Computer suddenly loses speed drastically 1

[jackz15]

A few days ago I was using my computer when suddenly it became busy(CPU reaching 100%), over nothing! It was so slow that I manually shutoff the computer, hoping that would do the job. But before it reached the windows XP scrolling bar screen it lagged for a considerable amount of time. And even once it reached the scrolling page, it lagged even more times, sometimes it stays there for more than half an hour(then i just turn it off). Only when I reformat the disk does it give me a chance to get pass the Welcome screen.
This happened to me twice in two days, the first time I fixed it miraculously by reformating. But the second time, even though I got pass the welcome screen, the speed did not change back.
I have a toshiba satellite series laptop(need I be more specific?) Anyone know what the problem is? I know that this is probably hardware related.

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[stduc]

Have you checked that the CPU is not overheating and throttling back to a slower speed to save itself?

If a reformat/re-install temporarily fixed it I would also suspect that malware is keeping the CPU busy which is causing it to run hotter and because of some other fault (dust, blocked vents, jammed fan - whatever) that is in turn causing the overheating.

To give you an idea - my CPU (I have temp monitoring software) runs at around 35C 100% idle. Simply running email will raise that to 39C at around 1% CPU. Add a bit of word processing, spreadsheet use and file copying will raise CPU to 40C. But if I process a video at 100% CPU temp will rapidly rise to 48-50C and stay there. When it starts rising to 55C or more I know its time to blow the dust bunnies away again. I have it set to shut down at 70C

My curent reported CPU temp as I run email & 53 other background processes amd type this is 39C.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[jackz15]

thanks for the reply, and you are probably right that the CPU is overheating, since I always leave my laptop on. But I always did this before and the CPU never slowed down, is this a sign of its wearing out? I've been downloading things with torrents lately so, I left the laptop on. A couple days before my computer had that problem, I left my computer on the whole night... this is a lesson for me to learn....
And where do you check for the CPU's temperature? I never bothered to think look for it before.\
So basically if i let my laptop rest for a few hours, it'll be fine(and also clean up the dust bunnies, though I've never cleaned it in 3 years and dont know how i could, unless I have to open the laptop)?

 

[stduc]

To check the CPU temp check out the manufacturers website for downloads. You could also try googling. You may also have a BIOS screen that shows the temp.

Check air can get to the vents and that the fans sound OK. For laptops it is usually enough just to run a powerful vacuum hose with a soft brush attachment over the case, vents & keyboard to extract at least some of the fluff. It's not a good idea to take them apart if your not an expert.

You can also buy coolmats for them - or simply use them on a metal tray that will act as a heat sink. It's when you place them on a soft surface they are most likely to overheat.

Some mechanical components like hard drives wear out. Some components like capacitors and batteries age and fail, but I've never heard of CPU wearing out as such. They tend to work perfectly or die - no in between state.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[ASG0856]

I've been downloading things with torrents lately so, I left the laptop on.

Have you picked up a virus/worm/trojan?

 

[wahnula]

Have you picked up a virus/worm/trojan?

Nice catch. I have found AVG's free tool superior to Norton AV, it found several trojans I picked up downloading, er, research videos. Norton & Housecall completely missed them.

wahnula

 

[jackz15]

but even after i reformatted, the problem was still there(after installing windows xp home). But when i installed windows xp pro instead, it works. Though I had to reinstall it twice, because after suceeding the first time, the laptop reverted back to the old problem again the next day(it couldn't even get to the Windows XP black screen with the scroller, instead it displayed "Read disk error...press ctrl-alt-del"). I just finished reinstalling again, and it works fine again. Hopefully it won't revert again....
why is this?

 

[stduc]

The most likely cause of a disk read error is the hard drive is having problems. If that is the case you may need to get a replacement hard disk. Once HDD's start to fail, they usually don't take long to fail completely.

Having said that - it can also be a memory problem. Either way you need to run some diagnostics to try to pin the problem down.

To check out the CPU & RAM download memtest86 from memtest86.com and build and boot to either a floppy or CD. Run the tests several times.

To check out the hard drive personally I would use spinrite from grc.com but that costs. If you don't want to do that search for alternatives and see if Toshiba offer any diagnostic software to download.

As a bare minimum you could use XP's built in chkdsk command. Open a command window and type chkdsk c: /v /f /r and answer yes to schedule at re-boot. Re-boot and watch what happens. Errors are also logged to the event log.

Best of luck.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[jackz15]

yeah, startups take nearly 5 minutes to reach the welcome screen. But once pass that the computer works fine most of the time, occasionally being really busy for a few seconds, which never happened before.
I'll try those diagnostic tools and see what happens, thanks!

 

[firewolfrl]

from the post I have to say you may be close to CPU failure...and HD failure....a cheap laptop cooler does wonders on extending the life of both components...I have seen this issue alot and your symptoms suggest that you don't have much time before it crashes again