Computer running slow

[Kurt Strandberg]

My computer (Pentium 4, 40 gig hard drive with only 10 gig used, 384 mb of ram,with Windows Me) runs slow over time. When I get up in the morning the clock is about 45 minutes off, not every morning but most mornings, the same when I get home from work. The mouse arrow moves very slow and kinda skips and when I click the start button for example, it takes about 20-30 seconds for the start button to open. When I get up or get home from work I restart it and when restarted the time is correct.

I have dial up internet service that is on connected only when my wife or myself are on the internet and I have Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus running all the time, just so you understand my problem, the whole computer runs slow over time so I don't think it is spyware or something like that, it has done this for about 3 or 4 months now, I have Norton check for viruses every Friday morning at 1:00 a.m. and I don't have any viruses and I update both Norton Programs every time I am on the internet.

Any suggestions?
_________________
Kurt

[Karl Laustrup]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, my 'puter was doing very similar stuff. I eventually had to have the hard drive formatted and all programs re-installed. Fortunatly, the 'puter store was able to capture all the stuff from my hard drive, so I didn't lose any info.

I had Norton AV as well as Norton IS and I also ran Spybot on a regular basis. Even with all this something got in and was just slowing everything down until it wouldn't run:eek: :mad: . I now run Norton IS which includes AV as well as Spybot and AdAware. I run each of these at least once a week. I think I am a little more vunerable as I have a cable modem and regularly download at a rate between 3 and 4 Megs.

If you don't have Spybot and AdAware, I would look to download them. They are both free programs and are rated amongst the top spyware software on the market at any price. You can check out PC World for the downloads.

Good Luck!

[Chuck Wintle]

My computer (Pentium 4, 40 gig hard drive with only 10 gig used, 384 mb of ram,with Windows Me) runs slow over time. When I get up in the morning the clock is about 45 minutes off, not every morning but most mornings, the same when I get home from work. The mouse arrow moves very slow and kinda skips and when I click the start button for example, it takes about 20-30 seconds for the start button to open. When I get up or get home from work I restart it and when restarted the time is correct.

I have dial up internet service that is on connected only when my wife or myself are on the internet and I have Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus running all the time, just so you understand my problem, the whole computer runs slow over time so I don't think it is spyware or something like that, it has done this for about 3 or 4 months now, I have Norton check for viruses every Friday morning at 1:00 a.m. and I don't have any viruses and I update both Norton Programs every time I am on the internet.

Any suggestions?
_________________
Kurt
When did you notice the problem? If just recently then it may be spyware on the machine. If the internal clock is off then maybe the motherboard battery is getting weak. Do you leave the machine on all the time?

[Dan Mages]

What OS are you using? In Windows XP, you can have the computer automatically adjust the clock to NIST atomic clock. You can do this by double clicking on the clock and select the internet clock tab. Other than that, I would check the MB battery.

Dan

[Kurt Strandberg]

When did you notice the problem? If just recently then it may be spyware on the machine. If the internal clock is off then maybe the motherboard battery is getting weak. Do you leave the machine on all the time?
It has done it for about 3 months now, yes we usualy leave it on.

Kurt

[Chuck Wintle]

By changing the battery on the motherboard the computer should not lose anymore time.

[Bill Arnold]

... I think I am a little more vunerable as I have a cable modem and regularly download at a rate between 3 and 4 Megs. ...
Karl,

We've been on cable modem (RoadRunner) for four years. I had Norton AV and IS at the time and IS showed repeated attempts to access our computer. I purchased a Linksys router/hub, placed it between the cable modem and computer and it blocked everything that was getting through before. The new computer we bought a couple of years ago has McAfee AV and it scans and cleans everything we receive. We've been getting bombarded with e-mail the past few weeks, but the only thing left of it is a notice that McAfee destroyed a virus in it. We leave our computer on all the time and it is always connected to the Internet.

Regards,

[Perry Schmidt]

Could be a number of things. Virus, Spyware...as others have suggested. But given the length of time, I would also suspect the OS you are using. Windows 95-based OSs (95, 98, ME) were known for just getting corrupt over time through normal use. No viruses or spyware need 'attack' it for this to happen. Windows NT-based OSs (NT, 2000, XP) are MUCH more reliable and are the only code-base that's available anymore. (XP was the 'merged code-base' where 2000 and ME were merged.) These OSs do not have this problem.

Back in 98/ME days I had to do a clean install about every 6 months just to keep the system running decently. Otherwise they'd just slowly degrade over time.

Perry

[Boyd Gathwright]

Hi Kurt,

.... Just a suggestion, Since you are running WINDOWS ME: When was the last time you ran SCANDISK in the THOROUGH mode on ALL drives? When was the last time you ran DISK DEFRAGMENTER on ALL drives? Are you familiar with the ME STARTUP DISK and do you have one? Are you familiar with the (RUN) MSCONFIG command? Etc.

I have been through all of the above and will be happy to try to give you a hand if necessary :).

Boyd

.

My computer (Pentium 4, 40 gig hard drive with only 10 gig used, 384 mb of ram,with Windows Me) runs slow over time. When I get up in the morning the clock is about 45 minutes off, not every morning but most mornings, the same when I get home from work. The mouse arrow moves very slow and kinda skips and when I click the start button for example, it takes about 20-30 seconds for the start button to open. When I get up or get home from work I restart it and when restarted the time is correct.

I have dial up internet service that is on connected only when my wife or myself are on the internet and I have Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus running all the time, just so you understand my problem, the whole computer runs slow over time so I don't think it is spyware or something like that, it has done this for about 3 or 4 months now, I have Norton check for viruses every Friday morning at 1:00 a.m. and I don't have any viruses and I update both Norton Programs every time I am on the internet.

Any suggestions?
_________________
Kurt

[Andy Pedler]

Hi Kurt,

Lots of people have posted good suggestions here. I'll throw in a few more. How old is your hard disk? Hard disk performance can degrade with age. We're actually having a rash of that at my company right now; all the workstations were purchased when the company started 3.5 years ago, and now everyone's machines are slowing to a crawl. When the hard disks are replaced the performance comes back.

This isn't a problem you can fix with a defragmentation (in fact, while defragging your drive might help, it takes a really long time and from my experience seldom helps with performance).

It could also be spyware as many have suggested. Even though you only go on-line with a modem, spyware can be loaded onto your machine via your web browser. Running Spybot and AdAware are good first steps toward cleaning out those programs. Run Spybot about once a week, and make sure you always let it search for updates. I don't know who writes that code but they seem to update it daily. Unbelieveable.

Good luck!

ap

[Jerry Olexa]

Try pcpitstop.com They will do a free check up of your computer after u register (run bu PC World). Sounds like Adware, Spyware in your case and be sure to defragment. In XP its easy, off of CPanel.

[Ken Garlock]

Hi Kurt, the two things you need to do is:

1) RUN DO NOT WALK to your friendly software vendor and purchase Windows XP Home edition. :cool: Windows ME was the biggest pile of junk ever foisted on the American public by Microsoft. :eek:

2) Upgrade your memory to at least 512 Mb. Memory is dirt cheap and is the best single up grade you can make. The correct place to by your memory is at Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/) They have competitive prices, and it is an American company that makes it own memory. They also give free second day shipping :cool:

[John Miliunas]

Kurt, hate to break this to you, but I'm afraid spending some $$ is going to be your best bet. I totally and completely echo Ken G.'s sentiments! In Techie circles, ME is short for "Massive Errors". Among a lot of other things wrong with that operating system, it has some of the poorest memory management of any OS out there. It's very similar to 95/98 in that respect and, while 98 was still in its hayday, our best advice to customers who still needed to run it, especially in a work environment was to REBOOT three or four times a day! There are long, drawn out explanations for doing this. Suffice it to say that, a reboot takes things which are "stuck" in RAM and releases them. Also, although quite possible, I find it a bit hard to believe the system battery is shot already on something that new. Could happen, though and they're cheap and easy to replace. :)

Now, if you're not in the position to replace the operating system with XP, then do the next-best thing: Save all of your data and do a clean install of the current "operating system" (sorry, I just find it hard to call ME an Operating System!), as well as relevant applications. As Perry eluded to, the Windows 9x systems (of which ME is a part of) have a tenacity to virtually "self destruct" after time and a clean install is the real only resolution. Good luck and keep us posted as to what you decide to do or give a yell if you need further assistance with it.:) :cool:

[Bill Arnold]

... The correct place to by your memory is at Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/) They have competitive prices, ...
... unless you own a Dell computer.

[Ken Garlock]

... unless you own a Dell computer.

That is interesting, Bill. :eek: I did a spot check and yes you can "run the traps" on the Crucial website for Dell products and models thereof, but I found a couple 'sorry we don't currently support that machine'. I wonder who is at fault there; Dell "odd" memory, or Micron(Crucial mother company) not wanting to tool-up for "odd" memory, if that is what Dell uses.

In the future I will add "except some Dell" to my Crucial recommendation. :D

[Boyd Gathwright]

.... Just received this as part of an E-mail, no explanation necessary :eek: :D.

Enjoy


My computer (Pentium 4, 40 gig hard drive with only 10 gig used, 384 mb of ram,with Windows Me) runs slow over time. When I get up in the morning the clock is about 45 minutes off, not every morning but most mornings, the same when I get home from work. The mouse arrow moves very slow and kinda skips and when I click the start button for example, it takes about 20-30 seconds for the start button to open. When I get up or get home from work I restart it and when restarted the time is correct.

I have dial up internet service that is on connected only when my wife or myself are on the internet and I have Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus running all the time, just so you understand my problem, the whole computer runs slow over time so I don't think it is spyware or something like that, it has done this for about 3 or 4 months now, I have Norton check for viruses every Friday morning at 1:00 a.m. and I don't have any viruses and I update both Norton Programs every time I am on the internet.

Any suggestions?
_________________
Kurt

[Hal Flynt]

I'm in agreement with the above. Rebooting will cure a lot of ills.

Right click on the Start Button and select Explore. Then drill down to your Windows\temp directory. (I don't remember where it is in ME) If you find a whole lot of *.tmp files, then I suspicion that some of them are contributing to the slow down. You can safely delete most of these. First delete everything older than today. Clean out your temporary internet files (Tools menu, Properties). Running Disk Cleanup (Start, Programs, System Tolls, Disk Cleanup) does a lot of these things too. Then reboot/restart, empty your trash can and defrag the drive. (Scandisk too.)

You may want to get rid of some cookies too ,which is what some of the SpyWare programs do. If something still seems wrong, I will delete all my cookies, reboot and log onto my favorite sites so that the cookies that I want will be reinstalled (you'll need your passwords).

I used to back up all my data offline and most of my programs every January, then reformat my drive and reinstall everything. Time consuming and you will lose everything that you didn't save on disk or tape or offline, so generally a last resort.

In XP I "log off" then back on to clear some slow downs when I have had a bunch of IE sessions going and other software running. XP is a big improvement over the previous editions of Windows and worth considering.

Good luck!