System Slows down in the afternoon.

[golyg]

Hello all.
I have a co-worker that is using a Windows ME machine and she reports that after several hours of work, the machine slows down: i.e, the mouse moves extremely slow, if attempting to search for a file it takes an extravegent amount of time, etc.
I'm no sys admin but it appears to be a memory leak or something....????
The machine is a P3, 256 RAM, a 19gig HD w/ about 9gig free.

I was curious if anyone has dealt with something similar.

Thanks

 

[cdogg]

Try downloading AD-Aware and/or Spybot. You can find them from a google search. Both will clean the system of spyware, which tends to build up over time.

Also, check out this article for more suggestions:

http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?spid=615&newpid=615&sfid=3144

~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[golyg]

just to add more info:
again she has 256 mb of total physical memory
but only about 6 mb available of physical memory

also, i noticed that the system restore diskspace to use is set to MAX, 2335MB ?? ( i have no idea what this means)
and read ahead optimization is set to Max as well

thanks

 

[Alcom]

The system restore disksapce is the amount of HD space your machine will use to store System Restore information and has little to do with RAM. Try hitting CTRL-ALT-DELETE to see what's running in the Program Manager, and if there are a lot of applications other than Explorer and Systray, you may just be running to many memory-hogging applications in the background.

These include Spyware, and both of cdogg's removal tools will remove them. However, firewalls and media players often run hidden (or if there are icons in the system tray, right-click and close them), and many run at startup. Do some searching on unnecessary applications and msconfig, lots of info out there.

 

[gheenoe]

I am using ME. It seems as though that after the computer is on for a while it is more likely to crash. I don't think it has any thing to due with ME. I just think the computer overheats after a while and the hard drive or CPU faults. After the computer has been off for a long period, she runs great.

 

[Cybermage]

For golyg, the system restore "feature" in Win ME could be the culprit here. The reason why it slows down after several hours of work is because every time you open a file or application it saves a copy to the harddrive. After a while, the restore file will grow to several gigabytes, and slow down the whole computer. I don't know what microsoft was thinking on this one.. I suggest you tell her to disable it immediately. Here is a good reference on how to do it:

http://www.emulators.com/secrets.htm#KILLSYSREST

Win ME is crappy overall compared to Win 98 anyway, so either switch to that or go to 2000.

gheenoe, its probably both. Get some fans in there and switch OS's