B & I SNOWDEN-Find a Wealth of Products and Services
PC PROBLEMS
| Try these solutions for speeding up a slow PC if the usual fixes (running Disk Cleanup, running Scandisk, defragmenting the hard drive, and checking the system resources) don't work. |
|
|
Scan for viruses
In a situation like this one, the very first thing that I recommend doing is
performing a thorough virus scan on the machine. Some viruses can severely
degrade a machine’s performance. Both Sgt_shultz and Mcarlso1
agreed. "My guess would be a virus on [the] system, probably Klez and or
ElKern virus,
Check for overheating
Once you’re sure that the machine is virus free, I recommend checking the
temperature of the processor. Make sure the CPU and other fans are running well
and providing enough cooling, and [that] the room temperature isn't excessive
(78 degrees or higher)." Intel has designed its newer processors to slow
down as the processor heats up. This is to prevent the processor from
overheating to the point of being damaged or destroyed. There are a couple of
ways to check the processor’s temperature. You can give the processor the
“finger test” and see if the processor feels like it’s hot enough to burn
you. If you use this approach, unplug the computer first, and use a grounding
strap to avoid damaging the processor with static electricity. A more scientific
method is to use a multimeter with a temperature probe to test the temperature.
The appropriate temperature will vary depending on the make and model of the
processor, but generally speaking, the temperature should be below 110 degrees.
If you find the processor to be above this temperature, check the machine's fans
to make sure they are operating properly. Also, check the fans and internal
components for excessive dust buildup and clean if necessary.
Check for DOS compatibility mode
If the system is running Windows 9x, I recommended checking to make sure
that the hard disk isn’t running in MS-DOS compatibility mode. "If it
[the hard drive] is running in this mode, your computer will crawl along. To
check this, open the Device Manager, right-click on the hard disk in question,
and select the Properties command from the resulting menu. This will display the
drive’s properties sheet. You can use the properties sheet to determine the
driver being used and the drive’s mode.
To compress or not to compress
Check to see whether the disk is compressed. You can experienced a severe
reduction in performance on a machine it is compressed. You can check a
disk’s compression by right-clicking on the disk in My Computer and selecting
the Properties command from the resulting menu to view the drive’s properties.
Check for application or driver issues
There are some other possibilities as well. It could be that some program
that’s running during the boot process is slowing the machine down. To test
for this condition, try booting in safe mode. By its very nature, safe mode runs
slower than normal mode. However, if you boot in safe mode and find the machine
to be running much more quickly than it was in normal mode, then a program or
driver is probably causing the problem. If you suspect that a program or driver
is causing your problem.
Try a drive transplant
If booting in safe mode doesn’t pinpoint the problem for you, try taking the
hard disk out of a comparable system and hooking it up in the system that’s
having the problems. If the system boots slowly from the known good hard disk
(which should also be running a known good operating system), your PC has a
hardware problem. This hardware problem could be related to a bad ribbon cable,
a bad disk controller, or a bad system board.
Shorted patch cable
If a patch cable has a short, it has an unreliable connection to the network. A
PC with an unreliable network connection will usually have a lot of retries when
sending and receiving data. This makes the send/receive process take
considerably longer than normal.
How much a short slows down a PC really depends on how bad the short is and how
heavily the user works from the network. A very mild short might not be
noticeable without test equipment, but a bad short could make the PC almost
unusable. A shorted patch cable is most noticeable when a PC loads applications
from a network server.
Low virtual memory
When a PC gets low on memory, Windows relies on a process called paging to move
a page of memory (not currently being used) from physical RAM to a swap file
(virtual memory). The page is stored in the swap file until it’s needed again,
at which time the page is moved back to the physical RAM.
Not every memory page can be swapped, though. Some pages that contain critical
operating system data must remain in RAM. Likewise, some RAM is consumed by the
swapping process itself. This means that at any given time, less memory is
available for data than you might think. Although swapping is a normal process,
excessive swapping—called thrashing—is a big problem. Thrashing occurs when
data is constantly moved between RAM and virtual memory. The biggest symptom of
thrashing is that the PC runs very slowly and the hard disk is constantly
running. The best way to stop thrashing is to simply add more memory to the PC.
Improperly configured BIOS
Although there are many BIOS settings that can affect performance, some BIOS
versions contain the setting Memory Hole. When Memory Hole is enabled, the
machine deactivates all but the first 16 MB of RAM. This means that even if the
machine has a full gigabyte of memory, only the first 16 MB will be accessible
to the operating system. Less memory means more swapping and thus slower
performance. To determine if your BIOS has the Memory Hole setting, check the
manufacturer's Web site or the documentation that came with the motherboard.
Generic system board drivers
Most computers come with a driver disk for the system board. This driver disk
contains system board specific drivers and usually custom drivers for your hard
disk controller. If you have a name-brand computer, such as Dell or Gateway, you
can be reasonably sure that this disk was loaded at the factory. However, if you
have a generic PC or if you installed Windows yourself, this disk may have never
been loaded.
I personally always scoffed at the system board driver disk, assuming that it
was unnecessary since Windows had its own set of drivers. However, a couple of
weeks ago, I absolutely couldn’t get a particular application to run for more
than a couple of minutes without producing the Blue Screen of Death. I called
the application’s tech support department and was told to load my system board
drivers. After doing so, not only did the Blue Screens go away, but the
machine’s performance also improved.
Computer Help OR Computer Processors
need other links go to SITE MAP