Computer problems - any techies out there got any ideas?

[HarryW]

Hi all.

I've been having some problems with my computer recently. Basically, every now and then (about every 15 minutes or so)my computer will go through a laggy, jerky period which usually lasts about 2 minutes. The graphics, and everything else actually, become very jerky and things take a long time to refresh for a while. I am sure I can hear the usual hum from my computer deepen audibly in tone while this is happening, and I can tell when the laggy spot is over by sitting back and listening for the tone to return to normal. Maybe it's just my imagination.

Sometimes, if I'm doing something graphics-intensive (for instance I've been playing Diablo 2 a lot recently, or trying to), the system will just hang and/or I will get a big load of blue screen errors, and I have to reboot.

I had this problem in January too, I spent weeks wrestling with it, installing the latest drivers for every darned thing I could think of, reformatting and resinstalling Windows (Windows 98). Nothing worked. Eventually, in desperation, I tried using a toothbrush to clean the dust off of the fan on my graphics card - a Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro (GeForce with DDRRAM basically), and the problems stopped!

Well I've tried doing this again, this time doing an even better job than last time and still no joy. It has been kinda hot recently, and I find (as I found before, in January) that if I turn the computer off for a while it runs smoother for longer when I first start it up again, so I wonder if my system's just overheating. I've been through hot phases before though and had no problems.

Can anybody shed some light on this situation? I know this isn't the most appropriate place for me to find some answers but I am usually able to fix this kind of thing and this just has me beat so far. Any ideas are gratefully received, so long as they don't involve me throwing it away and buying a new one :)

Thanks.

I have an Idea!

Throw it away and buy a new one.



No need to thank me! :D

now to be serious.....(damn, I hate this part)
I have this problem too, unfortunatly, my computer is under warranty, and my dad won't allow me to take it apart to clean the fan. :(

And the other day I looked inside of the little fan holder thing, and it was all dusty and dirty.

:(

[Guv]

While there are other possible causes for your symptoms, some program hogging resources is a likely culprit.

Immediately after startup: Hold Ctrl & Alt keys down, and then hit delete key once. This will give you a list of all active programs (You might be surprised at how many are running). Write down the ones running when you first start up. When problem occurs, get the list again and check who is not on the list you made just after startup. He might be the culprit. You can terminate him and see if it helps. If you identify a culprit, perhaps the software house that wrote it can give you some advice or a newer version.

Also, run msconfig (In C:\Windows\System). He has a Startup Tab, which can be used to get a list of programs initiated at startup. some of these do something and then terminate. Others stay in memory, even though they are not really required. Each of these is using some memory, causing more paging I/O for memory management. Msconfig allows you to uncheck the ones you do not want to run. The first time I did this, I was astonished at the number of programs initiated at startup and still running later. A lot of these programs are not needed, and they can hog resources. Experiment with unchecking some of them. If other problems occur, check the programs again and allow them to run at startup. I got rid of half a dozen programs which were hogging resources, and do not seem to need them running. I think some developers are megalomaniacs who want some piece of their program active all the time.

I have Windows 98, Second edition with the Plus Package installed. Msconfig might not come with standard Windows 98. If you do not have it, perhaps you could download it from MicroSoft. I could send you a copy, but I am not certain that putting the .exe in Windows\System folder is all that is required.

[Gen-X]

This can also happen if you have too much on your hard drive and the virtual memory space (which on Win98 expands automatically) is left with too little room to move.

Clear out any old temp files and internet files and check how much disk space you have left.

Then go into the system and make sure it has assigned and can assign enough Virtual Memory (lets say 100 MB).



If there isn't enough Virtual Memory then your computer has to "PAGE" in and out for memory intensive tasks which slows the system down while it chugs away. All of your windows have the space behind it saved into virtual memory and then repainted when you expose them so this takes time as well.



The other thing you can do is go into your computer setup and even if you are a stand alone computer change the setting to be that of a "Network Server". This expands some important features on your machine allowing it better processing.

[Gen-X]

Oh and another thing...


I play SimCity3000 Unlimited from time to time and this is the biggest memory hog I know of... It chews up 700MB of free space on my hard drive (thats after 300MB for loading the app) as virtual memory and if I play it for more than 4-5 hours it gives me an "Out of Hard Drive Space" error.

When I close the app down it spends ages wiping out the virtual file and eventually I get my 700MB back...

I guess I am lucky I have a 10GB drive with 1GB free :)

[Arbiter]

Hmmm....

Problem with these things is they could be anything.

I had a similar problem on an older machine and it eventually got to the point where it just turned itself off when it was bored.

Tried everything.

Turned out it was the motherboard that was faulty and randomly sent the software power off command to itself and just turned off. Bonkers.

Try, as Guv says, looking for rogue resource hogs.
If I'm having trouble with a piece of software, I just nuke EVERYTHING running in the background (CTRL + ALT + DEL ... End Task on everything).

You will also have explorer in your task list too. Kill that as well (it comes up with the Shutdown Dialog, click cancel). After 30 seconds or so it will flash up the xxx is not responding, Wait or End Task. Just end the task and it will refresh explorer.

Try running your program now.

If that doesn't work, try cooling it down (as a temporary measure, run it without the case on to see if it makes a difference.

Another thing. I don't wish to insult your intelligence so *please* don't take this as being patronising...

You haven't got scandisk scheduled to run every hour or something have you?

[HarryW]

Hey, thanks for all the replies guys :)

I've already looked at the task list, and there's quite a lot of stuff on there that have obscure names. I tried endtasking all but explorer, systray and... the other one... *Forgotten* but I still had the same problems.

I'll try closing explorer, thanks for the tip Arbiter, and no I don't have anything scheduled to run. Not deliberately anyway. Before I'd posted this thread I'd found MS Find Fast lurking on my task list but shutting it down doesn't seem to help :(

I am prety sure It's not a problem with running out of disk space because I have about 18 gig free :)

I take it you all (except Dennis who can't try it out) think that the overheating thing is a bit of a red herring?

[Iain17]

Sorry Harry, i cant really suggest anything more than has already been suggested.

I can however tell you that what you are experiencing, is a symptom of overheating.

[Ianpbaker]

It could well be overheating as Iain (he's the one who can't spell Ian :D ) said, but normally if the computer start's to overheat it will normmally just hang and cry. My computer overheats at the moment and if I play anything that is beefy it will just crash. You could try and adding a fan card (which are quite cheap and slots in a PCI slot) and see if that works).

Ian

[ron hunter]

Harry,

I've known some virus protection software perform disk checks every so often! Could maybe be worthwhile checking to see what settings you have if you are running any virus guards.

[HarryW]

Yes virus software is a common culprit for this kind of thing, but I have tried running with almost everything end-tasked. I'll try the thing Arbiter suggested when i get home (I'm on the uni computers @tm) and if it's no good I think I'll look into fan cards - thanks Ian (and Iain) :)

I WILL beat this eventually, but I can see it's gonna take a while. Hope it's not a hardware fault.

Do you think it's possible that Windows has got its knickers in a twist somehow? I haven't reinstalled it yet since this problem only came up again a few days ago. All the dxdiag tests checked out okay.

Finally, just because it's something I'm thinking about as I consider my card's Direct3D support, why is Glide supposedly so good? A housemate of mine has an old Voodoo Banshee card on an old-ish computer, and he has no graphics problems with Glide-supporting games. What gives? Is it some fundamental 3dfx architecture thing?

[Iain17]

Harry,

Cheers for that, i have only just finished laughing.


Do you think it's possible that Windows has got its knickers in a twist somehow?


Of course it is possible. Although it unless this installation of windows has been running for a good while, it shouldn't be that much of a problem. It is a well known fact that as time goes on windows slows down. As you install / uninstall, and generally use windows, things get all messed up. Registry entries get left hanging around left, right and centre, the hard drive fragments, and you know that the BSOD is just waiting around the corner.

So that is another idea if you don't want to format and start again, which i personally recommend, try de-fragmenting the hardrive, but i am sure this will not do much good.

I cant really comment on graphics cards as i am no expert, but you all know i am going to anyway. ;) I have had superb performance from D3D. Glide is, as far as i am aware, a Voodoo based technology. If your card supports it, then try OpenGL, as some people swear by it. I personally swear at it, but that's my problem ;)

[HarryW]

Hehe, point taken, it was a stupid question :)

The support for OpenGL on GeForce cards basically sucks, it was really designed for Direct3D I think, so I'll stick with it. And yes, Glide is a proprietary graphics API of 3dfx.

I'd forgotten about defrag, I'll try it when I get home - although I'm not sure my computer will remain stable enough to complete a defrag of a 27 gig HDD.

[Arbiter]

Good call Ron,

Some virus checkers can cause nasty slowdowns esp. if they're set to check every file. This normally only really matters though when lots of small files are being read (i.e. Windows startup), but it would depend on how the game was designed.

Well, I think all you have left is to try cooling the machine down as per the Ia(I)ns. To test if that's the problem run it without the case on so the heat can escape easier . You could also point a desk fan at it as well if you wish.

I've just been reading your problem again and it could be the graphic card causing the problem (?). Try replacing the graphics card with one from another machine and see if that works.

My friend had an obscure problem with his machine and it was traced down to a problem whereby on of the wires near his graphics card generated a static field and after 23 minutes (we timed it exactly) it would short the graphics card and turn off the monitor. After a few minutes the static would bleed away and the monitor would flick back on. That took some figuring out I can tell you.

Just as a quick question, what sound card do you have?

[HarryW]

I have a Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024, which some games have problems with when it's using hardware 3D audio acceleration, but I'm not.

How the **** did you manage to figure that one out?!? I mean.... gosh, that's pretty unpredictable. Thought-provoking though, perhaps the reason it fixed the problem before was not because I cleaned off the dust, but because I moved the wires inside.... I'll have to dig around inside again and try to shift some of the cables about a bit. Cheers :)

[Gen-X]

Don't forget that Defrag runs as its own thread in Windows which means it will reset itself if your system does anything else.

My 10GB takes 4 hours to defrag.

[HarryW]

Well I ran it with the case off for a while last night and had no problems, so it could well be the heat or possibly the cable things Arbiter mentioned. I think it's just heat. I'll have to get more cooling I think.

My case came with an empty space for a fan at the front - anyone know where I might get a fan to fill the gap from? The case manufacturer?

[Ianpbaker]

Where Do you live harry?

[Ianpbaker]

Sorry mate just looked at your biographt. check out http://www.insight.com/cgi-bin/bp/uk/uk_home.html?bpsession=0 they have 1000's of accessories at good prices

Ian

[Arbiter]

Just a heat problem?

You're laughing then, they're easy to fix. Just keep pouring water on it every now and then to cool it off and it'll be fine. ;)

[HarryW]

Nice one, cheers everyone :)

*Happy ending*

*Harry walks off into the sunset, arm in...printer cable with his baby*

[parksie]

Here's a tip to keep memory usage down and hopefully stop you going too far into virtual memory:

Open up system.ini, and look for the [vcache] line. Make sure it looks like this:

[vcache]
MinFileCache=2048
MaxFileCache=2048

That should stop it using about 30megs for your HD cache.

I have that problem to. But when it happens, ill check the Ctrl+Alt+Del progs, and there will be a line like
(Not Responding)

With no prog name. I just stop that program and it goes back to normal.