Sluggish machine

R

Rod Speed

OSbandito said:
Alan, my thought is that posters who mentioned RAM are on the right track.

Have fun explaining how come XP isnt anything like that sluggish on 256M machines.
The one thing I can add is that the RAM you purchased
may not be compatible with the GA-K8N m'board.

You wont normally get those symptoms in that situation.
I say this because the problem has apparently been there since rig was built.
Do you know the specs of the memory you used? If more than one, are the
cards a matched set?

That wont produce those symptoms either.
 
S

spodosaurus

Hi Alan,

This sounds familiar. Please back up your data and then run the
manufacturer's diagnostic disc on the hard drive. Use the most
comprehensive non-destructive scan.

Regards,

Ari


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spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply
Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor and literally save someone's life:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
 
R

Rod Speed

spodosaurus said:
This sounds familiar. Please back up your data and then run the
manufacturer's diagnostic disc on the hard drive. Use the most
comprehensive non-destructive scan.

That wouldnt normally produce the USB port symptom.

Bet its something much more fundamental than that.
 
S

spodosaurus

Rod said:
That wouldnt normally produce the USB port symptom.

Bet its something much more fundamental than that.

You're most likely correct, but running a backup now before messing with
the system more extensively is a good idea. Also, eliminating hardware
suspects is a good idea, especially if what appears to be one problem is
actually two separate issues.

Regards,

Ari

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply
Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor and literally save someone's life:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
 
V

VanShania

Did you install the drivers for your motherboard, vidcard, X-Fi, and raid
drivers?
(when you setup your raid, I hope you chose the largest block). Are your
master/slave jumpers setup properly on your optical drives? DirectX 9c
installed?
I don't think the page file/virtual memory is at fault. I have a pagefile
set up on each hard drive and they are both 4092 min/max(Maximum PC or CPU
mags recommended) and I have no problems.

1.Load operating system
2.install motherboard drivers
3.direct X 9C
4.video card drivers
5.all other drivers, rebooting as requested for each step.
6.then your games, word processors etc


--
Love and Teach, Not Yell and Beat
Stop Violence and Child Abuse.
No such thing as Bad Kids. Only Bad Parents.
The most horrible feeling in the world is knowing that No One is There to
Protect You.

A64 3500+, Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939,AIW 9800 Pro 128mb
MSI 550 Pro, X-Fi, Pioneer 110D, 111D
Antec 550 watt,Thermaltake Lanfire,2 Gb OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5
2XSATA 320gb Raid Edition, PATA 120Gb
XP MCE2005, 19in Viewsonic,BenchMark 2001 SE- 19074
Games I'm Playing- NFS: Most Wanted, Civ 4
 
A

Alan C

I have ran a battery of memory tests and nothing came up. I also
tried removing the SB card as well as trying removing one of each of
the video cards as well as trying removing one of each of the DIMMs.

No difference. I also noticed now that my USB is acting up, in that
it keeps on disconnecting my USB keyboard and I have to unplug and
replug it.
 
A

Alan C

Answers such as what is consuming too much CPU time, what processes
are executing on startup, memory shortages, insufficient virtual
memory, etc are found in a tool called Task Manager. Get it either by
Cntrl-Alt-Del, right clicking on Task Bar, or from Windows Help. Some
will just continue to argue on speculation. But if you provide numbers
and observations from Task Manager, then your replies will be more
useful.



Hello,

nothing takes over the CPU when i check it unless I run World of
Warcraft which takes over 90+%. I chekced with my friends who have
older mahciens with less resources and they have max 70%. Could this
mean that something with graphics is causing this but ti does not
explain the sluggish perfromance of other applications as well.
 
W

w_tom

CPU time is only one factor. For example, if programs are clashing
due to memory access, that too would appear in the Task Manager.
Columns such as Page Fault Delta (PF Delta), memory usage delta, large
consumption in virtual memory size, etc would imply programs waiting
for resources to be available.

Another problem can be from malware that causes programs to stall
while waiting for them to complete something. Programs stall and CPU
time not consumed. From command prompt, enter netstat -a to find
something accessing external sties improperly. Basically, if you have
not executed programs to access an external site, then nothing should
appear in the report from netstat.exe program. Your program is
waiting for the malware to respond or memory become available? Maybe.
Therefore plenty of CPU time remains unused while program is are
waiting - doing nothing - not consuming CPU time.

If not here, then move on to other suspects. Are all devices shown
as OK in Device Manger (in Hardware under System Properties of Control
Panel)? For example, some defective hardware may be generating
numerous hardware interrupts to the PCI bus. Comprehensive hardware
diagnostics (provided free by responsible computer manufacturers) would
identify it or system (event) log might record some other hardware
problem. Additional places to identify source of that sluggishness.

Motherboard / video card combination has a design defect? Video
manufacturer hardware diagnostics may identify a problem. More
'suspects' to be vindicated or prosecuted. CPU time or percentage
alone would not report, for example, a resource bottleneck. Known from
Task Manager: no program (DOS based programs are usual suspects) is
consuming CPU Time excessively. Move on to other 'usual' suspects.
Report back. We all learn accordingly.
 
P

PH

I have noticed that having "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for
fast file searching" enabled causes high CPU usage, found in properties of
your C: drive.
 
W

w_tom

INdexing would be a low priority task that surrenders CPU to other
higher and normal priority tasks. IOW indexing should only be using
CPU when CPU was doing nothing.
 

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