Slashdot Mirror
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?
Very commonly this happens when a hard drive reverts to PIO mode after Windows decides it has seen a few errors from the drive. You can verify this by looking at the properties of the IDE Controller to which the drive is connected in device manager. (IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers/Primary IDE Channel/Advanced Settings tab, for example)
There is a VBScript that resets the drive back to DMA mode, and is effective if that is indeed the case.
This could also be an early sign of hard drive failure. I've seen plenty of drives that passed diagnostics but were very, very slow. Try checking the SMART data with something like HDTune.
Sorry about that. I slowed it down for my own amusement. I'm a bastard that way.
-God
Run performance counters against the computer to see what might be spiking. (Hard drive usage, memory pages /sec etc...)
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Unplug the network cable in the back and see if the problem persists. The network is a common cause of this problem.
I'll be the first of many to suggest:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
Watch porn in a virtual machine.
Bottom line, if your system has a sudden dramatic change in behavior for no visible reason, wipe your drive and reinstall windows. There are nasty things now that don't show up as a process, mearly using the windows kernel to spawn another thread to do whatever it wants.
Backup your data and do the safest thing. I usually run windows inside VirtualPC which means only using it for the programs that *require* windows, not for general browsing and stuff.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
GeekSquad diagnosis:
Vista installed. Remove immediately.
Not a lot to go on, though as a freebie, XP doesn't do jack with that extra gig of RAM...You could put in 100gigs and it won't use any more than 3 (less you're using the 64 bit version, iirc).
Rootkits can run "under the radar". Might want to try software like RootKitRevealer, or Blacklight. A crappy one might grab a ton of cycles for a minute, but most of them are less intrusive.
Everything spiking at once sounds like that stupid "System Restore" process, or maybe a big swap dump (which is weird with that much RAM, but you know, it's windows.) Stupid programs like Norton can grab a huge chunk of resources every now and then for no discernable reason. Maybe some peripheral is crapping out?
Barring malware, I'd start writing down what's running when it spikes, and see if that tells you anything. Lot of programs can cause momentary spikes, but background processes usually don't. You could try testing some of the hardware but without anything specific to look for, you're going to have a hell of a time finding something.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
But rather than just checking SMART, get the manufacturer's test program. All the HD makers have one, just get the one appropriate for yours. It's the sort of thing you boot from CD and let run for a few hours, but it is the way to go. SMART can report ok even when a drive is dying but it is extremely rare (though possible) that the manufacturer's diags give it a pass when it is dying.
Check that, since a dying drive often makes things really slow (in part because it starts remapping lots of bad sectors).
Run for a while in safe mode and see if the problem persist. If it doesn't, then its probably a service gone haywire. Most likely candidates are printer services, anti virus services, scanner services.
Somehow my link didn't appear. Hijack This! should be able to be downloaded from http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html
Hopefully one of those two will show up.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
9.8 m/s^2 Sorry, it just flip out.
"Well, I think you know the answer to that."
My usual check list for this is:
1) Check the hard drive, SMART, or manufacturer diagnostics
2) Get the manufacturer diagnostics, and run a full hardware validation
3) If all is clean, check for things recently updated - a bad update may be clogging things
4) Check your anti-virus/anti-spyware software. Sometimes they can switch into extra-paranoid mode and slow things down horribly.
Between DiskMon, FileMon and Process Explorer - there should be nothing that you cannot see. The new generation of viruses that steal thread handlers from other processes are nasty, but very very hard to detect.
Add in wireshark, as the cause of many a slow computer has been a ISP provided DNS server that has suddenly decided to take it's sweet ass time about answering queries for A and PTR records. Usually a by-product of being under some external load that you know nothing about (it could be backing up, etc).
DiskMon in particular will show you any files that are being sought by any process, an incredibly valuable resource.
Every workstation in our company has the SysInternals complete suite installed in the C: drive. The help desk has been trained to use it. It solves alot of problems.
Mark Russinovich has an enlightening blog entry called The Case of the Slow System that might serve as an example of how, if you are are one of the planet's top 10 Windows experts, you can, with persistence, luck, and the proper tools, solve one of the obscure problems that are slowing down your wife's computer. This particular case pertains to Vista, but the general techniques are applicable to XP as well.
Unfortunately, software companies all tend to schedule their updates to download/install at about the same time. Perhaps your anti-virus software, or even Windows itself, is running a live-update.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Some systems will slow down the CPU if it gets too hot. Check the fans and the temp in the CMOS if it can report it.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Indexing really slows things down. Also, check you AV and Spyware settings and think about turning off any real-time file monitoring. Indexing plus real time file monitoring equals slowness. Finally, run 'msconfig' and check what is starting up at runtime. If you don't know what it is, get rid of it. You can always add it back.
I once looked at a coworkers system and he had processes starting up at runtime that were called, I kid you not, A, B and blank (no name at all). Removing those restored his system.
Check the reported hardware (CPU...) temperatures, run the SMART tests on your hard drives and then open the case and check if all the heatsinks are where they should be and how warm they are to the touch. Also check if all the fans are operational. Take the opportunity to clear out the dust from the fans and your PSU. I've seen a lot of sudden slowdowns like that (I work as a tech in a datacenter) and most were hardware related. In one case the heatsink got unglued off of the northbridge.
slashdot: Individual personalized tech support?
wtf kind of article is this?
fucking take it to a shop if you cant handle reinstalling windows
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
"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!
From: http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
How do I disable the Windows built-in defragger?
Windows 2000 & 2003:
The built-in defragger is not started automatically.
Windows XP:
1. Download the free * Tweak UI utility from Micorosft.
2. Click on 'General' and untick the 'Optimise hard disk when idle' box.
Windows Vista:
1. Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter
2. Untick the "Run on a schedule (recommended)" box.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
and somebody marked it troll??? Come on, folks, get real.
Harddrive failure could cause mastery hangup like that. The harddrive will retry for a few times, up to a few good ten seconds, causing all the I/O requests hanged for ten or more seconds.
The harddrive LED might be lit, but might be not. Also pay attention to the access sound, it will become very weird and repetitive when that happens. (Ya harddrive is getting more quiet now and the noise might get overwhelmed by the fan noise)
I experienced this for a few tens in the past ten years or so. (last time it happened on my laptop a few months ago). Again the symptom is - mystery hang up for a few ten seconds, then it went good (either retry success) or some application crashed (I/O error and HDD give up). Smart details usually can't show anything really that usual, or may be just 1 or 2 pending reallocation count, but SMART long SelfTest will usually do the job to catch the bad sector. Use "smartctl -t" in Linux.
At any case, replace the offending harddrive ASAP (after backing up all the data), because bad sector that keep recurring means something wrong with the head or alike, not just the specific spot on the media, and the bad sectors will spread like cancer!
I think you'll find these two presentation videos helpful: 1. The Case of the Unexplained -- http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=722 2. Advanced Windows Troubleshooting with SysInternals Process Monitor -- http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=346
Perhaps the hard drive is using an Infinitely Improbable File System.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I do not see this as easy when You deal with a bunch of RAID drives or similar setup, but booting something small (COUGH deamn small linux COUGH some disk test/recovery distribution) from CD and running it straight in memory may also help a lot in diagnosing a problem.
Just last week we had a 22 out of 22 Windows in one network shutting down network processes for no apparent reason, without any errors in log, without any HDD problems. After thorough search it seems somebody infected them with some kind of rootkit, but three AV programs could not weed it out. Only reinstalation helped.
Doing a good job is like spilling coffee on a dark suit, you feel warm all over, but nobody notices.
And when it turns out to be svchost.exe, send a nasty email to Balmer.
I've seen systems start crawling on stupid windows background crap that only shows up in the process tab as "System Idle Process."
Compared to using ps or top, I'm not a fan of the scanty process tools in windows. The only decent one is perfmon; it's "Performance" under "Administrative Tools."
Open it up, go down to the bottom, right click on the little window under the graph and choose "add counters." Go ahead and add them all, and start the monitor.
Okay, now that your brain is bleeding, stop it, remove all the counters, and actually read the names and add only the ones you think you need.
Pretty much everything that's going on in the system is measured there, so you can get a pretty good idea of what the problem is, and that may point you in the direction of solving it.
Just as an fyi: if you're dumping to a log, make sure you have an idea of how much space it's eating up. A big perf log can eat up your whole harddrive if you leave it running.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
check in this order: virus (look both for viruses and malware and bad scanners... I've seen antivirus scanner updates hose systems... use more than one virus scanner and more than one malware scanner but NOT AT THE SAME TIME!), drivers (might be badly written ,corrupt, or for wrong hardware), rogue processes (startup, services, etc), hardware (run chkdsk /f and defrag, check bios settings and make sure smart hd is enabled if possible and run a memory test), replace cables such as IDE that tend to corrode and cause errors, then start checking components (graphics, memory slots - use just one stick - if it improves use the same stick in another slot until there is a problem or you get to a stick that is causing problems) pci, dongles and adapters) If that fails run linux like you should have done in the first place. ;-)
Get a web developer
FYI DiskMon and FileMon have been superseded by ProcMon. I used it the other day because there were pinned items on my Start Menu I couldn't delete, so a simple filter for RegWriteValue when I pinned or unpinned something and I was able to find where the list lived and wiped it.
The general procedure I use is:
1) Get and install Debugging Tools for Windows for your platform.
2) Run kernrate.exe from the resource kit tools to determine if the problem is an I/O or CPU limit. (See here for how to get symbolic usage information.) If you do not see anything hogging the CPU, it's an I/O problem and you should go to step 5.
3) It's a CPU problem, so use the information from kernrate to figure out who's bogarting the CPU. If the process is services.exe, rundll32.exe, or System, you need to use something like Process Explorer to determine which file actually contains the code which is executing.
4) If that doesn't work, it may really be an I/O problem or a rootkit. If you suspect a rootkit, your main options are reinstallation or forensic analysis using something like a boot CD, TSK, and the NIST hash database to audit your machine for bad files.
5) Run Process Monitor and see who's responsible for all the I/O.
6) If that doesn't reveal anything, it might be a driver problem. Use Process Explorer to see if you have excessive DPCs (the Windows equivalent of a top half interrupt handler). Use kernrate to zoom in and see which driver is causing them.
Try and figure out though how it is being "slow"... is it CPU or disk activity or memory or what? Identify what is wrong with Task Manager and you will be much closer to fixing it.
If its coming from random processes... injecteD DLLs live in all processes and thus bugs in them can appear in any random process since the DLL is present in all of them. My personal example is WindowBlinds, which has had some compatibility problems... Visual Studio soared in CPU usage while idle, the last time I used it. A while ago there was a problem where Google Desktop would eat up memory until it crashed if Windowblinds was in use on the system. Use autoruns to check for such DLLs and disable any that belong to apps you don't use, and temporarily disable apps that you are using (such as Windowblinds).
The disk check idea earlier in the page is a good idea too.
As for ideas it might be automatic defragmenting, I looked into the way defragmenting works on NT a while ago to try and figure out if having files open is still a no-no when defragmenting a drive (it's not, the clusters can still be moved, yay) and I found out Vista's defragmenting task is low-priority process and IO... meaning it can't be the cause, as it will defer to anything else on the system that needs process or IO time. You wouldn't notice it running.
I went through a similar experience recently with my Windows XP machine - tore my hair out going step-by-step through every possible cause.
It happened after the out of schedule Windows update. Turns out that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, turned on my McAfee real-time virus scanner. I't brought my system to a crawl whenever I'd try to play World of Warcraft. I didn't show up anything on Process Explorer and my video worked great, but my latency would slowly spiral out of control until it became uplayable.
I suspect that the real-time scanner was trying to process all inbound trafic before allowing it to pass on the calling process and it just couldn't keep up with the data bandwidth. Even disabling various McAfee security services didn't fix it - only uninstalling McAfee worked. Now my system runs better than ever (after having defragged a dozen times, uninstalled every unnecessary process imaginable, and cleaned the exhast fans).
Long story short - uninstall your virus software.
Sincerely,
A Chinese Hacker
All your base are belong to us!
I just did this the other day and found one of my sticks had 1000+ errors on it.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
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.
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!
When mine did a few weeks ago, it turned out to be because it updated itself to XP Service Pack 3.
Removing XP3, and installing the "critical security updates" as per Microsoft's tech support document on the subject, fixed the problem and got everything working back the way it was originally.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
If it isn't a virus or hardware issue, perhaps you have too many memory resident programs loaded?
At the Start menu click "Run" and then type in "msconfig" it will allow you to see what services, processes, and start up programs are in use. Naturally you want your Antivirus to load at startup but not your instant messenger programs and other useless junk that clutter up CPU cycles and system memory. Get rid of a few startup programs first and then reboot and see if the system speed improves.
It could be a corrupted registry and that link is to Microsoft's site on how to troubleshoot that.
If you cannot resolve the speed problem that way you might have a bad system file or files that went corrupt.
First make sure that you have:
#1 The original XP install CD without any service packs.
#2 The slipstreamed XP install CD with the same service pack you are using.
Click Start and select "Run" and type in "sfc /checknow" and have those CDs ready when prompted for them.
Sfc is the system file checker and oddly enough it needs a non-service pack XP CD and an XP CD with your service pack on it. Best to make the slipstreamed version with SP2 or SP3 whatever you are using on it first. I hope you have the non-SP version of XP, if not borrow it from someone who does have it. This could be a tricky process but sometimes it works, but you need to reinstall all security patches after it runs.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Fire up Sysinternals Tcpview and look for processes generating unusual traffic. Look for new connections coinciding with the perceived slowdown. Note the pid in tcpview then fire up Sysinternals Process Explorer and look for that pid - you'll be able to drill down and see exactly what file is running. This way instead of only seeing svchost.exe, for example, is doing weird things, you can see what files svchost has called.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
We all clean our computers regularly, right? I noticed this on an offloaded pc I cleaned up to pass on. The processor fan and cooling vents was heavily caked in dust and it was clocking slower so it would not heat up so much. Cleaning the dust off the processor cured the problem.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Some applications, even after being uninstalled leave behind crap that will slow you down. I don't entirely know how to describe it, since I'm not sure what's going on behind the scenes, but here's what I do:
.pst files or anything you might think is important in "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings" and "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data" -- usually things used by Firefox and Outlook, etc. For the most part applications will rebuild from scratch.
1. Reboot the machine and log on as administrator (NOT your own account).
2. Rename your old profile -- "C:\Documents and Setting\username" -- to something like "C:\Documents and Settings\username.OLD" (you can't do this if you're logged on as "username" or if you haven't rebooted since you were).
3. Log off admin and log on as yourself. Windows will automatically create a fresh profile for you.
4. Open up applications (Firefox/MS Outlook/etc...) and see how it fares.
5. If it's looking good, go ahead and retrieve stuff from your old profile like your desktop folder and My Documents, or
If that doesn't do it, you could try some sort of registry cleaner, but if you're at that point I'd rather just reinstall Windows. Alternatively swap out for a hard drive from another computer. And if THAT doesn't work, then you know it's a hardware issue.
I have become an expert at telling people that their computer is slow because they're using twice as much RAM as their computer has, and therefore swapping badly. I usually tell them that they need 4 times as much RAM as they have.
I think this is not your problem.
System Idle Process cannot make system crawl by definition - it's not even a process, it's just the line that shows how much of your CPU is not being utilized at all.
Thing is, when the system is crawling, it needs not be CPU. Random HDD reads/writes by one process can also kill performance for the entire system very fast, and yet the process will still show up as using 1-2% CPU time in Task Manager. You can change it to show the columns for I/O though and look there.
Only if it has a hard drive.
the diagnose is: the computer has the windows
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Why bother. I keep up to date images for all my hardware and, at the first whiff of trouble, it's bye bye birdy.
There's just not a huge list of reasons to dick with this stuff any more. Yeah, you might learn the attack vector, then you might be able to manually remove the nasty little bugger that's got you slowed down and patch against future intrusion. Or, you can start from scratch and move on with your life after an hour or so. Besides, if it is hardware, it'll be pretty apparent after you've reloaded (if you can reload at all.)
I no longer care what crapware my users have managed to infest themselves with. Ghost the machine, move on to genuinely interesting problems.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
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,) my superficial and uninformed impression was that, all else being equal, any Windows box I've seen seems harder hit by IO than any Linux/Unix box I've ever seen.
Yes, you can get a Linux box to crawl too, if the hard drive is stuffed and it can't swap for example. Or if the chipset isn't supported well by the drivers. (Rarer these days, but certainly possible.) Or whatever.
But Windows... seems a bit special. I mean try to copy a directory between two hard drives, or better yet from a DVD to HDD, and Windows seems to me basically stuffed. Even notepad can get about as responsive as a narcoleptic snail. And you can just about forget about, say, playing a game while that happens.
And that's before you even add such brakes as an anti-virus.
I've seen that behaviour in any Windows, from 3.0 to Vista, including a detour through NT 4.0. In fact in Vista let's just say there's a reason why so many people were pissed off at the indexer kicking in all the time.
My subjective impression is that I've yet to see Linux get anywhere near that unresponsive, in a similar scenario. Again, assuming that you don't have a nearly dead HDD and the chipset is supported in DMA mode.
But heck, even in PIO mode, I've used Linux in PIO mode and I've used, say, NT in PIO mode. (Thanks to a retarded IT department which installed the wrong IDE drivers.) Linux did obviously have poor file IO performance, but NT just freaking _froze_ for a second or two, for example, when minimizing or maximizing a window. (Presumably due to aggressive memory management which swapped more of a process out when minimized.)
Now admittedly I haven't actually programmed an OS at any point, so I'm probably talking out the arse, but I see no reason why that should happen at all. Any common source of IOWait has an interrupt. Even in PIO mode you don't have to poll until it's done. And DMA, now that was invented for the precise reason and purpose of transferring some data while the CPU services another process. It's why it's there. So there's no freaking reason for the whole OS to just twiddle its thumbs and wait. Even if one process is waiting for _paging_, you can still yield to another process while waiting for the HDD.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Yeah, we all like Linux because it doesn't do annoying things like this
Speaking as someone who uses Linux at work every day, this is a flat-out lie.
Most of the previous suggestions are more likely and better but I figured I'd also mention this. I've heard of people with undiscovered rootkits and a symptom is huge, seemingly untraceable performance loss. The only symptom is a lot of different, legitimate processes using up the CPU at the same time. This behavior is a known effect of some rootkits using CPU cycles while hiding itself. I've never seen it personally but I've heard about it. I'd suggest running Rootkit Revealer because it checks for any inconsistency between the registry and what's supposedly there for the entire file system and processes that are running (or something like that) instead of using a list of virus definitions.
Also, nothing stops a computer like a piece of hardware telling everything to wait. Go to the actual manufacturer's page for every piece of significant hardware and update the driver for it. You'll be surprised how many are described as critical fixes but don't appear on windows update. And there's a lot of lines in the changelogs that will say something to the effect of "fixed system hang/pause when..."
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I don't use windows daily, but I have windows box for games. And what I do, to avoid having to waste endless hours investigating this sort of stuff, is maintaing fresh images of my hard drive.
Simply keep OS and installed programs on C: drive, back up its entire image often. Something happens, wipe it and put _stable_ image over it.
I suggest Acronis True Image Maker.
o_O
This is a scary thought that might be relevant. Wired recently published an interview with a repentant spyware author who mentioned that they had figured out how to run the virus as a series of discrete threads which are not running as part of any parent process, something that Windows evidently allows. He also stated that they considered using a completely threadless model, by installing the code as an interrupt handler. Just tie it to an interrupt that regularly fires, and their code runs in an utterly transparent manner - something Windows also allows. The guy claimed that they didn't actually do the interrupt trick. But the frightening think was that it is even possible. I have no doubt that someone will do it eventually.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
I wouldn't call geek squad for anything... considering they have sent business to the shop I work at... in once cases, leaving their tools CD inside a machine. Essentially a beefed and customized WinPE. The funniest part, as we were laughing and using the CD to diagnose the computer, memtest86 on the disc revealed RAM to be their issue. We would have used one of our discs, but you had to be there. The fact that we used Geek Squads diagnostic CD to uncover the problem with a PC, on a computer they couldn't fix and had sent to us, and had forgotten to remove their CD from... that kept us in stitches for a week or so.
Now, the situation you just described, happens for $888 at our shop. It currently ends with an AMD X2 64 5800+, a Gig of Ram, a 320gb WD drive, an Asus a8n-sli board, an Evga Nvidia 8600, an Antec case, a lightscribe DVD burner, a floppy drive, and an Antec 380 Earthwatts PS (we got a pile of them), and an OEM CD and Key for XP Pro. Sure, it's a bit overpriced if you or I was going out and buying the hardware. But this is the system we sell to the customers who come in with their Old Compaq desktops with their PII and AMD K6 processors... or the systems that came out with XP when it was new, and are still using their original 256MB of RAM and are having spyware troubles on top of running with SP3. They bring in their old machines, we build them their new one, we transfer all their family pictures and such, install software like Firefox, VLC, OpenOffice and such, give them a quick lesson on how and WHY they should be running AdAware and Spybot weekly, introduce them to AVG Free as it is installed on their machine, and ALWAYS send them away happy.
Sorry the Geeks Squad Hosed You on price, but if you walked into Bestbuy with a PII running WIn95, you needed a new computer and OS if you wanted to be current and compatible. If you wanted to keep that Win95 machine, you should have visited a smaller shop, and told them so. They would have fixed you up (we also give people that option) and got you running again. I've got several satisfied customers running WIn98 machines currently, and one still using a Win95 box. I've reinstalled for them, found the tools they need to stay clean etc... and they come back regardless... usually due to the fact that they won't run their cleaners regularly... and need a cleaning every few months. Kinda like teeth. Smaller shops are more likely to work harder to do what YOU want, as opposed to making you fit into their mold.
But what about your restricted build that you offer people... you might ask me. Well, that $888 starts there with that hardware. You want to customize? That's cool. You insist on a Striker Extreme? That's fine. I'm not one of the Geek Squad. I'm not going to walk you over to the sales department and tell you that you that you need to pick out a new machine, and we'll dump your data onto it. I'm not going to put a piece of cardboard on the side of your head so you can't see that the new computers being sold on the shelf next to where you are looking at that estimate you just described, and how they only cost $1000, and offer more than the hardware you are being expected to pay $3000 for. I'm a small shop tech. I aim to please. Your fault you went to the Geek Squad. Stop screwing over the little guy, and support your local business... or THAT is going to happen.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
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
Storage is cheap, and software doesn't take a lot of space.
For my father, here is what I did:
Pair of 250 gig hard drives (my old ones). One formatted 50 gigs Windows, and 50 gigs just as a second NTFS partition. The other formatted as Linux.
Boot the Linux drive, then ntfsclone the Windows drive (be sure to use the -s option) -- even just with lzop compression, chances are you can fit quite a lot of images. Such as: Just after installing each item.
Standard backup solutions like rdiffbackup can be used for the other drive.
Then, when something goes wrong, boot Linux, use ClamAV to scan the data drive, and re-image the software drive. Problem solved.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
1) Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, and run it. It was the only thing that found a virus on my computer recently, out of six packages (including two commercial ones).
2) Download HijackThis, if that doesn't work. Be careful with this package, though! You can do some serious damage to your computer by blindly following its advice. Read the forums.
3) How full is your hard drive? If the C: drive is full enough, fragmentation can dramatically mess up performance in a very short time. Clean and defrag. I personally find it worthwhile to use SmartDefrag, a much more powerful defragger than the one that's built into Windows.
4) Read your logs. Yes, Windows actually logs stuff! Go to "Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Computer Management" and then dig through "System Tools-->Event Viewer" TONS of useful information about what's not healthy on your system, including complete boot logs.
Good luck.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
First: Get this. If you got a rootkit, this should find it. unless it's something zero day. If it finds stuff, then reboot back into windows and run something like Malwarebytes Anti Malware or Spybot Search and Destroy for a few days (a week or two with Spybot. They only update on Wednesdays) to get it completely cleaned out. Windows Defender also works good here and adds realtime scannning to the mix.
Second: Like someone above posted, Check for Drives Running PIO in Device Manager. If you find any, run the resetDMA Script someone above posted. ALso Check your BIOS for changed settings. Dying CMOS batteries can cause a lot of havok with DMA settings depening on the BIOS defaults.
Third: Test Hardware. Contrary to Popular belief here, Windows NT Kernel Failures, *Especially Blue Screens* Are usually caused by either a Hardware failure or a Driver failure. If it's been running great and then BAM, check hardware first. The Ultimate Boot CD has all the tests you need. Test for RAM errors and test your Hard drive using the Drive Specific diagnostic program.
Forth: if all else fails after this, backtrack. If you installed something recently, and the machine started acting weird afterwards. uninstall it and see what happens. System restore (if it actually works) also comes in handy.
Finally, a Tip. Stay The Hell away from "optimizing" software. Just about every Registry optimizer I've ever seen screws up more then it's worth. Speed boosters tend to slow things down in the long run or lock windows, and any disk optimizer basically does nothing different than defrag C:. Even Microsoft's Registry and cleaning offerings on their onecare site has screwed me over in some cases, and if they can't optimize their own OS... Just say no to them.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Am I the only one that thinks that slow downs are built in to Windows? Run it for a while then get strange, unexplained, noticeable slow down. Millions of customers say, "When was the last time I formatted my HD and reinstalled Windows? Boy. That was a lot of work (or cost a lot of money). Maybe I should get the new version (98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, etc...) If I'm going to do that, I should just get a new system." With a sales strategy built into the software, everyone who stands to make a profit wins...unless customers get stubborn and find the problem. I have not read all the comments, but past the basic diagnostics, I look for something that's caught in a loop, usually trying to install. msconfig can sometimes reveal it. HP software? Uninstall and reinstall. Or just uninstall and throw the printer off a bridge.
-J
I scanned through the comments and didn't see this mentioned yet, so...
Check if the processor speed is being throttled. I once saw a laptop that seems to have the symptoms you described - everything going slow, processes taking lots of CPU time.
It turned out something was wrong with the power management and it was keeping the CPU at the minimum speed permanently. Setting the power profile to "Always On" fixed it for a while, but then it started again, so I disabled the processor power management features in the BIOS.
The post didn't mention if this is a laptop or desktop, but even modern desktop CPUs have lots of power states. Worth a look.
For the last 8 years I've pretty much only used Linux, and my experience has been that whenever the machine suddenly becomes consistently slow (not just a few seconds because of updatedb), it's a DNS issue. Maybe you have a primary DNS that times out and then fails over to a second one or so.
That's my rule of thumb, and it has served me well.
Probably the same on Windows.
Bart
Tweak and take an image. As soon as it starts to suck, and assuming you take backups you know about, resume the image and restore. NEXT!
Athy, athier, athiest.