Is this terminal??

[Stephen Porter]

Hello,

Computer: Dell Dimension 2100
OS: Windows XP Home

Problem: Something bad--some kind of hardware problem or corruption
of IE???

This computer has always had very poor performance when compared to
others. I always attributed it to being pretty low-powered (Celeron
processor, 128 MB of RAM with SHARED video), but over the past few
weeks it has started to go from just slow to showing signs of being
seriously damaged. I'm trying to determine whether the problem is
software or hardware related. If there's a chance that it's
software, I'll reinstall the OS and see how it goes. If it's
hardware I'll just junk the thing.

The first really bad symptom I noticed was a BIG slowdown and an
error message saying that the Virtual Memory (pagefile) was low and
Windows was rebuilding it. Then various messages saying that
programs didn't have enough memory to load. This would sometimes be
cured by rebooting.

Then the Favorites menu in IE 6.xx disappeared and was replaced with
the Windows System directory and all it's folders. Fixed this by
creating a new user and copying the *actual* Favorites folder to the
new user. Worked OK until the Virtual Memory error showed up again
and when that was over the Favorites Menu had been replaced by the
*PRINTERS* dialog!!!

Did a bit more experimenting--ran Norton Antivirus scan and found
nothing amiss. I'm now pretty sure that the behavior is triggered
when IE itself tries to load. If I get a good boot the computer
behaves pretty normally--programs load and run, UNTIL I start IE.
Then things slow down and either deteriorate to a point where
rebooting or shutting the power off is the only solution...or
sometimes it seems to recover itself enough to kind of limp along at
a slightly reduced rate.

In researching a fix and looking at instructions for repairing IE, I
ran across an article that said that there should be an option to
Change/Remove IE in the Control Panel's "Change/Remove Programs"
menu. There isn't any option to do anything with IE on this
computer.

Any pointers much appreciated.

TIA.

 

[Arnold]

-----Original Message-----
Hello,

Computer: Dell Dimension 2100
OS: Windows XP Home

Problem: Something bad--some kind of hardware problem or corruption
of IE???

This computer has always had very poor performance when compared to
others. I always attributed it to being pretty low- powered (Celeron
processor, 128 MB of RAM with SHARED video), but over the past few
weeks it has started to go from just slow to showing signs of being
seriously damaged. I'm trying to determine whether the problem is
software or hardware related. If there's a chance that it's
software, I'll reinstall the OS and see how it goes. If it's
hardware I'll just junk the thing.

The first really bad symptom I noticed was a BIG slowdown and an
error message saying that the Virtual Memory (pagefile) was low and
Windows was rebuilding it. Then various messages saying that
programs didn't have enough memory to load. This would sometimes be
cured by rebooting.

Then the Favorites menu in IE 6.xx disappeared and was replaced with
the Windows System directory and all it's folders. Fixed this by
creating a new user and copying the *actual* Favorites folder to the
new user. Worked OK until the Virtual Memory error showed up again
and when that was over the Favorites Menu had been replaced by the
*PRINTERS* dialog!!!

Did a bit more experimenting--ran Norton Antivirus scan and found
nothing amiss. I'm now pretty sure that the behavior is triggered
when IE itself tries to load. If I get a good boot the computer
behaves pretty normally--programs load and run, UNTIL I start IE.
Then things slow down and either deteriorate to a point where
rebooting or shutting the power off is the only solution...or
sometimes it seems to recover itself enough to kind of limp along at
a slightly reduced rate.

In researching a fix and looking at instructions for repairing IE, I
ran across an article that said that there should be an option to
Change/Remove IE in the Control Panel's "Change/Remove Programs"
menu. There isn't any option to do anything with IE on this
computer.

Any pointers much appreciated.

TIA.

--
-------------------------------------------
Stephen Porter
Los Angeles, CA
.
Run also Ad-Aware

http://lavasoft.element5.com/default.shtml.en
or do un online-scan at http://www.pcpitstop.com/

 

[YoKenny]

Hello,

Computer: Dell Dimension 2100
OS: Windows XP Home

Problem: Something bad--some kind of hardware problem or corruption
of IE???

This computer has always had very poor performance when compared to
others. I always attributed it to being pretty low-powered (Celeron
processor, 128 MB of RAM with SHARED video), but over the past few
weeks it has started to go from just slow to showing signs of being
seriously damaged. I'm trying to determine whether the problem is
software or hardware related. If there's a chance that it's
software, I'll reinstall the OS and see how it goes. If it's
hardware I'll just junk the thing.

Adding another 128Meg or 256Meg would help and they are not very expensive
now.

The first really bad symptom I noticed was a BIG slowdown and an
error message saying that the Virtual Memory (pagefile) was low and
Windows was rebuilding it. Then various messages saying that
programs didn't have enough memory to load. This would sometimes be
cured by rebooting.

How much free space do you have on your hard disk? Get rid of unwanted
applications to free up space and do a defrag to speed up performance.

Then the Favorites menu in IE 6.xx disappeared and was replaced with
the Windows System directory and all it's folders. Fixed this by
creating a new user and copying the *actual* Favorites folder to the
new user. Worked OK until the Virtual Memory error showed up again
and when that was over the Favorites Menu had been replaced by the
*PRINTERS* dialog!!!

Did a bit more experimenting--ran Norton Antivirus scan and found
nothing amiss. I'm now pretty sure that the behavior is triggered
when IE itself tries to load. If I get a good boot the computer
behaves pretty normally--programs load and run, UNTIL I start IE.
Then things slow down and either deteriorate to a point where
rebooting or shutting the power off is the only solution...or
sometimes it seems to recover itself enough to kind of limp along at
a slightly reduced rate.

In researching a fix and looking at instructions for repairing IE, I
ran across an article that said that there should be an option to
Change/Remove IE in the Control Panel's "Change/Remove Programs"
menu. There isn't any option to do anything with IE on this
computer.

Any pointers much appreciated.

TIA.

Insure that you have no "malware" and "spyware" on your system by
downloading Ad-Aware and SpyBot Search and Destroy. Update their reference
files before running. I would run Ad-Aware first set to "Deep scan" and
remove all it finds and reboot and rerun.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

over the past few weeks it has started to go from just slow

to showing signs of being seriously damaged.

Stephen,

That could easily be a symptom of a badly fragmented drive.

Have you eliminated normal causes for poor performance
such as defragmenting your drive(s)? (IMO XP seems to be even more
sensitive to that problem than NT4 ever was.) Also, have you looked
at your Virtual Memory settings? E.g. if you have another drive I think
that you could get a good performance boost by switching most of the
page file requirements to it.

Note: I know even less about tuning XP than I once knew about tuning
NT4. So you may want to get a second opinion on these ideas and
this newsgroup is probably not the best place to look for it.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle