Slow PC

[Bulldog]

Hope someone can help me with this, it's driving me up the wall.

Today my PC was absolutely crawling. Betfair was slow, I couldn't get an up to date live show anywhere. I normally use Sporting Life and I also find most bookmakers' sites are quite quick to update prices but lately the price is changing up to 5 minutes after the price has obviously moved because the prices at betfair have changed. Makes it very difficult to back a selection before it shortens too much.

Also, it can take a minute or so to open a Spreadsheet.

I've recently upgraded the memory but I'm wondering whether it's my ISP. I'm with NTL and have always found them to be pretty useless but now it's worse than ever. I'm supposed to be on 5 Meg but it takes about 15 seconds to load Betfair's homepage. Since upgrading the memory I don't get Betfair freezing so often but it does still happen occasionally.

The really frustrating thing is that every now and again it feels like I've taken the handbrake off and pages from the Racing Post open in a fraction of a second. Then it goes back to normal.

I have a feeling it's a capacity problem and NTL just can't cope and this is slowing everything else down

Any clues anyone?

[presto]

you could check if the virus checker is running in the background, often they will run weekly / monthly scans (without you knowing) in the background - you should be able to change the scan time in the options.

the virus checker can eat up loads of memory and cause the slow down.

[Fadetoblack]

An obvious thing...but when it slows up press ctrl+alt+del and go to processes....the item at the very top is usually what's causing the slowness but sort the objects by memory size and see if there's anythng unusual going on there.

[Win2Win]

Tie it to the back of your car, and burn off as quick as you can go down the motorway....that should make the computer go faster :)

Don't thank me, just glad to have helped.

[Bulldog]

I've tried it with the AV off altogether and it makes no difference.

In fact, Iv'e tried turning most things off and on one at atime but nothing changes.

One thing that strikes me when I use the Task Manager is that System Idle Process (whatever that is) is normally showing 99 or close to that. Must be using a big chunk of available resources

[presto]

the system idle process is 'nothing'
so only 1% of memory is being used.

you could try the old 'PC off - PC on' techenque, that normally solves a lot of problems :)

[Bulldog]

System Idle is using the lowest amount of memory but the highest amount of CPU

iexplore (browser) is using over 63K of memory

[Fadetoblack]

Your best bet is to shine a Glos beacon into the sky and wait.

[Bulldog]

What???

[Fadetoblack]

What???

You'll see...

[Bulldog]

R

I C now

Wait for the right person to spot my thread.

in the meantime another thing that happens is that the CPU usage goes up every time a web page refreshes. i'm sure this is normal but it's when Betfair lumps it up to 100% that it normally crashes

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Couple of things to try:

In Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet options and first click on Delete Files under the Temporary Internet Files. This will get rid of any problems with caching.

DO NOT CLOSE the options yet. Next, click on the Settings in the Temporary Internet Files bit and Set it to 'Every visit to the page' but also use the slider (or type into the box) and set it to 64Mb. If you have more than 1 hard disk, you can move the folder to the fastest drive but the improvement is negligible. I know one person who has a flash drive attached permanently and uses this as the folder but it is only as fast as the original download speeds.

Close IE and reboot. Check to see if there is any noticable difference.

You can also try sites like speedguide (google it) where you can test to make sure you have the optimal settings for your broadband and you will get a good indication of how your connection is performing.

[silax]

R

I C now

Wait for the right person to spot my thread.

in the meantime another thing that happens is that the CPU usage goes up every time a web page refreshes. i'm sure this is normal but it's when Betfair lumps it up to 100% that it normally crashes
this could be my field get a screwdrive take the back off nod and wink to anybody watching stick the screwdriver in the back with stabbing movements until you get a spark then put the case back together and switch on.
then ring the place you got it from and if its still under warrenty they'l give you a new one.

[Bulldog]

I actually did similar a while back. Killed the graphics card and got it done under warranty. They had to put in new graphics card, motherboard and CPU. Did the memory myself as that's all they didn't touch.

Was a better PC for a while. Right up until NTL "upgraded" me to 5 Meg. Been slow as you like ever since

[Bulldog]

Thanks Oldahm

I tinkered with the temporary files size earlier. It was set at 596 MB but I tried moving it up and down to see if it made any difference. No joy though. Am I better with it set at 596 or 64?

Cheers

P.S. Am rapidly reaching the point where I restore the thing back to factory state. If I change ISP it could be the PC. If I change PC it could be the ISP.

[Bulldog]

Set it to 64 and rebooted. Seemed quicker to load Betfair but still as bad when loading a market. I've also noticed it seems to get worse the longer the PC has been on so is something clogging it up over a period of time?

Definitely worse wfternoons and evenings. Is this because more people are using Betfair etc or is it because more people are using the internet in general. (The yanks tend to start online early afternoon our time and there's lots of them on the internet)

This why it drives me up the wall. Could be anything but I can't fathom what it is

[Bulldog]

Definitely quicker set at 596

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Go to www.speedguide.net and sign up (free) - you will see a link to test your broadband speed. On a 5meg connection, you should be getting around 4.5Mbs, much less than that and it could well be your ISP.

[GlosRFC]

in the meantime another thing that happens is that the CPU usage goes up every time a web page refreshes. i'm sure this is normal but it's when Betfair lumps it up to 100% that it normally crashes

That's the line that catches my eye. From what you've said so far it doesn't appear to be a problem with NTL because you say that loading a spreadsheet from your hard disk is also a problem. Also, there's no way that IE should be using 100% of your resources unless there's a memory leak somewhere. And memory leaks also have a habit of getting worse over time - another behaviour that you've commented on.

So I'd be looking to do the usual things first - run your AV software, then check for any spyware/adware that might be running using Ad-aware and Spybot. Also check to see if you have installed any Browser Helper Objects in IE. Go to Tools, Manage Add-Ons, and look for anything unusual in there.

Then perform a general cleansing using Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. A defrag might also be a good idea too.

You mentioned that the problem started once NTL switched you to their 5 Meg service but that really should only be a change at their end - did you have to install anything? If not, it really shouldn't be a problem with NTL. And is it only Betfair that's causing this problem or is it every site you visit?

I've heard of this kind of behavour before where explorer uses 100% of your system resources and it's a problem with Windows not being able to index AVI files correctly. Have you downloaded any in the past? If so, it might be that you've got one on your HD that's corrupted. This prevents Windows from determining the correct height/width of the AVI file so consequently it continually reads the entire AVI file and then has problems resetting its Index Service.*

Microsoft's solution is to turn off sliding/fading menus or to switch to classic mode. That's actually a kludge so, if your familiar with editing your registry I can give you a better long term fix that might resolve it for you.

Let us know how you got on with this stuff first.

* You might also want to consider turning this service off as it really is a memory hogger. Open My Computer, right-click on your C drive and select Properties. Then unselect the option Allow Indexing Service to index this disk.

[bigcumba]

* You might also want to consider turning this service off as it really is a memory hogger. Open My Computer, right-click on your C drive and select Properties. Then unselect the option Allow Indexing Service to index this disk.

That sounds like a useful wee tip Glos - any downsides to that? I rarely search for anything other than a file name, so I imagine this wouldn't affect me much if I switched it off?

[Bulldog]

Did the speed test and the results varied between 1.24 meg and 3 meg but nothing better than that.

Took the indexing feature off but made no real difference.

I must say it's more help than I've ever had from NTL or Betfair with these problems.

[TheOldhamWhisper]

There is a TCP/IP optimizer in the broadband tool section that might help - run the analysing tool first (on the main site) to see if it recommends using it. If you do use it, follow the instructions EXACTLY. Mine went from 0.7 to 0.9 (using a 1 meg connection).

[wb]

run your AV software, then check for any spyware/adware that might be running using Ad-aware and Spybot. Also check to see if you have installed any Browser Helper Objects in IE. Go to Tools, Manage Add-Ons, and look for anything unusual in there

Glos, I installed a new AV recently, and when I did so, it told me that it had to un-install Ad-aware and Spybot.

Any idea if it would be safe to re-install them, or do they sound uncompatible with my AV if it had to uninstall them?
I found both handy and would like to have them back. My current AV has Spy protection but it is not as good.

[GlosRFC]

That sounds like a useful wee tip Glos - any downsides to that? I rarely search for anything other than a file name, so I imagine this wouldn't affect me much if I switched it off?

No, it shouldn't affect you at all - except in a positive way :wink
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899869/en-us

Some further tips for Bulldog to generally speed things up on his PC. He hasn't said how much RAM he's got but all of these tweaks will help:

1. Turn off Windows Animations. Click Start, Control Panel, System, Advanced. In the Performance area click Settings, Visual Settings. Then choose "Adjust for best performance". If you still want it to look like Windows XP, choose Custom and then select:

Show shadows under menus
Show shadows under mouse pointer
Show translucent selection rectangle
Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
Use visual styles on windows and buttons2. Increase Pagefile Size. Click Start, Control Panel, System, Advanced. In the Performance area click Settings, Advanced. In the Virtual Memory area, click the Change button. Select the Custom option and then change the settings for your C: drive as follows:

Initial size (mb) - set to 1½ times your RAM
Maximum size (mb) - set to 3 times your RAMIf you've inserted RAM into your system, you must make sure you increase this pagefile! Otherwise XP will default to setting the pagefile dynamically and this will seriously degrade performance.

3. Turn off Index Service. Open My Computer, right-click on your C: drive, select Properties. Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching". Select Apply changes to subfolders and files". Repeat this for any additional partitions you may have.

4. Disable XP sounds. This improves startup and shutdown speeds. Click Start, Control Panel, Sounds and Audio Devices, Sound tab. Under Sound Schemes, select "No Sounds"

5. Uninstall Windows Components. Click Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs. Click Add/Remove Windows Components then remove:

Indexing Service
MSN Messenger6. Reduce Recycle Bin space. Right-click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties, Global tab, and check the "Use one setting for all drives" option. Move the slider to 3%

7. Run the AVI fix. Opening a folder containing a large number of AVI file can be very slow because Windows has to open each AVI file and extract various information from them. If you've downloaded a corrupt AVI, XP searches every AVI file to try to find this information! This can also fix problems when trying to rename or move AVI files and you get an error message: "it is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again."

http://home.comcast.net/~optimizexp/Files/AVI_Registry_Fix.zip

If you do run this fix, Windows Explorer won't display the AVI file information such as width, height and bitrate in the left-hand column. Not that anyone really looks at it.

There are more advanced tweaks, particularly disabling some Windows Services that are not only detrimental to performance but are also security holes - but see how you get on with these first.

[Fadetoblack]

That Glos beacon really is a handy device.

[Bulldog]

Thanks Glos

Did all those things. Should the AVI fix actually do anything? I unzipped it and it came up with a little notepad saying:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}

My PC spec is Athlon XP 2500+
768 MB RAM
ASUS A7v600-x Motherboard
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 128 MB
40 GB Hard Drive with only 10GB used

[GlosRFC]

Glos, I installed a new AV recently, and when I did so, it told me that it had to un-install Ad-aware and Spybot.

Any idea if it would be safe to re-install them, or do they sound uncompatible with my AV if it had to uninstall them?
I found both handy and would like to have them back. My current AV has Spy protection but it is not as good.

Which AV is asking that?? I suspect the reason they're asking is because the two programs give you the option to "quarantine" suspicious files rather than simply removing them. Even Spybot will tell you that it might flag up Ad-aware "quarantined" files as suspicious but I've never had that happen. Mind you, I just get Ad-aware to delete anything it finds.

Of course, your AV might be giving you this advice simply to promote its own Spy protection....my advice would be to leave them installed unless you encounter any problems with your AV software.

[GlosRFC]

Thanks Glos

Did all those things. Should the AVI fix actually do anything? I unzipped it and it came up with a little notepad saying:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}

My PC spec is Athlon XP 2500+
768 MB RAM
ASUS A7v600-x Motherboard
Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 128 MB
40 GB Hard Drive with only 10GB used

When you open the zip file, right-click on the Avi Registry Fix.reg file and select the Merge option. This will make the changes in your registry automatically without you having to edit and, possibly, make a mistake.

Now you've done those changes, see if your PC operates a bit quicker - it should do :)

[Bulldog]

Did the merge thing and it came up with the Notepad box again

Just noticed something. If I open an excel file from excel itself it is instant. Yet if I double click the icon in the folder where it's stored it takes ages even if excel is already open.

Should that happen?

[Bulldog]

Still slow to open Betfair and Sporting Life.

Ran some speed tests at Onspeed and they varied between 1.5 Meg and 7.5 Meg. Should they vary that much? Would that point to NTL being inconsistent?

[GlosRFC]

Did the merge thing and it came up with the Notepad box again

Just noticed something. If I open an excel file from excel itself it is instant. Yet if I double click the icon in the folder where it's stored it takes ages even if excel is already open.

Should that happen?

No, it should still be pretty instantaneous which is why I think there's something else that's causing the problem with your PC. My initial thoughts are that your file associations could be corrupt.

NTL has more than its fair share of faults but I don't think it can be blamed for this one. You can narrow down the causes:

1. Are you experiencing the same slow-down when you visit other media-rich sites, e.g. news.bbc.co.uk? If you are then the problem is either your PC or your connection.

2. Are you only experiencing the problem with Betfair? If so, then the problem is their end.

3. Are you able to use another ISP to connect and are you experiencing the same symptoms? If so, then the problem is with your PC.

4. Does a tracert or ping identify any connection problems? If so, the problem is as highlighted in the tracert.

5. Has the problem always occurred? If not, it's something you've installed - either software or hardware.

From what you've said, I'm sure you'll answer 1. Yes, 2. No, 3. Yes, 4. No, and 5. No

I've got to dash off to a BBQ now but I'll give it some thought and post back later.

[sparkyminer]

I've got to dash off to a BBQ now but I'll give it some thought and post back later.
Sorry Bulldog, this is of no assistance to you whatsoever, but I've just got this image in my mind of Glos at the barbie sat in a corner, with limp burger in hand, pondering your problem, whilst everyone else is getting laruped out their trees.:D

[Fadetoblack]

:laugh

[wb]

Which AV is asking that?? I suspect the reason they're asking is because the two programs give you the option to "quarantine" suspicious files rather than simply removing them. .

Hi Glos. Its called " F-Secure anti virus 2006" (a free one from the MS recommendation list)

I'm going to try re-install the other two when I get time, I'll let you know how it goes

[GlosRFC]

wbailey:
Had a look at their site and found this http://support.f-secure.fr/enu/corporate/supportissue/av-mimesweeper/usage/usage-issue-2003070900.shtml
That explains why they remove Ad-aware and Spybot. However, I also found this http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/virusproblem/howtoclean/howadware.shtml which suggests that Ad-aware is okay to use.

In a nutshell, F-secure uses Backweb technology to update the virus definition lists. Unfortunately, Backweb is also used by many spyware programs http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_b.htm

F-secure uses both fsbwlan.exe and fsbwsys.exe to perform automated updates. http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_f.htm
The good news is that both fsbwlan.exe and fsbwsys.exe are registered to F-Secure on the Spy Bot database.

The 2006 build of F-Secure also uses the same software that Lavasoft uses for Ad-aware Lite so this is another reason why it's uninstalled. However, if I'd paid for the full version of Ad-aware, I'd be quite narked about that. In fact, I'm pretty dubious about any software that insists I remove programs I've previously installed. However, the F-Secure support people seem to suggest that it's okay to reinstall Ad-Aware after installing their product.

So it should be okay to use Spybot and Ad-Aware by reinstalling them after you've installed F-Secure. Just make sure you don't delete/quarantine fsbwlan.exe and fsbwsys.exe or the files IADhide.dll and IADhide3.dll.

Finally, it's worth commenting that F-Secure provides little protection that you can't download free from the web anyway - all it seems to do is provide a "one-stop shop". So if you encounter major problems, you can either look for another AV suite or go back to using all the free stuff again.

[GlosRFC]

And before Sparky says anything, I got well laruped myself yesterday!

Anyway, more thoughts on Bulldog's problem - I'm pretty sure it's nothing to do with NTL or your connection but identifying the root cause is difficult without being sat at your PC. The delay you've mentioned opening Excel files shouldn't be happening (nor should you be using 100% of available resources when opening a web page).

XP seems to be having a problem either identifying the correct program to associate with particular files, allocating memory to those programs, or it's trying to load up some other unknown processes in the background.

In the latter case, it could be some kind of virus/spyware but I'm assuming that you've run all the normal checks to discount that. Some of the Windows services such as Windows Imaging Acquistion (WIA) can also cause this kind of delay - a common symptom is if you see the torch icon for a long time when you try to open up your My Documents folder.

Other things that could be causing the problem are having Outlook running at the same time, or issues with Windows datestamping files or folders. What would really help to narrow it down is a list of all the processes that are running on your PC when the problem occurs. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager, click the Processes tab, and record the names. That will help narrow it down.

If the problem is allocating memory then it might be that when you upgraded you didn't ensure that your new memory modules matched the ones already installed in your PC. Again, that would be apparent as the delays would've started to occur from the time you made upgrade.

If it's the first problem, I'd probably start thinking about either reinstalling Windows or doing a fresh installation.

[Bulldog]

Thanks Glos

I always close down as much as possible before racing starts, including Outlook Express. I tend to just have Betfair, Sporting Life and William Hill running in 3 browser windows and that's it.

I checked the memory compatability at crucial .com

For a while it speeded some things up quite noticeably.

I'm starting to think I need to wipe the whole thing clean and start again. I have done this before with the kids' computer but that had all the original hardware on it. Would it be a problem that I have changed the DVD drive, CD drive, Motherboard, processor, memory, hell, most of it bar the case and keyboard?

It didn't come with an XP CD as the op system is in a recovery partition on the drive. To restore to delivery state I believe I have to hit F10 just after startup and follow the options. Just worried about the changes to the hardware getting in the way. If I need drivers or anything from the internet will I be able to get Broadband back on and get what I need?

One point to bear in mind is that it was the last PC left when I bought it and was a display model. For that reason alone I was not prepared to buy it at full price but I got it at a discount with a free 5 year warranty. I've certainly had my worth out of the warranty as most of the changes have been carried out under that.

It just seems to have deteriorated over time and I wonder if it needs to start again. My neighbour who has just moved in reckons it may be worth trying a new hard disk and seeing how it fares then or that the cable for the hard disk is the same as for the DVD or CD drive and that might caise a problem.

Seems to be all going a bit beyond my limiited knowledge

[Bulldog]

I do have a script that I sometimes turn on when using Betfair. It refreshes the current market every secodn.

Could it be that I have this running more than once and it's conflicting with itself sometimes?

[GlosRFC]

Shouldn't be a problem with the hardware - if you've got all of the drivers that would help but XP is pretty good at loading generic drivers for devices. You'll need to take a note of all your connection settings - passwords,usernames, etc which you can get by looking at your accounts in OE or Start, Connect to, Show all connections.

The script may be the cause although it's hard to see why. Simple answer would be to try running without the script to see if it makes any appreciable difference. If it does, then that's the cause.

[Bulldog]

Turning the script off doesn't help. I was just wondering whether it was throwing too many pages into my Temp Internet Files but even clearing those doesn't help.

[GlosRFC]

Like I said, I don't think it's anything to do with your connection and so it won't affect your temp files. Did you check out the processes that are running in the background? It's worth giving that a shot before you try a clean install.

[Bulldog]

I can look at them in the Task Manager but I don't really know what half of them are.

I have a thing called System Mechanic which I've used to check for anything that it thinks shouldn't be there but the result always comes up as OK.

I currently have 33 running processes, none of which it perceives to be dangerous and memory usage is 334 MB

One thing I can't do is click on links in my e-mail client. Something to do with AOL apparently that was on the PC when I got it.

Would AOL be conflicting with my current internet set up?

[GlosRFC]

I can look at them in the Task Manager but I don't really know what half of them are. Go to http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm (http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm) and check them out there.

I have a thing called System Mechanic which I've used to check for anything that it thinks shouldn't be there but the result always comes up as OK.

I currently have 33 running processes, none of which it perceives to be dangerous and memory usage is 334 MB

One thing I can't do is click on links in my e-mail client. Something to do with AOL apparently that was on the PC when I got it. No surprise there seeing as how AOL hs been voted the worst technological product of all time (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,2,00.asp)

Would AOL be conflicting with my current internet set up? Quite possibly but I still don't think it's a problem with your internet connection

.

[Bulldog]

Is it right that the speed tests I've been running should have such a variance (onspeed tests came back anything from 2 meg to nearly 8 meg)

[Bulldog]

Can't see any processes that shouldn't be there.

[Bulldog]

Seems to get slower inthe afternoon and worst of all in the evening. This is what makes me wonder if it's some kind of capacity problem on the internet.

Juat taken nearly 40 seconds to open Betfair homepage.

Documents are opening fairly quickly as I have just restartd the PC but I know that they will soon slow down as well. Almost as though the longer I am on the internet the worse everything gets

[Bulldog]

Just opened Betfair again and it was almost instant as it should be with Broadband.

I really can't understand why it can vary so much in the space of a minute.

I think I need to get rat arsed tonight and leave everyone alone on here.

Bye for a while