to all you computer Gurus out there

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-- to all you computer Gurus out there

Posted by N|te-L|fe on Jan-30-2004 21:21:

to all you computer Gurus out there

sorry for bugging yall with that but I'm really desperate to fix my damn cpu who's been acting up quite often lately.

I've been using my computer for about 2 and a half years now and never did any format on it.. I was always delaying this operation but I knew I was seriously due for it.. well, what was waiting to happen happened 2 days ago.. my i explorer crash and started giving me an error message about a .dll file missing each time I would try to use it.. so I couldnt go on the net, or load any file or folder that required explorer to work.. I tried debugging it at the best of my knowledge but things just got worse.. at the end, my cpu screen was totally freakin out displaying 4 bit colours with a 460X680 resolution

luckily I had made a backup of my mopst improtant files on my other HD, so I formatted (only drive C) and re-installed Windows

This is where things got ugly..: Even after re-installing all the little thingies like video drivers and stuff (used the same as before), everything was incredibly slow.. like simple jpegs would take about 4 secondes just to show up, games are playable but graphics are extremely scattered, and well basically everything is much slowed.. I launched the performance analyser and when I open a pic the CPU usage goes right to 100%..

I dont know if I missed something or what but to me it doesnt make sense that an empty drive would go slower then a full one.. I reformatted with a full-sized partition in NTFS, wich is the same config as my second drive..

I went to PcPitStop.com and they tell me everything is fine

Any hints anyone? :S I'm kindda really bugged here

Thanks in advance

Posted by yujie__ on Jan-30-2004 21:54:

did u install uptodate drivers? default windows drivers are usuall slow 1st untill u install the hardware drivers. make sure u have DMA check for your Harddrives

Posted by N|te-L|fe on Jan-30-2004 22:00:

If your talking about Windows auto-updates, yes I did them all..

the only other driver I updated is my video card's and I use the same as before..

Posted by yujie__ on Jan-30-2004 22:03:

i meant teh chipset drivers which helps harddrive and others stuff communicate better. whatsr you mobo and specs

Posted by mndeg on Jan-30-2004 22:04:

how much do you ram and how much of it is used

Posted by Swamper on Jan-30-2004 22:05:

Things to check:

- Possible bad sectors on your HD

- If your Video Card is on-board it would be sharing your available memory - go to BIOS and make sure default Video shadowing/etc settings are in place

- Look for a BIOS upgrade

- Check in Device Manager to make sure there is no yellow alert with your HD, I'm guessing you're using Win2k/XP (NTFS), otherwise if it was 98 check in Control Panel->System->Performance (i think) and it would mention if the drive is running in compatibility mode (BAD if so)

Posted by N|te-L|fe on Jan-30-2004 22:18:

I'll have to check on those tonight, I'm at work right now..

I have a P3 1000MHZ with 512mg/RAM on a GeForce 4 Ti4200
2 HD main 20 GB slave 80gB and I only formatted the first one

Swamper I already checked the device manager and found no alert ,thanks for the other tips again I'll have to have a look tonight

Posted by mndeg on Jan-30-2004 22:23:

i wouldnt advise installing windows + other apps on a 20 gig hard drive, you can keep windows on one and apps on others

and make sure your cpu is running at its normal clock rate in bios

Posted by caddyshack on Jan-30-2004 22:33:

Re: to all you computer Gurus out there

quote:
Originally posted by N|te-L|fe
sorry for bugging yall with that but I'm really desperate to fix my damn cpu who's been acting up quite often lately.

I've been using my computer for about 2 and a half years now and never did any format on it.. I was always delaying this operation but I knew I was seriously due for it.. well, what was waiting to happen happened 2 days ago.. my i explorer crash and started giving me an error message about a .dll file missing each time I would try to use it.. so I couldnt go on the net, or load any file or folder that required explorer to work.. I tried debugging it at the best of my knowledge but things just got worse.. at the end, my cpu screen was totally freakin out displaying 4 bit colours with a 460X680 resolution

luckily I had made a backup of my mopst improtant files on my other HD, so I formatted (only drive C) and re-installed Windows

This is where things got ugly..: Even after re-installing all the little thingies like video drivers and stuff (used the same as before), everything was incredibly slow.. like simple jpegs would take about 4 secondes just to show up, games are playable but graphics are extremely scattered, and well basically everything is much slowed.. I launched the performance analyser and when I open a pic the CPU usage goes right to 100%..

I dont know if I missed something or what but to me it doesnt make sense that an empty drive would go slower then a full one.. I reformatted with a full-sized partition in NTFS, wich is the same config as my second drive..

I went to PcPitStop.com and they tell me everything is fine

Any hints anyone? :S I'm kindda really bugged here

Thanks in advance

i have the same damn problem. even the 100% cpu usage. maybe its a virus??

Posted by KilldaDJ on Jan-30-2004 22:44:

do a full format on ur C: again, format it into FAT32

plonk windows back on, use either 2000/98...xp is stable but it chews at ur ram...

uh also, if ur on 2000/xp

go into dos now and do a quick CHKDSK to see if u got bad sectors on ur HD etc...

Posted by N|te-L|fe on Jan-30-2004 23:17:

quote:
Originally posted by KilldaDJ
do a full format on ur C: again, format it into FAT32

plonk windows back on, use either 2000/98...xp is stable but it chews at ur ram...

uh also, if ur on 2000/xp

go into dos now and do a quick CHKDSK to see if u got bad sectors on ur HD etc...

Yeah I tought of doing that.. but XP worked fine before with NTFS.. I dint see why logically it would be slower.. specially with an empty drive..

Posted by Ninjapimp on Jan-30-2004 23:34:

Is your CPU usage at 100% while idle? Check what process is chewing up all you memory at idle.

Posted by infinity HiGH on Jan-30-2004 23:39:

quote:
Originally posted by Ninjapimp
Is your CPU usage at 100% while idle? Check what process is chewing up all you memory at idle.

System Idle Process is currently eating up the most CPU usage as I'm writing this. It's hovering between 55-70%. Is it supposed to be doing this while the system isn't idle?? And could it be that I'm using a PentiumIII 550 and Windows XP?

Posted by Ninjapimp on Jan-30-2004 23:48:

Posted by infinity HiGH on Jan-31-2004 00:03:

Lets talk in April about my machine

So you're sayin I have a virus, or am I confused?

Posted by Ninjapimp on Jan-31-2004 00:28:

No. "System Idle" is a standard Windows process. If you had no other applications running and something other than "System Idle" was taking up huge chunks of CPU, you might have a virus.

Don't panic!

Posted by KilldaDJ on Jan-31-2004 00:46:

quote:
Originally posted by infinity HiGH
System Idle Process is currently eating up the most CPU usage as I'm writing this. It's hovering between 55-70%. Is it supposed to be doing this while the system isn't idle?? And could it be that I'm using a PentiumIII 550 and Windows XP?

system idle process is the kernel shell running, close that and windows will die very quickly...until u restart.

xp uses ALOT of ram, right now im on xp with a 1.25ghz amd/96mb SDRAM

it kills the ram and my cpu is idle through the startup process.

then again in the docs, the min requirements for xp was something like 1ghz+ processor with 128mb+ ram

and the minimum was a 233mhz with 64mb ram <- now u would literally be there for days waiting for XP to load up.

Posted by smokeape on Jan-31-2004 00:51:

Swamper hit the generic main root problems, but you're not telling us what you're running. Motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, and hard drive. Also, need to know your ISP hookup. If you're running an old dog, it'll run like an old dog at best. If you're hooked up on a dialup, same scenario.

[[[smoke]]]

Nathalie de Borah - Back To You

Posted by Azz3D on Jan-31-2004 02:16:

System idle process shows the percentage of CPU which is currently NOT USED

Posted by N|te-L|fe on Jan-31-2004 02:40:

quote:
Originally posted by Azz3D
System idle process shows the percentage of CPU which is currently NOT USED

precisly.. and mine is around 97% so I doubt the problem is there..

Posted by jon on Jan-31-2004 08:29:

do you know what make your harddisk is? chances are its one of the following:
www.seagate.com
www.maxtor.com
www.westerndigital.com

go to which ever company that made it web site, look at the support area, there will be a program you can download, that will run some diagnostic tests on your harddrive, my inital thought was its down to the harddrive, if the test comes out fine then can you list your complete computer specs?