OK, so I'm having some computer issues on my girlfriends laptop.
The performance is very bad, and the sound lags as if the CPU load where constantly at 100%. It does NOT make any quirky sounds such as if an MP3 file has encoding errors or what ever. It makes more of a slowdown kind of sound, almost like how robots tend to sound. :D
Windows XP home edition is installed from factory, and by time it has been upgraded with all the hotfixes and service packs (SP3 being the latest) that windows update has to offer.
This issue seems to have come from nowhere all of a sudden. No real changes has been made that we are aware of.
What I have done so far is:
* Running a deep scan including heuristics for viruses with Eset Nod32 (with up to date signatures).
* Running a full scan with Spyware doctor 6 (latest signatures).
* Re-installed graphics driver and audio driver. (haven't tried to uninstall drivers first though).
* Booted linux from a live CD, mounted the same hard drive/partitions, and played music from them without any issues at all.
* Freed a lot of space from hard drive by clearing temp files, and removing unused programs.
* Did NOT defragment the hard drive yet since I don't think it will have that type of impact on this issue.
* Task manager does not show anything strange. CPU usage is normal, a long with RAM-usage.
* Read about people having problems with similar issue when it comes to skype. Those guides did not help.
To me this really seems like a problem in the OS it self some how.
I have ruled out the hardware since it works fine from a different OS.
It is not depending on a bad music application in windows since the problem even occurs when the login sound in windows is played.
Last way out would of course be to format the hard drive and re-install windows again, but where is the fun in that eh? =)
I would be thankful for any answer related to the issues. Cheers.
The performance is very bad, and the sound lags as if the CPU load where constantly at 100%. It does NOT make any quirky sounds such as if an MP3 file has encoding errors or what ever. It makes more of a slowdown kind of sound, almost like how robots tend to sound. :D
What are you using to test?
Winamp? Windows Media? It's odd that you check all of what you did without actually checking the player's configuration.
arflech's suggestion doesn't even make any sense -- even with the most services possible open, audio output wouldn't lag like that, especially if CPU usage is not 100%.
Last time I had a problem like this it was due to some hardware conflict initiated by my sound card. Although with some luck, I expect the same problem to be solved by installing proper drivers after uninstalling the not-so-proper.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Weird... did yot try booting in safe mode?
If antiviruses aren't finding anything, I'd recommend RegRun Security Suite. It will do a boot time scan listing all the auto-boot services, the registry entry and their
location on the hard drive. It can also warn you about potentialy dangerous stuff. What you remove will go to the blacklist, what you accept will go to the ignore list.
This is it, just try to find some weird service with a file named like a system file,
or a random name or a service running from the TMP folder.
Anyway, this may not work if the thing infected any system file...
But, hey... you seem to be another victim of the HD FORMATTING SYNDROME. That's dangerous, dude. Some people end up thinking they are computers and there are millions of invisible viruses around them and end up formatting themselves (suicide).
I reinstall Windows like this: (I usually take the HD to another PC so I can freely delete stuff. If that's not possible, I use a PE [Pre-installed Enviromment] Windows)
I delete the folders: PROGRAM FILES, WINDOWS and everything inside DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS backing up the users' DESKTOP and MY DOCUMENTS.
I also delete everything scattered in the C: drive. You need to delete the SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION folder, but it has some NTFS PERMISSIONS set, so you'll need to take ownership (in FOLDER OPTIONS, disable SIMPLE FILE SHARING, then go to the properties of the folder, security tab, advanced, ownership.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
I delete the folders: PROGRAM FILES, WINDOWS and everything inside DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS backing up the users' DESKTOP and MY DOCUMENTS.
I also delete everything scattered in the C: drive. You need to delete the SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION folder, but it has some NTFS PERMISSIONS set, so you'll need to take ownership (in FOLDER OPTIONS, disable SIMPLE FILE SHARING, then go to the properties of the folder, security tab, advanced, ownership.
So basically, backup My Documents and use format c: ? Going on a deleting spree isn't exactly the most efficient way.
Besides, that won't be necessary if it's a chipset problem. Of course, the manufacturer of the laptop SHOULD provide drivers on their website... whether they have kept them up to date or not is another matter.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
Holy shit guys, there isn't ANYTHING to suggest it's a virus. Let's not go down the path of suggesting that he reformat his computer before we even check if the players/drivers are configured right!
Sounds like your disk is in PIO mode. To confirm if it is open up devmgmt.msc, go to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and open up the property sheet for Primary IDE Controller and go to advanced, if you see PIO then you have this problem. If you do post back and I'll dig up how to fix it.
EDIT:
from Microsoft KB
Follow these steps, and then quit Registry Editor:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type ResetErrorCountersOnSuccess, and then press ENTER.
5. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
6. Type 1, and then click OK.
Follow these steps, and then quit Registry Editor:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0002
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type ResetErrorCountersOnSuccess, and then press ENTER.
5. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
6. Type 1, and then click OK.
You'll need to reboot after this is done, and obviously ensure that the transfer rate is set to "DMA if available"
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Out of curiousity, would any of these be applicable to Vista as well? I'm not having any resource-hogging problems, but I'd love to prevent them from happening.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Yeah, it's a laptop... I heard about that PIO thing.
anyway, Raiscan wrote:
So basically, backup My Documents and use format c: ? Going on a deleting spree isn't exactly the most efficient way.
Not exactly... when I say "back up" I mean just to rename the folder and move it somewhere else. I don't think it's fun to backup (at a minimum) hundreds of gigabytes in other hard drive.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Out of curiousity, would any of these be applicable to Vista as well? I'm not having any resource-hogging problems, but I'd love to prevent them from happening.
Overall, Vista is a hog. I don't know much about it, but from what I have gathered from my Intro to Digital professor, you need a "higher end" laptop (aka, a new one as opposed to 2 years old) to run vista at least kind of well. That sucker is literal, it sucks the resources :)
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Even newer systems are potentially bogged down by it. The laptop I'm on right now was shipped to me with Vista on it, and it ran like a quadraplegic until I wiped the disk and gave it a proper operating system. Vista is a plague. A pretty plague, but a plague.
Out of curiousity, would any of these be applicable to Vista as well? I'm not having any resource-hogging problems, but I'd love to prevent them from happening.
If your computer is in PIO mode you'd notice it. A lot. We're talking potentially multi-second delays between keystrokes slow.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Not exactly... when I say "back up" I mean just to rename the folder and move it somewhere else. I don't think it's fun to backup (at a minimum) hundreds of gigabytes in other hard drive.
Partitions.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
This issue seems to have come from nowhere all of a sudden. No real changes has been made that we are aware of.
This thread seems relevant to my interests.
I have Vista on a brand new laptop, and it was running like clockwork until a few weeks ago. Then suddenly it started chugging like a snail. I am pretty sure that I didn't install anything in the period where it happened.
I cannot run VBA without it (most of all the sound) lagging anymore. This was especially obvious when it happened since I had been playing through Aria of Sorrow just the days before without any problems whatsoever...
Also, the CPU load can be 100% without anything heavy running, and without the Processes tab in Task Manager anywhere near to summing up to 100%.
Help! :(
Make sure you've chosen "Show all users", otherwise it doesn't show any but your own.
Logging in as Administrator might help, too.
I would suggest a virus scan as well, if you haven't done so already.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Raiscan wrote:
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Not exactly... when I say "back up" I mean just to rename the folder and move it somewhere else. I don't think it's fun to backup (at a minimum) hundreds of gigabytes in other hard drive.
Partitions.
What's the difference between partitions and folders? If the drive fails, everything is gone anyway... not to mention that moving files between 2 partitions is slow, and moving them inside the same partition is almost instantaneous. I try to avoid them (unless I wanted to have two OSes on the same drive).
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
What's the difference between partitions and folders? If the drive fails, everything is gone anyway... not to mention that moving files between 2 partitions is slow, and moving them inside the same partition is almost instantaneous. I try to avoid them (unless I wanted to have two OSes on the same drive).
I've actually had a drive failure (that required reinstalling the OS and several programs) that corrupted a good deal of files on one partition, but none on the other.
Your milage may vary, but I tend to split them into a few dedicated partitions; e.g., 10GB for the OS, 90GB for everything else, especially "portable" things that can just be copied without installing things.
Partitioning helps mainly against file system faults, and also when you need to format the OS partition without having to touch the rest of the files.
On the other hand, more partitions = more fragmentation. And fragmentation usually shortens the life span of a drive dramatically, which is something to consider.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
On the other hand, more partitions = more fragmentation. And fragmentation usually shortens the life span of a drive dramatically, which is something to consider.
I highly doubt that the fragmentation introduced is anything significantly worse than standard fragmentation.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
now I remembered this old stuff I read somewhere:
everywhere on the intertubes wrote:
Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP's NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called "D drive." You'll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance. Also, your free space won't be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This means you won't need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be time-consuming and also can result in lost data.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Actually, in my experience, partitions = much less fragmentation when you keep the OS partition separate. Across five HDs and a total of seven partitions, the only partition that is ever fragmented at all is the OS partition. I haven't had to defrag anything else in over two years.
I highly doubt that the fragmentation introduced is anything significantly worse than standard fragmentation.
Well, let's put it like that. Fragmentation occurs becase the data is written in separate chunks to efficiently fill the available space. Every time you or some external process delete or resize a file, a gap occurs. The drive performance decreases almost exponentially when the free space diminishes because every file is cut into hundreds and thousands of small chunks that fill the gaps in every remote part of the platter, increasing the amount of physical operations with each read or write operation (and thus, wearing out the drive's mechanics). With partitioning you artificially cut the space in half, making the drive suffer twice as much if both partitions are low on remaining space. It is, of course, not a problem if each of your partitions has 15-20% of free space, and you defragment them regularly, but that might be hard to maintain, especially in case with a laptop. It's harder to maintain and defragment multiple partitions like that, for sure.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Even newer systems are potentially bogged down by it. The laptop I'm on right now was shipped to me with Vista on it, and it ran like a quadraplegic until I wiped the disk and gave it a proper operating system. Vista is a plague. A pretty plague, but a plague.
I actually have to disagree out of my own experiences. I have had to wipe this thing before, but Vista seemed to be quite eager to help me get it back to some kind of working condition. My old laptop, which had XP on it, would constantly kick the bucket for no reason except that it could.
I'm not saying that this is what all computers do. I just speak out of my own experiences.
But anyhoo, I have actually disabled a few of the resources. I'm kinda iffy about taking off some of them because I don't know what would happen being that I'm on a campus network for the internet, but it seems to be running here a little faster than before, and that, my friends, is a good thing.
