Don’t know what happened.
It now takes 30 min. to print a photo. Like it will print 4 lines, stop, then 30 seconds later–repeat.
It takes 30 seconds for a program to come up. Word is slow. Excel is slow. Very weird.
puter is a year old, HP, Pentium 4, XP, all the bells. I’ve defraged, sweep it, scanned it and now I ready to chuck it.
Any brilliant trouble-shooters out there? Really appreiciate all responses, sarcastic or not!
Replies
How much memory do you have?
I have heard that some of the anti-virus programs can realy some some programs down. Try turn it all off.
Thanks Bill,
The little label that says: "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!" says:
1,82 GHz
224 MB Ram
72 GB
42 free
Thanks again
Edited 4/9/2003 1:21:36 PM ET by Mark McDonnell
mark , same thing happened to my PIII with XP Pro..
i finally reloaded XP-Pro and everything went back to normal....Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Sounds like a safe solution. That XP retores all your files....................................right?
yes, as far as i know , it just overwrote itself and restored whatever was corrupted on the operating system.. all of my programs and files were still there..
ya see, the whole thing started when i downloaded an anti-virus thing.. and didn't watch what was happening.. anyways the whole thing was in russian with cyrillic alphabet... everything slowed to a crawl.. then when i did "uninstall" in XP.. it was still screwed up.. but re-installing XP Pro fixed everything.... except my attention span..Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
No, this is not correct.
While XP itself will reinstall, it will also overwrite your Registry, and most (if not all) of your installed software will not work until reinstalled - it just is not as simple as reinstalling Windows.
Doug
dm.. i must be the luckiest guy out there then.. i reinstalled it.. and EVERYTHING i had worked..Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Same with me . I just reinstalled windows and it did it for me .
Tim Mooney
Wow!
What a crew.......I knew I could count on you guys for getting the straight poop!
You guys have giving me more info.........jeez, I'll hafta copy this thread and stash it.
Thanks for all you time, advice and consideration.
Update............I did EVERYTHING you guys suggested. We have every anti-virus, firewall you can think of.............my son had turned white at the prospect of us finding something............
Turns out, it was that we had loaded the entire contents of our previous computer on this one. Add a year of music files, office files, pictures, video.........kinda like eating 3 thanksgiving dinners all at once................Something had to go.........We dumped all those old files and we got our baby back! (gasp) Again..........all is well........Thanks
Hey, Beckman, I've got a lot of other stuff you can come down from Indiana to recycle! hehehe.
Edited 4/10/2003 9:30:49 AM ET by Mark McDonnell
A handy tool that deserves regular use, can be found under Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup.
The disk clean up tool will do a decent job policing up the junk and temporary files, and even does a decent job on the Temporary Internet Files. It even skips the step of putting them in the Recycle Bin (this is a file that is almost never emptied often enough). Internet Explorer's Tools>Internet Options> Delete Temporary Files is still the best clean up routine. (Those Temporary Files--the images & logos from every web site you visit--take up physical space on your hard drive.) Be careful cleaning History Files, 1 day is ok; 0 means always having to type in your forum name & password to Breaktime -g- . . .
The one thing I did not see suggested here is my first choice: Norton Utilities. The complete System Works (including Norton Anti-Virus) is about $60. Why NU? Norton's Speed Disk is faster than MS Disk Defragmenter by a factor of days. Why defrag? The Windows Swap File gets added on to every time a program opens (whether it needs to or not). As the Swap file size increases, it has to "snake around" the files that are already in place. After a while, that space is more pieces than whole--this slows down the process. The swap file is set back to its minimum specified size & space when the computer is started; this is why most machines run "better" after a restart.
Ok, back to more specifics. Speed Disk includes a feature that optimizes the Swap file. Typically, you can get the swap file squared away and clean up the free space on most computers in about 5 minutes. Norton Utilities also includes a very nice feature called WinDoctor. This program will find those annoying strays, like Icons that don't do any thing, broken links, and the like. After finding them, it will ask you if you'd like to repair them (and includes an option to repair all problems with just one click).
Now, one last item that will help almost any Windows installation--but is more than a bit technical (fair warning). Windows will work best when the Swap File is given its own space to work in. With a brand new hard drive, this is not a problem. On the new hard drive, you create a partition that is 2.5 times the RAM (128MB x 2.5 = 320MB, round up to 400MB). This becomes drive "D:" typically. Then, under the Control Panel, and Memory, you point the Windows Swap File to your brand new "D:" drive. Windows will then warn you, direly, that you are taking all sorts of risks ("Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!")--ignore them, and select the drive for Location. You then need to reboot.
Why does that work? Because no other files (don't put anything else, at all, in the drive!) "intrude" or "interfere" with your Swap File. This makes Windows very happy. Why does MS give you a warning then? Because they wrote the warning before you could buy disk partitioning software for $20, and before a 40GB hard drive was common (and only about $50).
So, you have had the computer a while, and it's just full of data, now what? Depends. If the existing drive is more than about 60% full, get a new drive and add it to the machine (not that hard after the first time--just like most things). Move the music and photos and games & the like to the new drive. If the hard drive is under 50% used, get some partitioning software (which may take some asking around to find, or some Internet browsing). Then, it is just a matter of sizing the partitions.
Hope that helps.
OK - I stand corrected then - I have to admit I was making the assumption that XP worked like NT and the others before it with regards to reloads...
Doug
DM,
I have reinstalled/reloaded windows 95, 98, and 98SE at least a hundred times in the many years that I have been using them. I have never had any problems with previously installed program not running anymore. Never. And the hundred mark is a conservative figure. (I have done this on my own machine, and on many others.) I have also formatted and installed from scratch at least as many times.
If you formatted your hard drive, installed windows, then just copied your other programs back, then of course those programs aren't going to work. They'll have to be reinstalled as well.
But if you leave the current installation of windows and everything else alone, but simply reinstall windows, all your programs will be left unaffected. The worst you may see is that a setting or three in windows itself will have to be reset to what you want them to be.
Quittin' Time
A full install includes ALL files, including the Registry, and also includes removing the old Windows directory (leaving the old Windows directory leaves all the "crap" that was causing problems in the first place and eats disk space unnecessarily).
I stand by my last statement: If you do a Full Install, which includes the Registry, your programs won't work. If you don't overwrite the Registry, then your programs will still work, but you may not have resolved the initial problem (it obviously depends on what the problem was).
I too, have done many many installs, and the only way for a layman (of which I am one as well) to ensure he corrects the problem (which may very well be an unwanted entry in the Registry) is a complete reinstall. Not that a partial won't ever fix the problem as well...
d-
To replace everything tha way that you are describing, you would have to go into dos and wipe out the windows directory. Then do a full reinstallation.
Why ???
What a waste of time.
I don't mormaly replace the entire engine just because the truck needs a tuneup.
If you are going to go to all that much work, you might as well count on just formatting the hard drive and start from scratch. What's the difference ?
No one here, who mentioned that he should reinstall windows, meant anything like that at all. We were suggesting that he simply put the windows cd disk in the drive and reinstall windows right over the top of what is there already.
If there is a problem in the registry, chances are much more likely than not, that the problem will be fixed.
Quittin' Time
The "Why" answer is because reinstalling Windows without cleaning up the Windows directory may not fix the problem.
I agree that a full install is not always necessary, but 2 of your statements are a bit off:
1. You don't have to go into DOS and wipe out everything. You do, however, need to make sure that the non-core (ie. not Windows installed) files are not in use before deleting them. You needn't worry about the Windows files (which would require a trip to DOS to get Windows to release them) since you are going to refresh those anyway.
2. If the problem is with the registry, then it is _unlikely_ that a Windows refresh will fix the problem byvirtue of the fact that you haven't affected the registry file. Generally speaking, most computer issues are caused by corrupted files, but generally not the Registry. If, however, the Registry gets FUBAR'd, the only thing that is going to help you is an old (pre-FUBAR) version of the Registry. How far back you go to get one (ie. to a backup, or all the way to the install disk) depends on how religiously you back up your pc...
Speaking of which, I haven't saved off a version of the Registry lately, so off I go so I don't have to do a full install next time I screw something up....
D-
You are correct in that some problems cannot be solved with just a quick reinstallation. But so very many CAN, that it is, to put it politely, a niusance to tell people to take the long route right off the bat. Why didn't you just tell him to reboot into dos and type, "format C:" ?
Again, why tell someone they need to replace the whole engine when all they need is a tuneup ?
1. "You don't have to go into DOS and wipe out everything."
And you say that I am a bit off ? When was the last time that you tried to wipe out the windows directory while you were in windows ??? No, you were not talking about surgicaly wiping just a few things out. You distinctly said that the WHOLE windows directory should be wiped out. Then windows should be fully reinstalled.
2. Likely, unlikely.... semantics. When you were first called on this, you turned to semantics. Trying to make it look like you said something other than what you actualy said. You have continued to carry semmantics right along, and now we are here. I have fixed registry problems before with a simnple reinstallation right over the top of the current installation. Period.
You DO affect the registry file. If some part of the standard windows portion of the registry file becomes corrupt in some way, I have found 9 times out of ten that the corruption in the registry is fixed by a simple reinstallation over the top of what is already there.
You are again, correct, in a way... However. if the registry becomes fubar'ed, try the reinstallation trick. If that does not fix it, then there is some other portion of the registry that is so screwed that you will HAVE to take the actions you suggest.
It is very easy to screw the rgistry so completely that nothing but a full reinstallation will fix it. But... you have to actualy try to get it that screwed up. If you do not go into and edit the registry file yourself, the only other real danger is that a virus, trojan, worm, etc, will screw with it.
Bad installations/uninstallations of peripheral programs or hardware can sometimes screw up the registry. In those cases, again, try a reinstallation over the top, first. If that doesn't work, then go the long route. But don't throw your hands in the air immediately and head for the format and/or delete commands.
You are one hundred percent correct in that the best security is a current good backup of the registry.
*****
The real bottom line here, DM, is not the registry. Or any of the other side tracks. Mark was complaining of a slow computer. Most everyone else here gave good suggestions for quick things to try. You came in, and wanted him to rebuild the whole friggen car, and install a new engine while he was at it.
Turned out, the solution was even simpler than what Mike Smith suggested. (What I would have suggested if I had responded before him. I sent Mark an email after Mike's suggestion, and told him that was the one I would go with, were I him.)
Now, what if Mark had followed your suggestion ? Can you imagine the hair-pulling that would be going on at his house right now ?
Quittin' Time
Addressing your concerns in reverse order:
A. The position Mark would have been in if he had followed my advice would be.... the position he is in now.
Go back and read my original email, which states, quite clearly:
"In any case, if removing the offending printer and drivers, and potentially anything you have installed since before you noticed the problem, doesn't solve the problem, your best bet is a fresh reload."
B. If you consider likely vs. unlikely semantics, you need to visit http://www.merriam-webster.com :) I will admit that likely vs. unlikely is a matter of opinion since neither of us have hard facts, so we'll call it a draw.
C. You do NOT have to go to DOS, and I didn't say you needed to delete the entire Windows directory. I said in my last email "You needn't worry about the Windows files (which would require a trip to DOS to get Windows to release them) since you are going to refresh those anyway.". And the previous email was regarding a full install, which I have already clearly stated should involve reformatting your disk - an action which does not involve a trip to DOS. If, however, this should prove too scary for some people (re-formatting is a big step a lot of people don't want to take), I suggested that a different alternative is to delete all the other crap in the directory, leaving the Windows files, which again does not require a trip to DOS. Is it fun? No, but it can be done without DOS and that was the only observation I made - this is email, not a face to face dialogue, so don't assume things I haven't said.
The point here is that a full reload guarantees a fix, or at least identifies that software is not the issue. (In case you think I'm the only nut suggesting this, here are at least a couple links to articles suggesting the same thing, with additional rationale as to why: http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/faqs/Hard_Drives/hd_A_6.asp, http://avenir.dhs.org/articles/software/formatoften.html)
Doug
Edited 4/14/2003 11:46:24 AM ET by DM_Woodworking
You might try downloading the latest printer drivers from printer manufacturer's website, and installing them.
They might have had a recent update that works better with XP.
You might also try deleting the printer from your printer list, and re-booting. That should sense the printer, and re-install it.
One last idea would be to set up a bogus printer with another (older) driver. By that I mean if your printer is an HP laserjet 4, try setting up a laserjet 3 and see how that works.
Every so often, I like to stick my head out the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.
Thanks Boss. I've tried tricking out the printer.......no go.
DW believes we got hit with a virus that was attached to some poetry my son downloaded..........No Mike, it wasn't that one about Nantucket...............
Anyway, we are still taking ideas and plan to go with a fix tonight..............
Have you tried restarting it?
Sounds simple, and I bet you have, but occasionally my gateway will get bogged down from all the crap that is stored in memory, I was told by the rep to try restarting it. and I qoute. "turn it off, let it sit 2 minutes, turn it back on"
I would also suggest cosidering your computer is only a year old you probably have a cdr or cdrw?. If you do, back up everything that is important before you re-install or overwrite your os. Just in case, that $1, cd or two is cheap insurance.
You don't have a teenager in the house downloading music on the same machine, do you? Those programs thoroughly screwed up my computer ... twice!
Formerly BEMW at The High Desert Group LLC
Or downloading other things..... xxx rated sites are notorious for "giving" things to your pc...View ImageGo Jayhawks..............Next Year
Run a program called ad-aware..... gets rid of all the spyware on your computer
Then run Sytem Mechanic and "clean the registry"
Both of these programs are availible for free on http://www.cnet.com or 30 day trials.
If that doesnt work and your running, xp, nt or win2000, hit control-alt-delete choose task manager and see what is eating up all your cpu time. try killing that program.
do a complete virus check and definately install a firewall, like zonealarm (free)
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
Mark,
Lots of good advice above. But I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned chucking it. If you decide that's what you should do, I'll be glad to come by and take it off your hands so you won't have to deal with disposal issues. It will be properly recycled.
No need to thank me, just doing my part for the environment.
Another day, another tool.
One of the tricks I use which seems to help is to click on the start buttom on the lower left and go to "All Programs". Click on Internet Explorer.
A new screen will appear. Click on the Tools button, then click on Internet Options.
the 2nd and 3rd sections of the screen produced allow you to erase the cookies you've collected and all files that you've collected while surfing throught the web. The lower section erases your history. I always have that part programmed to save your history zero days.
As I understand it, all that crap that's stored in those areas (cookies, files and history) uses up some of the available memory the computer has to work throguh each task you direct it to do. That's not the same as the available or free memory in your hard drive. The first is the operating memory while the second is the storage capacity. Think of it as money in your wallet to get you through the day versus money stored away in a savings account (all three dollars of it).
I'd also strongly suggest that you get some type of Anti-Virus Program and a Firewall. Norton and McAfee are two of the biggest providers, but there are others.
I subscribe to McAfee's On-Line Clinic. So for $20 a year, every time I go online, my computer connects with the McAfee site and empoys its Anti-Virus software to guard my computer. It's constantly updated (something not possible with a program you buy at the computer store) and can also check my computer for viruses that have wiggled into it (hasn't happened since I signed up but there was one there the day I signed up and downloaded the software). http://www.mcafee.com
Lastly, I assume you have, from time to time, performed routine maintenance on your computer as listed in the ALL PROGRAMS, Accessories, System Tools, Disc Defragmenter and Disc Cleanup.
Hope this helps.
Mark -
While XP is better than others (considerably, I might add), your best bet is still to do a complete reinstall of all the software on your pc.
Rationale for why this is the right way to go:
1. Registry cleanup - deleting software from your PC does not, despite anything they would have you believe, erase all traces of it. In reality, most uninstalled software leaves it trace in the Registry, and generally also leaves behind an empty directory as well.
2. Windows Cleanup - again, like the Registry, most software does not clean up after itself. One of the biggest problems with any of the Windows family continue to be the "Windows" or "Shared files" directories. Unlike Apple pc's/software which install all of their software in their own directories (thus allowing each program to use a different version of the same program), Windows uses a shared directory. This has 2 issues: 1) most software does not delete programs/files it put in the shared folder (since it isn't positive another program isn't using it!) and 2) every program must use the same version of a file (just like Windows, most drivers get updated periodically) meaning that all of your software must be written to use the same version of files.
Simply put, Windows does a lousy job of cleaning up after itself. This has been the case for several generations now (in fact, Microsoft itself used to recommend that all pc's using their op systems be competely formatted and reloaded every 6-12 months!!!!).
In any case, if removing the offending printer and drivers, and potentially anything you have installed since before you noticed the problem, doesn't solve the problem, your best bet is a fresh reload.
The steps to do this are fairly simple (more complicated in implementation but don't panic!):
1. Per the advice advice above, save off all of your personal files. At minimum, this includes EVERYTHING in the "My Documents" folder, and anything in other directories you may have saved. Don't forget your Outlook files (anything ending in .pst)!!!!
2. Reformat your hard drive. Simply right-click the drive in Windows Explorer and then select "Format". Preferably you want to use "NTFS".
3. After the above is completed you will want to reinstall Windows, then your programs, and then the personal files from above.
It really isn't that hard - the only trick is to make sure you have a "boot disk" to make sure that once you reformat you have a way to start your computer up to begin step 3. A quick search of the online help in XP should tell you exactly what to do...
Doug
Add a few other things
1) check memory performance; Right click "my computer", select properties, click performance tab, you will see the amount of ram you should have and they should match what you really have. look to see what percentage of ram you have available.
2) hit control+alt+delete, select the tab to see what and how many programs you have open. (I can't remember the name of the tab off hand-I'm still using 98 on this machine and my win2kpro is not turned on) Too many programs open will slow every thing down.
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