My PC is Very Slow When I am Using It 1

[Miyagi]

My PC Specifications are as follows:
Intel Celeron 1000a Processor
SDRam 256MB (x2)PC133
Seagate Hard Disk 40GB
Operation System Windows98SE

When i am in windows and using the pc it is very slow, i have to actually wait for each command to finish. example if i open internet explorer window and at the sametime open another windows explorer window, it takes about 5 to 8 seconds for this to complete.

I have gone to the windows update site and updated all that is needed, ie i am running the latest patches on my pc.

The Device Manager is clean, there are no exclamation marks.

can anyone tell me what is the problem and how i can slow it.
thanks.

Miyagi

 

[DBSSP]

Fragmentation is always a good culprit, this includes a fracmented swap file...if your harddrive is getting full that will slow things down quite a bit....if you have tons of icons sitting on the right-hand side of your taskbar, these are programs that are running in the background, shut em down if your not using them...check for drives running in MS-DOS compatibility mode...Do any of these help? Jay

"Jeezus-sqeezits Bob!"

 

[crisc]

Here are some FAQs from the Win98 forum that may help you:

faq615-281

faq615-786

faq615-246

 

[DavePL]

Also try running msconfig.exe, click on the startup tab, and uncheck everything except explorer and system tray.
Try commenting out all the lines in autoexec.bat and config.sys, except the ones having to do with antivirus.
If it doesn't run right you can always add the lines back.

 

[ceh4702]

What kind of hard disk 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm? You should be using 7200 rpm ATA 100 hard drive.

I know a lot of these programs they write are bloated. They are designed for the P4 platform or faster. Also some Celeron computers are slower because everything is integrated. If both sound and Video is integrated that slows the processor down quite a bit.

A lot can depend on motherboards. Even though you have PC133 memory a 1 Gig Celeron CPU only runs at PC100 speeds!!! The bus is limited to a speed of 100. Can not go any faster than that.

I concur with the concept that if are running a bunch of stuff in the system tray, that will eat up your resources. You might want to verify that your hard drive is running at the proper speed. Win98 SE does not work well with some newer chipsets. I know I had to install patches to get Win98 SE to work with my Intel 815ep Chipset. Otherwise Windows could not recognize the Intel Chipset hardware. This would cause a faster 7200 rpm ATA 100 drive to run slower. I had to manually install the ATA 100 driver.

I have an IBM Net Vista at work and it seems a little on the slow side with WinXP. It is always hesitating. WinXP is more stable, but Win98 was faster.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[DorothyDix]

Hi there

Sounds to me like your C drive may be nearly full, causing your swap file to overload. If you have windows managing your swap file,then it will naturally use the space left on your C drive. If you have only say,200Mb left,then you're going to have problems.


I don't know whether you've partitioned your drive or not,but if you have,and you can't delete unnneeded or extra TEMP files and duplicate files to make enough space,try assigning a swap file of around 500Mb (upper AND lower limit)to your next partition.
Defragment as suggested earlier,but it is always advisable to keep your swap file on your C drive unless it can't be avoided.

Hope this helps

CYA

PAUL (Dorothy Dix)

 

[GrandpaCarl]

While the above posts may well be good information, there is another possible cause. McAffee's Viruscan, especially using the more recent DAT files, will slow down ant disk reads if the System/Run configuration in Viruscan is checked. I have been battling that problem for some time. See:

http://208.31.156.32/~VSC1

This is the Viruscan forum board where I have a long thread. Right now I am waiting for an answer from McAfee, as I submitter an escalation form. Just for a trial, disable your virus program entirely and see if you get speedier results. Of course, if the disk is fragmented, this makes it all the worse.

GrandpaCarl

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

I have come across this problem in the past, almost having a feeling that something is running in the background and stopping you from running at normal speed.

Some games actually slow your PC down a tad, but I would not have thought that much. An age old remedy is to press ctrl, alt,+, together; you should hear a beep. Or you could at any time press ctrl,alt,del, together and have a look at what's running.

Ad-aware used to have a programme to highlight spyware on your PC. I haven't seen it of late, but I think it was bough out by lavasoft.de (that's DE for Deutchsland).

Hope this helps

Phil

 

[GrandpaCarl]

Wow, I havent seen anything about the CTL-ALT-(+) trick since my old 12MHz turbo system with an Award 1.03 bios. That bumped the clock speed to the top 12MHz speed, while CTL-ALT-(-) put the clock back to 8MHz. I don't think that is in use anymore is it?

The Ad-Aware program is excellent. Current version is,I believe, 5.83 and available from:

http://www.lavasoft.nu/index.html

It is worth giving it a try, but I am still wondering about viruscanner if set on scanning all disk reads. That just about drove me nuts.

GrandpaCarl

 

[cupie101]

Don't forget to delete your temp files.
delete all temp files and tempory internet files.
and cookies.
this helps speed things up but,is probably not the main culprit. remove programs running in background.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Carl

I think you're right, more likely a bit of software, and virus scanners are the main culprits.

Real time scanning is great if you don't mind the speed decrease, but if you're happy with your system and competent, heuristic scan on demand is what I would recommend.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Phil

 

[Neo81]

Or a Virus, I have had many machines that are slugs becuase of virus activity on the drive, don't count that out.... is you virus scanner up to date ?

Later
NEo81 >:O>

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

You could try getting rid of the junk that programmes leave behind when you think you have uninstalled them, especially games. There is a good little programme out there called "dustbuster". They do a version for Win98SE, I know because I use it myself. It's freeware, at present, and worth having. The programme was written by a couple of Italian guys, so the English is not perfect (but then neither is mine and I am English). Here's the link

http://casper.wintricks.it/

If you do a lot of gaming, check out some of their warnings before commencing a scan, because it is automated and deletes trash without asking for confirmation.

Hope this helps

Phil

 

[DorothyDix]

Hey Miyagi

Just another thought- What graphic card are you running???
If you are using,say,an old voodoo 4Mb card or something similar or older,that could be causing the slowdown...or do have your refresh rate and /or screen size at too high a setting for the card to handle efficiently?
If you are using a later 32 or 64 Mb AGP graphic card,it should be ok,but you can also check the AGP memory assignment in your bios. It should/can be set to around 128 safely for your PC.

Let us know how it goes.


Cya

PAUL (Dorothy Dix)