My computar is going spastic, halp!

[Blue123]

For example, you also might have some software which performs periodic tasks. At work, for example, we found that we had problems a bit like this after we switched to McAfee Antivirus, which was set into ultra-paranoid mode and would take it upon itself to perform periodic scans and do things like scan the entire Outlook database when you recieved a new email. Not that I would suggest you should remove your antivirus, but consider - have you installed anything new recently? Have you checked for viruses and spyware and that kind of thing which may be polling an external server or trying to spread to other machines every three minutes?

I'm using NOD32, and the settings that I've used with it since I bought it. The only new program that I've installed recently was Zombie Panic! Source. Also Jake, LVUER, spyware and viruses was the first thing that came to mind- I thought that I had become part of a botnet! I gave all of the drives an in-depth scan with NOD32, which pulled out 2 trojans but nothing else, which I'm a bit sceptical of. I remember that there was this really good freeware spyware scanner that detected and got rid of a lot of stuff that slipped by my usual Anti-Virus, but now the name escapes me...

- Not enough RAM. There are too many programs running on your PC. Surprisingly, there are lots of program that running without you knowing. SOLUTION: Close the program using CTRL+ALT+DEL, close the program that shows up in the notification area (right click, close/exit), close your anti-virus/spyware. Close them all ONLY if you want to play a game or whenever you experiencing slowdown (but don't do that when you surfing on the internet).

Could be, but I'm still doing the same things that I've always done (and that never gave me problems!). I made a screenshot of my performance tab in the task manager- hopefully this'll be useful? I just realised, I have 2GB total RAM but it's saying that there's only about 1GB available? That could just be because Firefox is eating everything at the moment...



Also power shortage doesn't seem very likely to me- as I said, I'm using the same set-up that I have been. My PSU supplies 600W, which seems to be a fair amount.

[ficedula]

If your hard disk is dying, it could be down to that. Perhaps some data the game needs shortly after startup is located in an area which the disk has to keep re-trying to read due to damage, and that causes the slowdown.

Just a guess. As everybody has said though, if your disk IS damaged, that warrants a replacement ASAP regardless of whether it's the cause of the slow down, of course.

[LVUER]

Hmm... do you use Vista? Since 1GB of RAM already sucked without running any application (or may be there are LOTS of hidden process going on, result of too many programs installed). If not, then I'm afraid that there are virus/something that can not be scanned (where do you live, perhaps your PC is infected by local virus?)

Anyway... I still more concerned to the condition of your HDD. Do you get the "can not read disk"-error a lot even now? Perhaps you should starting backing-up your critical data immediately...

[Blue123]

Hmm... do you use Vista? Since 1GB of RAM already sucked without running any application (or may be there are LOTS of hidden process going on, result of too many programs installed). If not, then I'm afraid that there are virus/something that can not be scanned (where do you live, perhaps your PC is infected by local virus?)

Anyway... I still more concerned to the condition of your HDD. Do you get the "can not read disk"-error a lot even now? Perhaps you should starting backing-up your critical data immediately...

Nope, XP FTW over here, running 2GB of RAM with a Quad Core CPU. The too many processes sounds... plausible, and looking at the processes tab on task manager there's loads. But it's always been like that! As for viruses, I did a full system sweep with NOD32 (found and destroyed 2 trojans) and then a go with spybot: search and destroy, but I haven't noticed any improvements in performance.

Going to the HDD... I am quite concerned. However, I haven't had another "Can not read" error since last week. Seeing as I've been having these since I got the computer- about a year and a half- and that the computer works fine after restarting it once or twice, I asked my computing teacher. He thinks that there could be a loose connection inside the computer- is that plausible?

[M12]

I'm not sure if a loose connection would cause the computer to slow down? That seems unusual. Then again, I'm no expert with computers.

I remember the same problem happened to me once. It turned out that my hard disk was failing. So yeah, like LVUER suggested, perhaps start backing up. Better safe than sorry.

Hopefully everything will be alright.

[Twar3Draconis]

The only times I've had slow down are ram issues, and Windows XP Service Pack 3. Do you happen to have SP3 installed?

[Blue123]

I'm not sure if a loose connection would cause the computer to slow down? That seems unusual. Then again, I'm no expert with computers.

I remember the same problem happened to me once. It turned out that my hard disk was failing. So yeah, like LVUER suggested, perhaps start backing up. Better safe than sorry.

Hopefully everything will be alright.

I hope everything'll go well too! Anyway, I think they're actually 2 separate problems; One about the hard disk, which has been displaying "Can not read" errors for over a year (which led my teacher to think that there may be a loose connection bewteen the drives), and now recently slowdown while playing intensive games, which started about a week ago.

And Draconis, I use XP SP2- I don't think I really need to use SP3. I have 2GB of RAM (pretty good RAM actually, cost me a bit) in my computer. If it helps, I use an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, at 2.4Ghz, and a PNY 8800GTS with 640mb of GDDR3.

Thanks for the interest guys.

[Blue123]

Well guys, I went ahead and did the clean today- using a hand held vacuum cleaner and a straw (I won't be able to eat anything salty for a month...). I ran Speedfan afterwords and everything looks awesome- from temperatures of 48C to 25C when idle. I've yet to run some games, but everything seems OK so far!

Thanks guys!

[LVUER]

That's good to hear ^_^

[herenvardo]

from temperatures of 48C to 25C when idle

That's cool, I envy you . I'm normally glad when my laptop's AMD oven chip stays at 55-60ºC idle, 75-80ºC when squeezing it at the maximum (not to mention that last time I cleaned it was because the "Criticall temperature 95ºC reached. Shutting down." message when I tried to boot ). Honestly, I had heard that AMD chips work at slightly higher temperature ranges than Intel's, but 25-50 looks much more "normal" than the heating on my machine ^^; Anyway, at least my room is warmer on winter

Anyway, I strongly encourage you to do some testing and see how things are really going: although lowering the heat always helps making the system run smoother, most of the possibilities mentioned in earlier posts are not exclusive between themselves, so it'd be a good idea to find out if there is any other issue hurting your system's performance.

[LVUER]

That's cool, I envy you . I'm normally glad when my laptop's AMD oven chip stays at 55-60ºC idle, 75-80ºC when squeezing it at the maximum (not to mention that last time I cleaned it was because the "Criticall temperature 95ºC reached. Shutting down." message when I tried to boot ). Honestly, I had heard that AMD chips work at slightly higher temperature ranges than Intel's, but 25-50 looks much more "normal" than the heating on my machine.

I also heard that AMD is way hotter than Pentium (although they/AMD said that it has been fixed on their newer processors). I saw a video where two processors (Intel and AMD) are running without any cooling systems (no fan, no sink). Intel only experiencing a slight slowdown until finally hanged. While AMD catched on fire 0_0

Anyway, at least my room is warmer on winter

Careful not to burn down your room...

[Hudzon]

EDITED because it contained too many spoilers to "Life".

[PyTom]

Hudzon, if you persist in offering users advice that will damage their computers, I will ban you from the forums.

[Hudzon]

Oh, alright then. I'll stop.

Plenty of other forums to cause mayhem out there ^^;

I only did it cause I wanted to see how much I'd get away with anyway. Hehe.

[PyTom]

I went ahead and stuck a warning on your account, which will stay up until you edit your posts to remove all "advice" that can damage people's computers.

Giving people faulty advice that can cause them hundreds of dollars in damage is not something we need to tolerate.