Skype, Messenger and so on.

Hope these suggestions will solve your problem!

 

Download and run SpeedFan to check on the temps.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpeedFan_d337.html

May need to apply a new coating of Arctic Silver.

 

Good idea for the temperature check. I downloaded SpeedFan and here are some results:

Harddrive - 37C
Temp1 - 55C
Core - 51C
Ambient - 0C

Is this acceptable or bad? I really don't know anything about temperatures. If its bad what should I do next?

Also, this is a laptop.

Thanks!

-----
Note that I believe according to this post that msconfig might not be the best thing to use for startup issues:

Startup Thread

 

Temps do look a bit on the high side.
Arctic Silver would be a good choice.
Have you ever had the experience of applying thermal paste?
Do you know how to remove the fan, heat sink, and the CPU?

 

whoa.. i think that is WAYYY too hot. what are you running on the laptop right now ??

 

Hmm. I have applied some thermal paste years ago and I have done some work building desktops...but never removing a heatsink or cpu. Plus I've never done this on laptops before. Any suggestions?

Also, is the Arctic Silver 5 a good bet? Looks like I can get a sweet deal on that.

And as far as what I'm running....virtually nothing besides Firefox. For real. That's why I know I have some sort of problem.

 

how old is your laptop? in a laptop the CPU is soldered... it's incredibly hard to resolder a cpu and that shouldn't be the problem anyways. I think he thought you were talking about a desktop not laptop.

You may have some spyware or bad stuff lurking in the background making your computer work so hard. I have to go to work so i will leave it up to the big guys to help you here. Good luck.

You should also shut down the laptop until it completely cools.. and then go into your bios and monitor your temperatures there.. and if it still goes that high.. then you have a hardware issue.. then you might actually have to resolder or something.

 

I'm sorry but I completely disagree. The laptop is running at normal temperatures. Most CPU temperatures are above 60C. Mine is running at 59C right now, granted it is a gaming laptop but still. Also, applying thermal paste is not the best option if someone has no experience with it. All your laptop needs 'risingTide' is a bit of dusting and a few changes to the programs at startup and it will be running fast like you want it.

The thread about NOT using msconfig to change what programs are allowed to start at bootup is quite frankly utter nonsense. It's absolutely fine to change these settings. I think the author of that thread is scared people are going to mess up their computer by using it.

 

And yes, I was indeed thinking desktop.Overlooked where laptop was mentioned.

 

So I should forget about the paste?

I have already taken out the fan out of the laptop and cleaned it out. What else can I do if it needs cleaned?

And how do I know if certain startup items are necessary or not?

Also note on my original post that I am clean from malware (see details there).

 

Yeah the paste won't be needed. What you've done already is thorough enough.

As for disabling programs at startup, leave anything like avast antivirus, realtek audio driver, wireless driver, etc. However, you can disable anything 'adobe' related and also that 'google update' can be disabled as well.

Another one that can be disabled is 'NvCplDaemon'. This is not needed for your laptop and is something that is only essential if you have overclocked your graphics card or changed its settings.

Since your CPU is not a recent model, the less you have running at startup, the faster your computer will operate.

I hope you will see a satisfactory improvement.

 

I would like to point out that most newer laptops do not solder in processors any more, just graphics chips.

@risingTide: I would agree with TimW on this one. Try the registry fix to disable these components as companies like Adobe and Google like to leave software running that is not necessary, only a system load.

 

Why do they believe that they are essential to the smooth running of your machine?
Big mystery to me.

 

I believe they use them to monitor for updates in some cases, and in others they load major program components at start-up so the programs load quicker.

 

All still non-essential for the machine.
Ego problem on their part, thinking we absolutely HAVE to have them on startup.
Already knew that. Was meant as sarcasm.

 

Right, sorry.

 

No prob.

 

o ok.. sry about that... that is why i am taking A+ courses LOL. this is good experience for me tho... now that i know that. When I went to a technical institute 2 or 3 years ago.. i thought i learned that most if not all were soldered, my bad.

I guess i am wrong about the temp.. my most recent memory was my old pentium 4.. that is what i must of been thinking of.. newer chips can withstand more heat.

I have just noticed something however, in previous experience with memory optimizers (you have FreeRamXP) it has actually made my computer seem slower not faster (I used tuneUP utilities). I don't know if thats the case for you. I think it is better to just let windows manage your ram.

 

I would also recommend going through your services by going to start..run.. and typing in services.msc
and press enter. I would disable all the services and see if your computer is faster.. if it is.. I would reenable the services one by one and see if one of the services is slowing the computer. (I did this on my mothers computer and the culprit happened to be an old PerfectDisk service chugging down everything on the machine) I don't think it is start up programs.. must be a service.. start up programs mostly just affect how long it takes to fully boot. Not constant slow issues after everything is already started.


Also, I know this is against what was taught.. but to make it easier.. use msconfig. go to start.. run.. msconfig... enter..

choose the diagnostic option for boot... then reenable each service one by one...

then obviously if your comuter gets really slow after you enable a certain service.. that service is the culprit good luck..

 

TimW - I have done the registry updated you mentioned here:

I received a message that they worked successfully. However, this is made no difference on the slowness of my machine. I did notice that I have two kmw_run.exe entries on startup...are they both necessary?

Now about FreeRamXPPro...I have that on my machine and was using it just as a test to see if I could free up RAM. I'm not using it anymore. It turned out that when my machine is slow...it's slow, regardless of the RAM. And when it's fast, I can have a heavy load on the RAM and it still runs fast, so that's not it.

I do have a Pentium 4 though, Derron; does everyone else seems to think the temperature is still okay for this??

So what should I try next? Disabling the services and re-enabling them one by one?

 

Those items are both related to my mouse, yes. If they won't hurt anything then I'll leave them alone.

Now about the slowness...here's the thing. If I turn it on for the day and its slow...then its slow all day, which is 6 out of 7 days of the week. And if I turn it on and its fast (rarely) then its good until I reboot. There are no scheduled scans or updates and even so they wouldn't last 6 days out of the week...so it has to be something else.

I have examined the Task Manager but there is nothing noticeable on there indicating whether it is fast or slow, at least as far as memory usage goes. For example, right now during a slow day I have Firefox running at about 100,000 K, and the next highest thing is AvastSvc.exe running at 29,000 K which I'm pretty sure is fine. However, I do notice that as far as the CPU column goes on Task Manager it is constantly fluctuating between maybe 20 and 80 or so for the System Idle Process...not sure if that matters or not.

Is there a way to analyze exactly what each of the running processes are? Would that be helpful? And if so is there a better tool to use than Task Manager?

Many thanks! I really want to get to the bottom of this...

 

I've attached a txt file that has a list of all the currently running processes (generated with CurrProcess). Anything suspicious?

I'll definitely leave it on (sleep) the next time it is running fast and see if it stays that way.

 

I've done one with MemTest86 about a year ago...but I'd be willing to do another if you think it would be helpful. Is that the best application to use?

 

When slow and fast? Doesn't MemTest86+ have to be run from a CD? I wouldn't know if it was going to be a slow or fast boot before XP booted.

I'll run it overnight and see what happens.

 

Well, I ran MemTest86+ 4.10 overnight and it didn't find any errors. However, that's not the interesting part...check this out.

So when I got up this morning the WallTime on MemTest was a little over 3 hours. Interesting, because it ran for about 12. And as I watched it count up it was doing so very slowly, not in real time like it should. (Because of this it only made 3 passes, but I'm not worried about that at this point.) I find this intriguing because I ran MemTest from a CD...before Windows even started. Is there a chance that the slowness is caused by some sort of more basic software issue (BIOS, etc.) or even a hardware issue...could it be overheated like mentioned before? How would I begin to test/troubleshoot these things?

Thanks for your continuing help!

 

This might be caused by a bad CMOS battery, but as this is a laptop it might prove very hard to replace it. Can you please provide make and model number (please note some units have a specific number on a sticker that is different from the number displayed elsewhere, we need the number on the sticker).

 

It's a Dell Inspirion 8600 Laptop - Model PP02X (7/2004 ship date). Also, putting the Dell Service Tag in their site comes up with this information:
------------------
1 2C415 Assembly, Cable, 15.4, LINDBERGH AND KAPALUA...
1 8T747 LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., Wide Super Extended Graphics Array..., NO_SPWG, 15.4 HIT
1 Y4572 ASSEMBLY..., BASE (ASSEMBLY OR GROUP)..., BOTTOM..., BROADCOM CORPORATION..., 8600, COST REDUCED...
1 1M722 Keyboard, 87, UNITED STATES..., English, Single Pointing, 600M
1 F2951 Kit, Cord, Flat, 3F, D3W/3P Proposition 65, United States
1 1U327 Pipe, HEIGHT..., LINDBERGH AND KAPALUA...
1 F5705 Processor, 80536, Pentium M Dothan, Pentium M Dothan, 2GHZ, 2 MEGB, 400FSB..., Pin Grid Array, B1
1 5U838 Case, Carrying, Nylon, Large, D-Fmly
1 6G648 Dual In-Line Memory Module, 256333, 32X64, 8K, 200
1 2P692 Battery, Malaysia Direct Ship 11.1V, 9C, Lithium, Sanyo
1 5U092 Assembly, Adapter, ALTERNATING CURRENT..., 65W, 19.5V, World Wide
1 U5251 Assembly, COMPACT DISK READ WRITE/DIGITAL VIDEO DISK DRIVE COMBO..., 24X Hitachi LG Data Storage, D Modules
1 F3009 Card, Graphic, NVIDIA..., 32M, NV34 8600
1 8267R Connector, Header, 2X22, FEMALE..., 2, Short, Gold, 35K, Third Height, CHIP SET...
1 R5766 HARD DRIVE..., 30GB, I, 9.5MM, 5.4K, SEAGATE..., NEPTUNE...
1 1R159 Assembly, Floppy Drive, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR..., USB, Sony, DMOD
1 J2711 Assembly, Cable, Universal Serial Bus, FDD, PROPOSITION 65..., D Modules
1 9M543 Kit, Software, Windows XP Plus Pack, Orignal Equipment Mfgr., English
1 N2999 Kit, Software, Money-2K4 Standard, Original Equipment Manufacturer, English
1 P2643 Kit, Software, Microsoft Encarta2k4, Original Equipment Manufacturer, English
1 M6143 Kit, Software, WP-PRDCT-STE12 English
1 R2527 Kit, Software, Overpack, WXPPSP1ACompact Diskette/W Documentation, English
1 M4841 Kit, Documentation On Floopy Disk, Software, Cyberlink, 4.14H
1 J4781 Card, Wireless, MINI PCI CARD..., 1450, BROADCOM CORPORATION...
0 01323 INFORMATION..., NO ITEM
1 C5800 Guide, Owner, 8600, Cost Reduced Inspiron, English
1 F5501 PLACEMAT..., GETTING STARTED..., 8600, COST REDUCED..., INSPIRON..., WESTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES...
1 P5982 TECHNICAL SHEET..., LEGAL..., TERMS, CONDITION...
1 R5976 Tech Sheet, 21 Day, Return Policy
1 X4474 Guide, Product, Information Portable, AMF/BCC
1 W2565 Assembly, Cover, Hinge, 8600
1 2U158 Assembly, Cover, Back, LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., 15.4 8500
2 4W401 Cover, Screw, Plastic, Notebook LIKA
6 6W052 Cover, Screw, Bumper, Rubber Notebook, LINDBERGH AND KAPALUA...
1 9T971 Assembly, Bezel, LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., 15.4 8500
5 2864D Screw, M3X3, K SCREW HEAD..., MICROSOFT..., BLACK OXIDE...
1 6X610 Assembly, Carrier, Hard Drive LBG
------------

If you need more information I'll be happy to provide it.

I've done work on desktops but not laptops, however I'm totally up for the challenge to replace the CMOS battery if there's a good chance that would help. I love to learn new things.

Let me know what I should do next!

Thanks.

 

Yes.. if I recall actually, that is high for a pentium 4. Different processors have a different heat threshold especially old ones. But I just researched on google a little bit and it is not too high actually. If it goes over 75 C then you have a problem. I thought your's was high.. I just could of sworn on mine my temp warning beeps went off around 125 F.. which is around yours.. I guess I am wrong tho, sry about that.

 

Derron, no problem!

I'm trying to figure out now if I should try a new CMOS battery. And how I can make sure I get the correct one; I posted my laptop stats below.

 

About all I can recommend at this stage re replacing the CMOS batter is take it to a professional computer repair establishment as replacing the battery will likely entail removing the entire system board.

 

If you take it to a repair shop, you mind as well buy a new laptop.. by the time you do that and judging by the age of your computer another 1-2 yrs or maybe even less it's just gonna choke on you and have costed you the cost of the computer itself.

I mean they may not charge you too much, but I wouldn't be surprised at least... if they charge you close to 200 dollars or more, just buy a new laptop if you can, save the trouble for the next few years.

 

If there is a good chance that is the CMOS battery, then I feel confident I could take the laptop apart if I had a little instruction/help/diagram or something for this specific machine. Is there any way we can make sure it's the CMOS battery?

Also of note, the laptop battery itself is completely dead and I can only use the machine when it is plugged in. I didn't think to mention this earlier because I didn't think it mattered, but I thought I'd mention it in case it does?

 

It might well be a contributing factor.

 

But why would MemTest86+ have run at 1/4 time if this was the case? That was running off of a CD before Windows even booted? See below:

Doesn't this lead us to believe it is a lower level software or hardware issue? If not, please correct me/us, as I definitely want to learn.

 

Yes, this is what i suggested before. I also don't know about just disabling non-microsoft ones.. because some bad services/programs will mask themselves looking like a microsoft service right? If that's not the case my apologies.

 

I disabled all of the non-Microsoft services and the extremely slow behavior has persisted.

What should I try next?

Thanks!

 

Now this is really random...but could hold a clue. A few minutes ago I accidently hit the Sleep button and put the machine to sleep. This is something that I never do...I usually just turn it off. However, I immediately brought it back from sleep mode and now things are much faster and more normal.

How could have that possibly fixed anything? (And don't say that maybe my machine was tired. )

 

Intriguing. I've tried it again, and when I put it to sleep it comes back faster for about 15-20 minutes. And I noticed that when it slows down the fan comes on (remember this is a laptop).

Also of note is that the dell battery is completely dead...it gets no charge at all, so I always have to have it plugged into an outlet.

Do either of these things offer any clues?

 

This would suggest that a thermal event is being triggered in the BIOS which is automatically slowing your processor.

Does the fan run at any other time? How loud is the fan when this slowdown happens? If you can hear it can you feel it blowing through the exhaust vent? When was the last time you cleaned out the dust?

Please download and install speedfan and post back the reported temperatures here. Speedfan is free and adware free: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php