Text is Slow to Appear on Screen

[TedB]

Help! This problem is driving me crazy. Have had a Dell 1500 Vostro laptop for almost a year. When I go into either Word or Notepad and start typing anything (I type around 40 wpm), everything starts off great then at no certain time the words stop appearing on the screen. I have to stop typing and let the screen catch up to me. The words I type will then catch up and I can view them on the screen. Everything is fine for another line or two and then the same thing happens. Have called Dell on several occasions...no help. Replaced hard drive, reloaded Microsoft Office several times. Even deleted Office thinking that it was somehow corrupted, tried Notepad again with same problem. Has anyone experienced this? Any suggestions? I've spent way too many hours trying to figure this out. Thanks!

[DavidGP]

Hi and Welcome to Majorgeeks.

Is it just text in word processor applications or at times when you are scrolling down say a webpage the screen is jerky?

Which Windows version do you have on this PC, XP was the default IIRC?

Also what Antivirus application? do a small test also ( disconnect from internet to do this ) disable your antivirus and then see if the text is lagging behind.



A possible to this lag is that you have many background tasks or applications running so could be using up most of your CPU time, so hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and goto Task Manager adn how many Processes are running, also do this when Word is lagging with the text so you can see in the Processes list which one is taking up the most CPU time ( idle process is normally high as this signifies your CPU is not doing much so not a worry )

Do you have many startup items ( system tray is a clue here, if you have lots of icons in there ) please list what you have starting as we could narrow this list a bit as the more you have starting the more RAM and CPU will be used, in most cases these application really dont need to be auto starting.

Easiest way to list the startups for us is to use say CCleaner once installed and run click Tools > Startups and either screenshot the page or copy the Program names. Do also run the Cleaner and Registry tools as they are superb for removing all the junk temp files on your PC.

[akhilles]

Is it the built-in or external keyboard? Yup, I'd suspect cpu usage - some other program(s) are hogging the cpu while you're experiencing slow-down.

[sosaman]

Originally Posted by TedB

Replaced hard drive, reloaded Microsoft Office several times. Even deleted Office thinking that it was somehow corrupted, tried Notepad again with same problem.

the only time i experience that is when i have to much stuff open, or to many tabs open in my browser(s). as mentioned, how much stuff do you have on startup? i like using winpatrol for that (link below). i'd still check out what halo said. however, i have a few questions. what os do you currently have (as mentioned), how much ram do you have? when you replaced your h/d, did you do a fresh install, or did you somehow clone your disk, and put it on your new h/d? g/l, sos

http://www.majorgeeks.com/WinPatrol_d3380.html <-- WinPatrol 15.0.2008.0

[sosaman]

Originally Posted by sosaman

the only time i experience that is when i have to much stuff open, or to many tabs open in my browser(s). as mentioned, how much stuff do you have on startup? i like using winpatrol for that (link below). i'd still check out what halo said. however, i have a few questions. what os do you currently have (as mentioned), how much ram do you have? when you replaced your h/d, did you do a fresh install, or did you somehow clone your disk, and put it on your new h/d? if you backed up your data, did you scan it before accessing it? g/l, sos

http://www.majorgeeks.com/WinPatrol_d3380.html <-- WinPatrol 15.0.2008.0

edit - if you "right click" my computer, on the general tab, can you give us the specs?

[TedB]

I found the solution to the problem...go to Start, Run, and type in msconfig.exe. Once the system config. utility comes up, go to the "startup" tab, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the "PCMService" box. Once I did this and rebooted the laptop, everything worked as it should. Hope this helps someone else...thanks to all those that replied...Ted