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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."
It is special.
Perhaps the hard drive is using an Infinitely Improbable File System.
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.
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
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!!!
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
Watch porn in a virtual machine.
Best. Diagnosing. Tool. Ever.
Thank you. :)
Even my computer with the Turbo button switched between 8MHz and 25MHz. (Later, 8MHz and 33MHz.) And that was a scant 16 years ago...
Your computer is probably of legal drinking age by now!
Program Intellivision!