[Limbo]

Once upon a time(last year), my sister's computer was pretty awesome. Mainly becuase it could play World of Warcraft and multitask pretty well.
But now it's being a pain. The computer is 4 yrs old.
Over time it has had certain upgrades
2002-Bought(1.7Ghz, 128mb ram, 20GB, Sony CD), 2003-CDRW installed, 2005-80gb + 512mbram.
(3.75GB of Virtual Memory)

So what's the issue, ur prolly asking me?
Well,
1- The computer crashes after some minutes of playing WOW. I played DND online, it froze sometimes, but it recovered and I was able to continue playing. I think, for WOW, it was a combination of server cutting me off + computer freezing.
2- Everytime I play a CD, music, movie, the CD player makes sooooo much noise, unlike last year. It kinda makes me not wanna play my CDs at all.
3- Recently, the computer has been lapsing for a second. not oftenly, but noticeably often- this is usually when messenger, winamp, couple of firefox browsers are open.

The configuration of the computer is still pretty good and the processes running in the background aren't out of the ordinary. I'm just wondering, why these annoyances exist.
Another thing to note, the 2 harddrives are partitioned,
C: 1.56GB Free, 6gb total, 1.5gb virtual mem
The other drives have a bit more space/free space and only one drive has no Virtual Memory,cuz it's the documents, movies, music storing part

So, wondering what's the verdict.
Is the computer too old?
Is there a virus?
Is the computer running for too long?
Or do things need to be readjusted, defragmented...

[Piperlester]

Limbo, on 27 May, 2006 - 06:07 AM, said:

So what's the issue, ur prolly asking me?
Well,
1- The computer crashes after some minutes of playing WOW. I played DND online, it froze sometimes, but it recovered and I was able to continue playing. I think, for WOW, it was a combination of server cutting me off + computer freezing.
2- Everytime I play a CD, music, movie, the CD player makes sooooo much noise, unlike last year. It kinda makes me not wanna play my CDs at all.
3- Recently, the computer has been lapsing for a second. not oftenly, but noticeably often- this is usually when messenger, winamp, couple of firefox browsers are open.


Another thing to note, the 2 harddrives are partitioned,
C: 1.56GB Free, 6gb total, 1.5gb virtual mem


So, wondering what's the verdict.
Is the computer too old?
Is there a virus?
Is the computer running for too long?
Or do things need to be readjusted, defragmented...

Well, here's what I see:

C: 1.56GB Free, 6gb total, 1.5gb virtual mem


--If the C drive is where your OS resides (and it likely is), I would SERIOUSLY consider moving the virtual memory off the drive, as your current situation will fill the harddrive up with virtual memory, and leave no room for anything else.

--If the CD Rom drive is making bad sounding noises, and you're having gameplay issues (I'm assuming you play WoW with the CD in the machine..). A dying CDRom would account for the noise, and gameplay issues. (The game may lock up if it can't get a continuous stream of data from the CD when it needs it.)

--Your cooling may be inadequate, or one of the fans may be having an issue.

--You may have a bad stick of RAM. Test it with memtest86. (I don't have the link on hand currently, but google it )

--Run a benchmark test with a program like SiSoft Sandra or similar. This should allow you to determine what hardware component is possibly causing the issue.

--Lastly, it could be that your OS is just filled with crap. You may just need to reinstall Windows.

Hope this helps!!!

[StephanBotha]

I agree with Piperlester.

Move your virtual memory (or pagefile) to another partition. You don't need a pagefile on every hard drive or partition. One is enough. If you move it to a partition other than where your windows has been installed, you'll gain some performance. (So I've heard). It's not noticable, but apparently it's true.

Take your hard drives to a friend, make sure his anti virus software is completely updated, plug in your hard drives and do a deep scan.

Mostly it is the memory that is faulty. http://www.memtest.o...6+-1.65.iso.zip is the link for the memery tester program. Burn to CD with ISO magic or alcohol 120% and boot with it.

If all else fails, reinstall your windows (or even better, Install Linux Suse). Format your windows partition before you install. Don't install a copy over the one you already have.

During the installation, if you get errors. It's either your hard drive or your memory. Take it to a PC repair shop to have it properly tested.

As for the CD-ROM/RW/DVD-RW. Replace it. They don't make it like they used to. I prefer LG. Been running for over 2 years no problem. But, that's my opinion.

Good Luck!

[Datalus]

If you want to know if anything is wrong on the OS/software side, list all of your running processes (Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then it will show), and tell us your current version of Windows.

[Limbo]

Thanks for the advice guys.
Really appreciate it.

[Mrafcho001]

Clean the inside of your PC.
I've been able to squeeze up to about 25 extra FPS from some games by doing that. When hardware heats up it slows down in effort to try to bring down the temperature and that might be adding to the problems you are having.

I definitly suggest a format and reinstall of windows, i do it on regular basis.

You migth want to consider a new bigger HDD having little free space on your system can cause more fragmation which can greatly slow down reading times (in games this usually just causes them to load slower).

Of course your processor is a bit slow (and I dont know about vga) so im not sure what your expectations are for games, but shouldn't be too high.

I don't know anything about WoW, but a lot of games upgrade graphics engines, bigger maps, more detailed models and so on which again will cause a drop in performance. Since last year WoW could've done something like this?

[Limbo]

I still haven't done the benchmark test because I didn't get a floppy or cd yet...
I moved the Virt Mem to H drive to 3.75GB (max), so now the C drive has 2.8GB free.
I can't really reformat Windows, cuz my sis says that's a nono.
2 Programs always open in the background- Cisco Clean Access Agent for internet connection and VirusScan On-Access Scan


And Here's a list of the processes running on the comp.
I looked up most of them on the internet and it surprisingly seems that all these processes are necessary. Although, I don't understand why there are so many svchost.exe
Key:
L- Local Service. A - Administrator, S- System, N- Network

alg.exe - L
taskmgr.exe - A
nvsvc32.exe - S
VsTskMgr.exe - S
Mcshield.exe - S
FrameworkService.exe - S
CCAAgent.exe - A
jusched.exe - A
realsched.exe - A
shstat.exe - A
explorer.exe - A
UpdaterUI.exe - A
spoolsv.exe - S
naPrdMgr.exe - S
svchost.exe - L
svchost.exe - N
svchost.exe - S
svchost.exe - N
firefox.exe - A
svchost.exe - S
lsass.exe - S
services.exe - S
winlogon.exe - S
csrss.exe - S
smss.exe - S
wdfmgr.exe - L
svchost.exe - S

Thanks again

[Piperlester]

Well, if your sis knows so much about computers, maybe she should fix it for you
Kidding....

Anyhow, if you don't want to do a reinstall of Windows, then I would suggest the following:

1) Run Disk Defragmenter (Do it more than once if Windows will let you).
2) Run Scan Disk
3) Run Disk Cleanup Agent
4) Run Disk Defragmenter again.
5) Schedule Weekly Disk Cleanups
6) Schedule Weekly/Bi-Weekly Disk Defragments
7) Schedule Monthly Scan Disks.

It might sound like alot, but it will help squeeze some extra performance out of the system.

As well, don't leave the computer turned on all day/night. As older components heat up, the performance will degrade.

If you need help with how to setup/perform these tasks, just ask and someone will be able to help you.

Cheers!!!