Desktop Problem (I'm Lost)

I've been having a lot of trouble with my desktop over the past month, none for the longest time previously. I have done a lot of searching, tried a few things, and can't seem to pinpoint what's going on. Here's a bunch of info:

Running AVG, WinPatrol, and Spybot S&D. So far I've run HiJackThis and ran results online, Trojan Hunter, multiple apps to test Power Supply, Monitor, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, video card, basically tested everything. It all passed
fine, everything running at normal temps. I don't have a lot of junk running, about half my hard drive is full. Done system defrag, disk cleanup, and ran ccleaner as well.

I had to format and resinstall XP months ago. Everything was fine up until a few weeks ago when folders started to freeze. I got a popup, look in Task Manager and all folders I had open were "Not Responding", eventually had to
shut them down through Task Manager. Then got the Dr Post Mortem routine. This was annoying, but not that bad. But then it transformed into my computer slowly down. It will freeze sometimes opening a new window in Firefox, when I have only one window open and nothing other than firefox going. It will freeze opening Notepad.

My machine isn't brand new so I'm not expecting any land speed records, but it isn't all that old;

Alienware Area-51 7500
OS: XP Pro
Chipset: nVidia nForce 680i SLI SPP
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 8400 - 3GHz
Video: Radeon HD 3870 (512) x 2
Memory: 4GB DDR2 (4DIMM x 1024)
HD: Seagate 750GB (7200 rpm)

The odd thing about my memory is Windows recognizes less RAM now (as in it recognized a lot more when it was new and up to a few months ago). Also some System Info apps will say I have 4GB and some will say I have 2-2.5GB. Now the memory tests I've run have all recognized my computer as having 4GB; memtest86 and the windows one.

Included a few screenshots of what I'm talking about with the memory, wish I had one of previous System Properties page because it's different now. I was planning on going to Win7 sometime soon so my plan was to keep on troubleshooting until then and sometime next month install Win7, cross my fingers.

 

There is no issue with RAM as you have windows xp 32 bit which will only recognize up to 3.5GB RAM
About your computer slowing down try defragging your hard drive and disk cleanup. Also your better off using one anti-virus software and sticking with it.
Also this thread should help you
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

 

Welcome to Major Geeks,ravensgc_5:wave

to Dacads
Reread post 1. Says they have already defragged and did system cleanup.
Also, unless I'm mistaken, Xp Pro would be 64 bit, wouldn't it?
2097152MB max memory capacity??:confused

 

XP Pro is 32 bit. I found that it is 4GB - 1GB (512MB x 2 for Video Card), so it should be reading 3GB which it was. Now it reads 2.5GB so I'm not sure where that 512 went.

In addition to the things I stated above I've run anti-malware that I found on this site while researching my problem, cleaned up my hard drive with CCleaner, removed any apps that I don't use, and defragged my hard drive last night. I've also tried turning certain things off to see if that made a difference, didn't. I've also run Process Hacker to see what was going on and at the times of these hangups 95+% of my cpu/memory is free.

Burning a dvd and running firefox will lock my computer still, while before I could do way more than that and not notice the least bit of a slow down. My computer has also started to do weird things like it will save e-mails as drafts while I'm in the middle of writing them on hotmail, it will take a tab I'm on and open it in a new browser, plus the constant hang ups. I looked at the Event Viewer and found it to be filled with:

Application Hang (Cat 101)
Application Error (Cat 100 or None)

To sum up, I have pretty much tried everything I know how to do and have been researching my problem for a good 3 weeks or more now. I haven't seen an improvement. Alienware tech support tried to help with my computer problems, but they ended up completely disabling my optical drive. So I've been trying to fix that as well.

I'm currently in the process of backing everything up, have to wait until payday to buy a usb drive (going with a WD - have one and can't say one bad thing about it). Then I'm either going to reinstall XP and see what happens or go to Win 7. I just have to decide on 32 or 64. Looking into x64 drivers now, unfortunately Driver Detective does not have my computer in its database. If that doesn't work it will at least be fun to take the shotgun to it. It's got me that irritated.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to do a thorough job of describing exactly what I have done.

 

Guess I was mistaken.:-o

 

Believe I would ditch Spybot and instead use SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes.

 

Hey, this is all stuff I've picked up over the past month while trying my best not to throw my desktop out the window. I had no clue what it was either; 32 or 64.

I've actually got running AVG (Virus Protection), Spybot Search & Destroy (Spyware, etc), and WinPatrol (Mainly for preventing any unauthorized registry changes or startup add-ons). I ran both the SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes last night. Spyware ran clean, Malware picked up 3 items one being a cd key (which is not infected with anything, it's just a cd key). I cleaned all 3 anyways but they weren't anything big.

 

Just to add, firefox hungup multiple times while writing my post a little earlier tonight. It didn't freeze, there was just a massive lag at times. I had Firefox open with 2 tabs, burning a dvd, and have Notepad open.

 

Check Task Manager to see what uses the most CPU cycles.

 

I was lucky and just happened to catch it earlier, but I may have found my answer. You know it's the little things that you overlook.

So I'm fairly certain it is Firefox crippling my computer. I am not joking when I say it was cycling up to 1,500,000-2,000,000k (so around 1.5-2GB). I've heard Firefox can have memory leaks, but that is a doozy.

Got fed up with IE (hated IE8 beta), moved to Firefox, now probably going to Chrome. See if that works.

LG Drive is still toast though. Up until last week it burned fine, had trouble sometimes picking up blank media (eject and put back in a few times), but wouldn't recognize cds at all. Put a cd in and nothing. Alienware had me delete the upper and lower filters in the registry and I think had me do something to the firmware. I e-mailed them back that my drive was now completely useless and got a response back saying my help support deal had run out and listed prices if I wanted help.

I got it back to where it will write iso's fine with Imgburn, but if I try to burn anything other than an iso it won't go. So that's my next project if Chrome fixes this memory problem. The System tab still bothers me with it listing 2.5GB memory instead of 3GB that was listed before.

 

Might also consider Opera as an alternative.Faster and safer than IE ever dreamed of.

 

NO, absolutely NOT. The regular Windows XP Pro which I myself use, is only 32 bit.

Shadow :cool

 

Or, as most of the world is doing, load and run only Firefox.
MUCH safer than I.E. and more fun to use as well.

Shadow :cool

 

Still curious about the max RAM capacity showing.

 

Have Opera still installed actually. I tested out both Firefox and Opera before going with Firefox. I'll give Chrome a shot at least.

 

Yes, it was at 3 or 3.something. Now 2.5. I know that for a fact, just don't have a screen or anything like that saved of it.

 

Referring to the amount shown in the third thumbnail you posted in the beginning.
Shows a max supported of 2097152MB.
Wouldn't that come to better than 2000 GB?

 

To have some understanding of the RAM issue, you need to run meminfo on the PC in question and take a good long read of Mark Russinovitch's blog.

 

Odd thing. Two show about 2.6, the other 2.5, plus under System Properties shows 2.5.

 

I've already run memtest86 and Windows Memory Diagnostic. Both show I have 4GB of memory and memtest86 does a massive test, which mine passed with no errors.

I've spent at least 3 weeks between this issue and my optical drive issue so I've done a ton of testing. The only thing I haven't done is to take out each stick and physically test it. I don't have one of those testers, but I might be able to find one at work.

 

That's a very simplified way of looking at it. Maybe the following 2 quotes will tempt you to actually read that blog page and use the meminfo tool to test your system and discover what's really eating your RAM.

 

From my experience, this sounds like an aging hardware issue.

You may just have a problem in your mobo on the Northbridge.

But then again, I could be wrong...

 

Actually tested the motherboard already, was fine. I've actually tested pretty much every component except for taking it all out and manually testing, which I don't have the equipment for.

I appreciate the reply helping out, but aging hardware on a desktop that I bought last July? So, it's roughly 14 months old or so. My last computer, a Dell, lasted about 7 yrs (4 of which were in college so it was running straight for a week at the last). I just find it odd my help support runs out right around where my computer starts to act up.

 

Read a bunch of descriptions. Also read you can go into the bios and configure the amount of memory reserved for memory card(s). Not really interested in trying that though. My computer is bad off as it is.

*Also wanted to mention that tried Chrome last night and today. It uses about 30-35,000k even when I'm downloading and have multiple tabs open. Did a little stress test on it and it came nowhere close to 1/4 of what Firefox was sucking yesterday.

 

On my LG drive issue I have:

Uninstalled
Restarted, had Windows recognize new hardware, let it install LG drive
Completely whipped out all cd/dvd burning software (hard drive and registry)
Reinstalled Ashampoo

Burning a dvd right now to see if that fixed it.

 

Installed 2 memory leak related plugins. You should see the hell that breaks loose when I close Firefox. Anyway:

Firefox: runs at 90,000+
Chrome: roughly same as Firefox, but hasn't gone over 100,000 like Firefox always does
Opera: runs around 60,000

 

No clue what's going on. I installed the leak detection add-on for Firefox and the amount of memory leaks through Firefox is just obscene. I get a new one just about every time I either open a new tab/page, type in a new url, or close a tab/page. Usually just one listed, but sometimes a string upwards of ten.

 

Have you tried troubleshooting Firefox by utilising the Safe Mode? There's also a link to Firefox troubleshooting on that page. Have you checked your addins in the Mozilla forums to see if any of yours are known to cause memory leaks when used in some combinations?

 

Nope, actually didn't even think of that but I will definitely try it tonight.