What's wrong with my computer?

[HarryW]

My computer keeps checking the floppy disk drive when there is no disk in the drive, for no apparent reason. Is this normal? I don't remember this happening usually. I have something in the back of my mind about a virus or something that causes this - anyone got any ideas?

I also have been suffering from terrible lag playing Diablo 2 over a LAN (both 10/100 Base T Ethernet cards), and I have no idea why. Every now and again it will lag up to the point where it freezes, and I have to wait up to a minute before anything moves again, by which time I'm almost always dead. What could be the cause of this? I have an Athlon 550 with 128 meg of RAM, the person I'm networked to has a P2 350 also with 128 meg of RAM. Both computers play the game fine in single player. Is the network configured improperly? We only got the Ethernet cards a week or so ago, and have only just got file sharing to work. In the past I've found that so long as the relevant protocols are installed, games pretty much sort themselves out when it comes to networking. Is there anything else I should do?

[HarryW]

Oh yes and I also suffer from the lag when I play on the internet on battle.net, although to a lesser extent. I have only tried it once though, and my connection was (and still is) for some reason down to a pathetic 28.8k

[Sophtware]

My computer does the same thing same disk checking thing.it annoys me too hell sometimes

[zmerlinz]

hi,

i used to have a similar peoblem but once i found what it was it never happened again. right here goes

press ctrl+alt+del

and see if there is a program running called "fastfind", if there is end task it and then remove it from the startup, i think that this is in system.ini. this program is a microsoft program <suprise there> and it comes with office 97 + and the point of the program is to keep searching all of the drives so when you need to access them it can find the data quickly but unfourtuneatley it means that your floppy disk keeps running.

i hope that this helps if you need any more help with the problem, mail me

Merlin ?

[HarryW]

Ohh yeah I forgot about Findfast. I'll endtask it next time I try and see if it helps, thanks.

I have SO MUCH crap in my tasklist, but I don't know what most of it is, so I don't want to kill it just in case stuff stops working. I Anyone got any ideas about these: Gbtask, Osa, Confsvr, Dispdir, Mdm, Rnaapp (I think this is a modem thing) ?

[zmerlinz]

hi, Harry

i think that the osa one has something to do with office, Mdm is Microsoft Debug Manager, you know when you are on a web site and it says there is an error in line .., well that is this program running and it is also what create those fff files that are in the windows directory, don't know about the rest.

hope that helps

Merlin ?

[Iain17]

At the time of posting, i have this in the task list.

• IE. Obviously, otherwise i couldn't post this
• Explorer. Fairly Obviously, otherwise windows wouldn't work
• Systray. Not sure if this is needed
• Mdm. Machine debug manager apparently.
• Cmmon32. No doubt sometihng to do with my internet connection.

So i would say that most of the other stuff is not needed. Obviously depending on what else you are running. I managed to end task everything bar explorer, and windows still worked.

[Hrqls]

the only processes which are needed for windows are
explorer
systray

systray takes care of the little box at the right end of your taskbar

[Si_the_geek]

Rnaapp is for modem stuff, the others as mentioned above, don't know about these tho:

Gbtask, Confsvr, Dispdi

They may be specific to your setup (eg: some graphics/mouse etc drivers sometimes need to run constantly), or they may just be programs you don't really need to have running. Just try shutting them down and see what happens, the worst that should happen is the need to reboot!

[HarryW]

Just in case anyone else didn't notice, this is a really old post. I don't need any answers any more thanks

[Si_the_geek]

oops.. I should really check that more often I just see there is a recent post and go for it

[Iain17]

Christ, it is a wee bit old isnt it. Still, you sorted it yet Harry.

[parksie]

Just as a FYI, my system does it too

Hmmm...might just disconnect the floppy, don't really need it any more

[Guv]

Rnaap hangs around after you use your modem. I do not know why. On my system it does not always happen. Use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up Task manager. Then End Task it.

If you do a Google search for a program in your task list, you can find information about it. In most cases, you will find out if it is required or not, and get some information about what it does, where it comes from.

Use msconfig to get the unwanted ones from your startup list.

For some reason, msconfig cannot get stop some programs from starting when Windows loads. I downloaded a program called Startup.exe, which gets rid of some programs which msconfig cannot kill. I do not remember where I got it. Perhaps from the PC magazine site. Perhaps a google search can find it.

If you want it and cannot find it somewhere, I have attached a zip file this this Post. Not sure if there were some special instructions at the site where i found it.

[dj@phrodite]

maybe you should check your startup directory, boot files, config.sys or those files.

[HarryW]

*AHEM*

Originally posted by HarryW
Just in case anyone else didn't notice, this is a really old post. I don't need any answers any more thanks