Win ME Slow clock and increasingly poor performance

[dunnjt]

My 3 year old computer is running Win ME. When I startup the computer everything is fine. However, the longer the machine is on, the slower the machine runs, the clock looses time (an hour or so overnight) mouse skippping is a serious problem. If I restart the machine, all is well, for a while. I ran an up to date version of Norton on the hard drive and it returns no infections.

Can anyone make a suggestion as to what the problem might be and how it might be fixed?
Thank you,
Jerry D.

 

[cdogg]

Jerry,
If anyone tells you that the BIOS/CMOS battery on the motherboard needs replaced, they're wrong. You already said that rebooting corrects the problem, so we know the battery is just fine.

Instead, the "software" clock in Windows is falling behind. This software clock only updates its settings with the BIOS clock during bootup. That explains why rebooting fixes it temporarily.

You need to monitor Disk usage and Processor usage. If both are high, then chances are that your resources are running low. Try killing as many apps as possible that you don't need running under CTRL-ALT-DEL. Each process listed here is using memory and resources. One or two of them might be using more than you prefer!

[tab]
___________________________________________________________
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab]- A. Einstein

 

[dunnjt]

I have already replaced the battery so I know that it is not the problem. There are only 3 programs running in the tray so that should't be a problem. However, how can I tell if one of those three might be eating up resources and why would the machine performance degrade the longer it is on? Something is certainly "eating" something up somewhere. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Thank you,
Jerry D.

 

[cdogg]

WinME is known for its memory leaks. Why it has more than Win95 or 98 is another story.

One of the most common causes I've seen is ME's system restore features. It can eat up a lot of resources on slower or saturated systems. Besides the system restore, there are many utilities that can start with Windows and run in the background that you won't see in the CTRL-ALT-DEL close program box. These utilities are known as services.

To see what exactly is starting up with Windows, I recommend you use msconfig and/or download a utility like Startup Cop. You can also check these manually by going to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

...or any key in this location that has the word RUN or SERVICE in the name.


[tab]
___________________________________________________________
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab]- A. Einstein

 

[Rached]

first get Process Viewer (freeware) from:

http://www.xmlsp.com/pview/prcview.htm

and view what's eating the memory and kill it. Then get Startup Control Panel (freeware) as well from:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

and disable it.. good luck.