hard drive tester utilities

Can anyone tell me about a good hard drive tester. My Dell inspiron 1501 is super slow when typing. I have checked for viruses and have come up empty. I think my hard drive is failing but the windows and Dell utilities say there is nothing wrong.

Could it be something else?

 

It may be malware related, it could also be that your PC is just underpowered and Windows Updates have taken their toll of your free resources. Many other possibilities in-between.

"super slow when typing" sounds like there is too much 'background' activity.

Can you please give your complete specs and a screenhot or two of your Task Manager showing your running processes please?

 

I always start with suggesting CCleaner Slim 2.25.1025 which has cleaned up a few of my friends PCs and given them a new lease on life. Then I would suggest a "Defrag".

Did you run the Malware Removal Guide for here as it wil ensure you get the job done "properly" and well worth the effort.

 

I had already run McCaffee Stinger, CCleaner, installed Spyware Doctor, run Defrag, deleted temporary files and cookies, run Avira antivirus without any positive results. No virus was found, no spyware found.

System info:
Dell Inspiron 1501
AMD Turion 65 X2 Mobile
Technology TL-58
798 MHz, 1.87 GB of RAM

Available memory 1.12 gigabytes

 

I can't open your file but is it slow typing while in your browser? Is that browser FireFox? It has a problem with using too much memory. Mine is up to 350MB at the moment when it should be around 100MB with 10 tabs open. Restarting the browser helps for a while.

 

Ouch you have a memory leak, googling FF memory leaks normally provides many solutions and a "commonly known" problem, I used to suffer it often but was able to overcome it:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Memory_Leak

 

Would the easiest thing to do is uninstall firefox?

 

I tried to run tasklist /svc to see what services were running svchost.exe and a message comes back tasklist is not recognized. I can run Task manager but cannot find the tasklist.exe file in a Windows search. My Vista laptop (not problem PC) is able the run tasklist command

 

Please clarify what you mean by super slow when typing?

How does the mouse/touchpad respond at this time?

How have you set the 'typematic' rate in the control panel?

 

Mouse and touchpad are fine

When typing normal speed nothing shows up then all of a sudden all the typed letters show up. The same with deleting. Nothing seems to be delete, and then they suddenly disappear. There is a hesitation before the desired action takes place

The typing rate is set fine. Repeat delay is short and the repeat rate is fast

Maybe I should mention the battery is no good but I am plugged in all the time and am not using the battery

 

Generally updating to the latest version is the best thing, I don't wish using IE on anyone....lol.

Her is a good summary of the main method of dealing with FF memory leaks if you have noted they are occurring:

http://blog.skdev.net/2009/02/12/how-to-fix-firefox-memory-leak-problem/

Strange I haven't experienced them this time round but I had a game doing it.

 

was anyone able to open my zip file

 

Yes , all I could say from that was that having 95 processes running at that time was around 40 too many for my liking, yet you had ample free RAM and the CPU was barely running ...

You need to trim down the processes that start with Windows, reduce by about 10% at a time until you have something close to 45 processes running after a reboot. Use Startup Manager or Startup_CPL to manage the startup Apps, checking your list against those at Sysinfo and BleepingComputer to ensure you do not disable something vital for Windows, your online security or your normal PC usage.

Almost everything you disable from starting with Windows you will be able to use, should you need to, by going to Start > (All) Programs > etc..

 

Just reuploading the slowpc.doc as slowpc.pdf in case that was why augiedoggie couldn't open the file. The original unzipped fine for me.

I don't see a memory leak for your firefox, dak. But you didn't have FF open when you took the screenshots.

For clarity, in what program(s) is your typing showing up slow? ie. Internet Explorer, FF, Word, all of them?

Not sure it is a HD problem but a HD utility is usually downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Western Digital or Seagate/Maxtor. If you know your HD brand we could help point to the file. I prefer to get the bootable DOS version that must be burnt to a CD but they also have a Windows based utility.

 

Yes you zip worked OK.

Sach's question about which program is affected is a good one, although you seem to have too many programs running, and you only showed a fraction of the processes running.

I count Avira, Spyware Doctor, and a great many updaters. Perhaps you should close some of these and try again.

 

Thanks sachs2, your re-upload worked fine.

Ya, 95 processes is way too much! I'm tired and can't tell but don't ever run more than one active anti-virus, firewall or anti-malware if'n you are. That'll throttle your machine big time!

 

Excluding (for a while) the excessive startup processes, I'm torn between 3 fairly common things here that need to be eliminated: Flash or Java problems or a badly coded toolbar (it may be from your printer, a search engine ... ).

For Flash and Java, uninstall them both, grab the latest versions (for both IE and FF), reboot and test.

Flash.

Java, JavaRA does a fine job of cleaning out old versions and grabbing the latest.

For the toolbars, fire up your browsers and give us a list please .

 

Wow I saw 97 Processors, I have 43 with Firefox, Word and 7-Zip open, close some and 39 now. So once you start multi tasking you are adding more to that list and that will tax your resource potential. I have to agree about 50 to many.

I think Satrow has nailed your problem.