Two Seconds Time Lag on Displaying on PC Screen

[snomazushi]

I use Win XP Home Edition SP2, Pentium M 1.2ghz, installed 1.2 gb memory,

My PC went dead so the factory had re-installed Win XP. I installed the same
applications as what I had before(MS Office 2003, Outlook, Skype, Kaspersky
Antivirus).

Ever since my pc came back from the factory, when I am typing something (for
example, composing a letter either in Notepad or in Word), I notice there
is about 2 seconds lag of what I type is displayed on PC screen.

If any of you have trouble-shooting advice, I would appreicate.

sn from zushi

 

[snomazushi]

Thak you. Let me try this.

sn

Download and run Process Explorer, and learn about what it does. It
should show you what's running and taking so many CPU cycles and slowing
the system down.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx


HTH
-pk

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I use Win XP Home Edition SP2, Pentium M 1.2ghz, installed 1.2 gb memory,

My PC went dead so the factory had re-installed Win XP. I installed the
same
applications as what I had before(MS Office 2003, Outlook, Skype,
Kaspersky
Antivirus).

Ever since my pc came back from the factory, when I am typing something
(for
example, composing a letter either in Notepad or in Word), I notice there
is about 2 seconds lag of what I type is displayed on PC screen.

If any of you have trouble-shooting advice, I would appreicate.

sn from zushi

Download and run Process Explorer, and learn about what it does. It should
show you what's running and taking so many CPU cycles and slowing the system
down.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx


HTH
-pk

 

[snomazushi]

Does Process Explorer work on Win XP? It seems like it's for Windows 2000
machine.

sn

 

[Swifty]

Download and run Process Explorer, and learn about what it does. It should
show you what's running and taking so many CPU cycles and slowing the system
down.

I second this suggestion. However, things don't have to use a lot of CPU
to slow things down. I had similar symptoms when my system was only ~10%
busy, but that 10% was in explore.exe

In the end, I found that closing one particular application stopped the
continuous CPU usage in explore.exe and my system came back to life.

The application hasn't changed recently, and had been running OK for
months, so I presume this is some reaction between an old application
and some new fix applied by Microsoft Update. Probably both parties are
innocent, they just don't get on together.

 

[Olórin]

Does Process Explorer work on Win XP? It seems like it's for Windows 2000
machine.

sn

Yes, fine for XP.

Went to www.microsoft.com. typed "process explorer" in the search field,
went to the first result

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

where it states:
"Process Explorer works on Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup 1 or above."

XP counts as "above".

(Their text is perhaps slightly ambiguous: the meaning is

[Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup 1] or above

not

Windows 2000 [SP4 Rollup 1 or above]).

 

[witan]

Does Process Explorer work on Win XP? It seems like it's for Windows 2000
machine.

I second this suggestion. However, things don't have to use a lot of CPU
to slow things down. I had similar symptoms when my system was only ~10%
busy, but that 10% was in explore.exe

In the end, I found that closing one particular application stopped the
continuous CPU usage in explore.exe and my system came back to life.

The application hasn't changed recently, and had been running OK for
months, so I presume this is some reaction between an old application and
some new fix applied by Microsoft Update. Probably both parties are
innocent, they just don't get on together.

Also check in whether your harddrives have slipped back to PIO. --
Right click on My Computer, then on to > properties .> Hardware >
Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller > [your harddrive devices].
Doubleclick on each of the devices and look at Advanced Settings. It
should show ultra DMA is being used. If it shows PIO, that would
explain the slow response.

 

[Swifty]

Also check in whether your harddrives have slipped back to PIO.

Also check that your CPU hasn't been put into a "low power" mode. I'm
not sure if this applies to systems other than laptops. You can use
SpeedSwitch from www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html to check. It's
unlikely to cause a 2-second delay, though.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Does Process Explorer work on Win XP? It seems like it's for Windows 2000
machine.

Sure does. Vista, too.

-pk