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Jasoninaustin
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August 26th, 2000 23:00
Sluggish Performance....
There appears to be some serious problems with my computer. Here are some of the symptoms I am seeing on my Dim XPSR400: 400mhz, 128 meg ram, 4 meg video, runing WIN98
1) The computer mouse will actually freeze while it is reading the HD or trying to open a program.
2) The display when switching between applications will draw the new screen slowly. It is so slow you can watch it close.
3) Installed a memory watcher and it with do a saw-tooth pattern. It will oscillate between 20meg to 0 meg several times before loading a program or even going to a program that is already open.
4) My HD seems to fragment very easy even though I close all programs properly.
5) The time on my computer slows and will not keep accurate time.
6) The HD will just start running non-stop when there should be nothing happening.
7)All of these get worse over time until it gets so bad that I must restart the computer, then it is okay for a little bit but it quickly degrades to this slow pathetic state....
All this can happen just running Netscape...
My guess is my motherboard is bad but I would love to get some advice. My computer is still under warranty.
1) The computer mouse will actually freeze while it is reading the HD or trying to open a program.
2) The display when switching between applications will draw the new screen slowly. It is so slow you can watch it close.
3) Installed a memory watcher and it with do a saw-tooth pattern. It will oscillate between 20meg to 0 meg several times before loading a program or even going to a program that is already open.
4) My HD seems to fragment very easy even though I close all programs properly.
5) The time on my computer slows and will not keep accurate time.
6) The HD will just start running non-stop when there should be nothing happening.
7)All of these get worse over time until it gets so bad that I must restart the computer, then it is okay for a little bit but it quickly degrades to this slow pathetic state....
All this can happen just running Netscape...
My guess is my motherboard is bad but I would love to get some advice. My computer is still under warranty.
dransom
121 Posts
115
0
Posted August 27th, 2000 01:00
RESOURCES ARE LOW: It's a very common problem these days! To check your System Resources, do it after a fresh boot, by right clicking on "My Computer", clicking on Properties, then the Performance tab that appears. They should be around 85% or even higher for good operation. If lower, do the following:
TO INCREASE YOUR RESOURCES (WIN98): Click on "Start", then "Run", type in "msconfig" and click "OK". This will take you to the Microsoft Configuration Utility. Click on the "Startup" tab and this brings up all of the programs that load as Startup. Go to Denny Denham's site; and he has a good listing of what Startup items you must or should keep and those that are good to uncheck. Some entries, like Microsoft Office will give you back about 5% resources and others not even 1% after unchecking them. You'll have to experiment as to what you want to keep. I whittled mine down to about 5 or 6 entries including ScanRegistry and SystemTray (two critical items), McAfee AntiVirus entries, and a couple others and have 95% at boot.
NOTE: If you want Microsoft Office to load, make a shortcut of msoffice.exe and put it on your desktop. Clicking on the desktop icon will only have it active while you're using it. If you use Word while on line, click on winword.exe and drag it down to the Start button. If you need it while online, just click on Start and then on Winword. You can close Office, yet still access Word while online.
OTHER THINGS TO DO
1. Also make sure you defrag your drive(s) regularly. Weekly is ideal.
2. Clean out your Window's Temp directory, Internet Cache files, Recycle Bin and all other clutter. Use Disk Cleanup in your Program/Accessories folder for this, before doing the defrag.
3. Also "large" font collections will also slow you down at times. You can move unwanted fonts to a separate folder and they won't be a part of any boot. You can get font management programs to help organize fonts if you need to use a lot.
4. While you're in the Microsoft Configuration Utility above, go into your config.sys and autoexec.bat files and uncheck any items you don't think you need. If they are actually needed, you can recheck them.
Good Luck
Doug