mandygal said:
I have a PC with terrible performance that defies troubleshooting. I
may be grabbing a straws here, but the PC shares a wall (and electrical
circuits) with a refrigerator - could that have any impact?
Performance issue is ridiculously slow to process - logging on, opening
files, opening applications. The reason I am wondering about
environment issues is because we even replaced this computer with a new
machine and the symptoms persist. The user is not a flake, she is not
loading "stealth" stuff on her machine or exposing the PC to malware.
The common factor here is who setup both the old and new computers. It is
likely you installed the same software, or a major portion of it, in the new
computer that you installed in the old computer. What happens when you do a
fresh install of the OS and *only* the OS? Have you check the device
properties of the hard drive(s) to ensure you are using DMA mode instead of
the slower PIO mode? Did the hard drive in the new computer come from the
old computer? What is the spec on the hard drive regarding RPM and access
time? It is an ATA (IDE) or SATA drive? What are you loading on Windows
startup? Have you checked using msconfig.exe? What happens when you boot
into Safe Mode for Windows? What happens when you use msconfig.exe to
disable all startup programs, reboot into normal mode, but now without all
the startup programs getting loaded?
For the new computer, and since it sounds like a new setup, save all the
data files that have changed so far, if any, reboot using the install CD,
delete the partitions, create the ones you need, format them, and ONLY
install Windows. While doing this, disconnect from the Internet unless you
have a firewall in a NAT router. Then you have a clean machine by which to
determine how your host performs.
When a user says that they had an old setup that exhibits the same problems
in a totally new setup, the user brought something old into the something
new, like infected software, old hardware, and old copy of the OS partition
(i.e., drive image), reinstalled all the old software and bloated the loadup
of multiple program on startup, or so on.
The most the refridgerator will do is add noise onto the power line but the
switching power supply in the computer is more than capable of handling this
along with the tiny surge when the refridgerator turns off. At most, you
may hear noise in your speakers when the fridge is running if you don't use
shielded cables. There is the possibility that more than the fridge and
your computer are connected to the same circuit and overloading the amperage
rating for that circuit. However, the result would be an outage when the
fuse blew or breaker tripped (or a fire if the fuse/breaker were overrated
for the wiring). As others have mentioned, just unplugging the fridge would
show it has no effect, but that would be the same as when the fridge's motor
wasn't running, too. Your fridge isn't running all the time, right?
