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How To Diagnose a Suddenly Slow Windows Computer?

Posted by timothy on from the ineffably-inexplicable dept.

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?

16 of 835 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry about that. I slowed it down for my own amusement. I'm a bastard that way.

    -God

    1. Re:Sorry by PotatoFarmer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nice try, but everyone knows you're dead. Nietzschecraft confirmed it.

  2. Obligatory by samriel · · Score: 5, Funny

    GeekSquad diagnosis:
    Vista installed. Remove immediately.

  3. Firefox by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  4. The best way to accelerate a slow Windows. by Faryshta · · Score: 5, Funny

    9.8 m/s^2 Sorry, it just flip out.

  5. Answer: by tiananmen+tank+man · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Well, I think you know the answer to that."

    1. Re:Answer: by ciaohound · · Score: 5, Funny

      From story to meme in under four hours? That's got to be a slashdot record!

      --
      Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
  6. Re:Check the HDD by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Funny
    My Windows is NOT slow.

    It is special.

  7. Re:Defrag? by jayhawk88 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps the hard drive is using an Infinitely Improbable File System.

  8. Re:Virtual Machine by pem · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes.

  9. Re:This was the funniest thing on Slashdot today by Korin43 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah seriously. Windows not being slow is obviously flamebait.

  10. Re:The Case of the Slow System by pbhj · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has Mark Russinovich's wife tried turning it off and on again?

  11. Re:Try this by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Funny

    If that doesn't work, try cleaning the gunk out of the mouse.

  12. Re:Try this by cyphercell · · Score: 5, Funny

    then hold the keyboard over your head and shake it.

    --
    Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
  13. Re:Check the HDD by Bobfrankly1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!!!

  14. Re:Check the HDD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My computer does this all the time. The culprit is usually that my kid has hit the Turbo button off.