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How To Diagnose a Suddenly Slow Windows Computer?
Ensign Taco writes "I'm sure nearly every one of us has had it happen. All of a sudden your Windows PC slows to a crawl for no apparent reason. Yeah, we all like Linux because it doesn't do annoying things like this, but the Windows desktop still reigns supreme in most managed LAN work environments. I'm running XP with 4G of RAM and a decent CPU, and everything was fine, until one day — it wasn't. I've run spybot, antivirus, and looked at proc explorer — no luck. There is no one offending, obvious process. It seems every process decides to spike at once at random intervals. So I'm wondering if there's a few wizards out there that know what to look at. Could this be a very clever virus that doesn't run as a process? Or could this just be some random application error that's causing bad behavior? I've encountered this a few times with Windows PCs, but the solution has always been to just add more hardware. Has anyone ever successfully diagnosed this kind of issue?" And whether such a problem is related to malware or not, what steps would you take next?
Sorry about that. I slowed it down for my own amusement. I'm a bastard that way.
-God
GeekSquad diagnosis:
Vista installed. Remove immediately.
But the best way is still to download Windows Optimizer 2009. It removes all performance limitations Microsoft has put in their products and makes your Windows work as fast as your hardware allows.
Actually, the first thing you should do is close Firefox. I find that once you aren't using 10 GB of RAM to keep your 25 tabs open, the computer magically stops swapping.
9.8 m/s^2 Sorry, it just flip out.
"Well, I think you know the answer to that."
That's always good advice!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
It is special.
"Oh, no, Mr. Bill!"
My Windows machine is infected with the System Idle Process Botnet!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Perhaps the hard drive is using an Infinitely Improbable File System.
I bet they expect two days off for Christmas too!
BAH!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That's always good advice!
What, watching porn, or the virtual machine?
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Yes.
Open a command prompt and type "OPTIMIZE" and hit the Enter or Return key (doesn't matter which).
If you get an error, type "OVERRIDE" or "SECURITY OVERRIDE" and then try the optimize command again.
Make sure you type these in all-caps (it's best just to leave the caps lock key on all the time, really).
After the optimization sequence is complete, reboot your computer. The best way to do this is to simply pull the power plug on the back of the machine and then plug it back in. Do this a few times just to make sure it's rebooted everything correctly.
If this doesn't work, go online from another computer and buy a Mac or something from Dell.
If that doesn't work, unplug the power cable. Sometimes Windows gets bad vibes from the power company.
Whenever I see this happen, I fire up the task manager and sure enough, my arch-nemesis, the System Idle Process is there, taking up the bulk of the CPU time. Whenever I try to remove it, I get a message saying that the operation is not valid for this process. Kudos to whomever wrote this virus. Nothing seems to detect it, and nothing seems to be able to remove it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
My Windows is NOT slow.
It is special.
Maybe they should name the next release Windows Short Bus Edition?
Yeah seriously. Windows not being slow is obviously flamebait.
Has Mark Russinovich's wife tried turning it off and on again?
If that doesn't work, try cleaning the gunk out of the mouse.
"My Windows is NOT slow. It is special."
It's speed challenged.
then hold the keyboard over your head and shake it.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Only if it has a hard drive.
But the best way is still to download Windows Optimizer 2009. It removes all performance limitations Microsoft has put in their products and makes your Windows work as fast as your hardware allows.
That's a lie. I just installed Antivirus 2009 and it says that Windows Optimizer 2009 is spyware!!!
Double woosh?
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
My computer does this all the time. The culprit is usually that my kid has hit the Turbo button off.
Tim,
A reference article I thought might be useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor
Yours truly,
The internet
I still have a PC that has a turbo button.
And Yeah, it changes the clock from 4.77Mhz to 10MHz.
It even has a 10MHz coprocessor, lol, with a whopping 4MB of memory.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Watch porn in a virtual machine.
Best. Diagnosing. Tool. Ever.
Thank you. :)
Actually, while I do somehow sped more time at home on my Windows gaming box than under Linux (so this isn't a blanket Windows bashing,)
I just stopped reading right there.
NO SIG
Had you tried turning it off and turning it back on?
Ah, the problem was just what we expected...
Clogged pipes.
Maybe 12 months ago I had to investigate a problem with a dedicated Linux DNS server which no-one had logged into for years. It had been answering queries fine, but hadn't taken an update to a zone file it slaved.
Turns out _both_ halves of the RAID set had died over time. As the box had 2GB of RAM the entire FS (pretty much) had been cached and the box continued to chug away quite happily memory resident until it actually needed to update a zone file on disk.
Who needs disks.........
I don#t know; I can't get either to run. All I get are .exe archives and for some reason my unarchiver can't extract them. How am I supposed to get the app bundles out?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Oh please AC... The parent is wrong, because he didn't say what you're saying. Now:
1) Like in the Linux case, some people indeed can analyze and find the cause of the slowdown (yes, there are some Windows experts)
2) Would Linux users install the same background trash like Win users (and if Linux developers would provide it) you'd have a really difficult time in the Linux investigation.
Of course you will be modded high here because someway you managed to defend the mighty Linux OS...