When you start getting the hesitation do a cntrl-alt-delete and see what programs are running in the background. Post a list, and we can go from there.

Steve

How much ram do you have?

I suspect that what is causing the slowdown is the program Winmgmt. To test this, next time the slowdown occurs, do Cntrl-Alt-Delete and shut down Winmgt.

You have a lot of other stuff running in the background that you don't need. Go to the following site:

http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/

and follow the directions to get rid of the unnecessary programs running from startup. For programs not listed at Denny's site, see the following:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm

My recommendations are to get rid of the following: Service, and Ahqtb, among others. You can also uncheck PCHealth in the startup group. Despite what it says at Denny's site, it is not necessary for System Restore to work, and it is the program that cause Winmgmt to run.

You should also get rid of the Real Player icon running in the System Tray. To do this, open Real Player, click on View > Prefessences, and click on the Settings button. Then disable Start Center.

Getting rid of all the unnecessary stuff will make you system run much more smoothly.

Steve

I have more than enough ram, 256 megs, and i have NEVER had a problem until now, i want to add that after i restart the computer it stops until another 2 hours then it starts again.
I have the list of running programs for you,
AOL
Explorer
Wuauclt
Osd
Mediadet
EM_exc
Realplay
ctnotify
Devldr16
Winmgmt
Mmkeybd
Service
Navapw32
Systray
Ahqtb

I figured he is into swapfiling at that point causing the slowdown, thus the amount of ram question.

I tried everything you said, but im still have the same problem, i checked for device conflicts, there are none, and my systems resources are at 60% . What else can you recomend?

It would be helpful if you provided more detailed answers concerning what you did. You should be able to boot Windows ME with 80 to 90% free resources. What programs are still loading from startup? Did you find that shutting down Winmgmt helped with the hesitation (It was always a big resource hog when it used to run on my ME system, I then eliminated PCHealth from startup and have never had the problem since). Even with 60% free system resources you should not be having problems. Still, there must be something running in the background that is eating memory, consuming CPU time, or otherwise causing the slowdown. Is there a particular program that is running in the foreground whenever the hesitatation occurs?

Steve



Message Edited on 09/29/02 07:17PM by volcano11

I've taken mine too www.pcpitstop.com and ran it through "full test" mode and found several programs that were running in the background that didn't show up in "Close Program" box. They give a detailed explanation of what programs can and can't be shut down.

Thanks! Magic777

Dimension Plll L500r
384MB Dell PC100 SDRAM
Windows98SE
10GB HD
48x CD-ROM
Creative SB Live! Value

Additional things no one mentioned:

Have you tried opening the control panel and right clicking on C Drive --> properties -->Disk cleanup (atleast in 98 based) If those options are there try running it and see if anything pops up a large amount of space. (I know a website that floods temp web)

Have you defragmented your disk since the last install?

Have you made sure that you have the Proper drivers for your system (the ME driver version) and the Most Recent drivers as well? Some older drivers will actually cause memory leaks which slowly eat up system RAM.

Do you have a fair portion of your HD open? If your HD is 95% full then windows can only use up to that last 5% in swap before it runs out of space and swap fills.

Does task manager(or equvilent) have a large number of things running frequently or does one of your programs look for updates(or fresh ads) every 20 min?

Did you tell anything that starts with "Real" not to run automaticly at startup? Real player systems don't need the real start center to run they just start up 5% faster because it keeps part of it's self IN your RAM at all times even if you don't use them all day that day.

Just a few possible problems...*thinks*

Oh are your graphics configured the same as they were before? Tweaking your graphics acceleration too high can cause problems. And if you increase your screen size and color depth you also demand much more from the graphics card and often the system with every 'minor' size or color increase.

Ok. I'm tired and didn't sleep well again...so thats all the ideas for now.
*Blink...Blink...*
BlinkEye

I ran a full test at pcpitstop.com like magic suggested. The test said my C drive is running very slow, so they suggested i enable Direct Memory Access, after i did my computer will not start up anymore, the wallpaper on the desktop loads, then i get a blue screen and then NOTHING else loads, so i cant do anything at all. How do i fix this???