PC Running Like Complete Crap

# 1 24-02-2012 , 06:20 PM

Acid44

Guest

Posts: n/a

No idea what's been happening to this thing, but over the last 2-3 months my PC has completely deteriorated, now it's at the point where it's unusable.

Anything I do causes the whole system to lock up, even clicking outside this text box and back in to it takes about a minute and a half. Startup times have gone to complete shit, it used to start up in just under 2 minutes, and I just had to wait about 40 minutes to get to the log in screen, and another 10 for my desktop to load.

Because my PC is a fairly outdated, quite cheap build, I try my best to take proper care of it, clean it as soon as I notice dust building up on the fans, virus/spyware scans every second day or so, scheduled defragging, weekly(ish) registry cleaning and general clean-ups, but I just can't figure out what's wrong with it now. Don't know if it's a hardware problem or what, but it's driving me insane

EDIT: Should probably also mention, it's been a pretty slow build up to being this sluggish, but the last week it's just been getting slower and slower at an alarming rate. Don't know if that will help diagnose anything

Specs:
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Intel E5200 @ 2.8Ghz
4Gb DDR2@800Mhz
EVGA GTS 250 1Gb
500Gb WD Caviar blue OS drive/160Gb Caviar blue backup drive

TL;DR: My computer is fine, but is running like shit for no apparent reason, suggestions?

Quote

# 2 24-02-2012 , 06:44 PM

Lifetime Member
Join Date: May 2011

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Posts: 525

Have a look in Event Viewer. Any hardware related problems will be logged under System. Windows are pretty good at logging errors.
Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer.
Not to be an alarmist but make backups while you can.

Quote

# 3 24-02-2012 , 06:53 PM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

My 9 year old PC has been running with no problems partly due to this program: https://www.iolo.com/system-mechanic/.../download.aspx

Give it a try.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Quote

# 4 24-02-2012 , 08:19 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 139

I recommend running HijackThis (https://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/) to see what processes you have running, and then google them one by one, if you don't know what they do. That Ctrl+Alt+Del method does't show all the processes.

Edit: I assume you still have enough free space on you HDD? In my experience defragging and registry clean up sometimes don't do what they're supposed to.. and mess up the system.

Also try CCleaner..

Last edited by nov2011; 24-02-2012 at 08:24 PM.

Quote

# 5 24-02-2012 , 09:13 PM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

I recommend running HijackThis (https://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/) to see what processes you have running, and then google them one by one, if you don't know what they do.

Originally Posted by nov2011

I would advise against this. HijackThis is dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. There is also a lot of incorrect information out there on what certain programs do, as programs can have the same executable name. This is often a last resort if you think you have some kind of undetectable malware or rootkit on your machine.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Quote

# 6 24-02-2012 , 09:45 PM

Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

yep good suggestions all around. also look at the os drive and make sure it is not getting more then 90% full. Your pagefile (swapfile in unix lingo) is on the c drive by default.

hijackthis is good, also malwarebytes (which has a free version) to verify you don't have viruses

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Quote

# 7 24-02-2012 , 10:49 PM

Acid44

Guest

Posts: n/a

Running Malwarebytes right now, 3.5 hours in and only at the C:/Program Files/Autodesk directory so far. Gonna take years D:

C drive still has 123Gb free space, so about 25%ish

Once Malwarebytes is finished, some time in autumn, I'll check out System Mechanic/check the event log.

EDIT: Just checked out System Mechanic's web page, seems like the exact same thing as Tune-Up Utilities which I already have, but haven't run since switching to Win7, so I'll run that and see if anything comes of it

Oh, and I use CCleaner for my usual maintenance

I just don't get how a computer which is well taken care of goes to crap over a long period like this has. Driving me nuts not being able to do anything

'Nother edit: Malware finished with no infections found, Spybot found nothing, and no idea why but it's running almost normally now (bit sluggish, but not nearly as bad as it was before)

Last edited by Acid44; 24-02-2012 at 11:31 PM.

Quote

# 8 25-02-2012 , 12:59 AM

19 year Veteran
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: U.S.A.

Posts: 2,140

Try AVG. I use the free edition, and it has proven to find stuff that spybot and malwarebytes miss, also try Ad-aware.

Quote

# 9 25-02-2012 , 01:26 AM

Acid44

Guest

Posts: n/a

Have AVG Free, ran it yesterday or the day before, also clean. Will check out Ad-Aware shortly

Quote

# 10 25-02-2012 , 03:58 AM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

Ugh... I have AVG on my virtual machine, and another laptop, and it's amazing how much it slows it down. I regularly catch it at 100% cpu usage. Actually, about 10 seconds ago I caught it at 100% for a minute an a half, which stopped all execution. Even the opening of a window. I really like ESET nod32. It's by far the lightest on system resources.

If you're 100% convinced on sticking with AVG, and can't afford the $19 (at Futureshop) for Bitdefender (3 year subscription for 3 pcs) or nod32 (1 year subscription, 1 pc), then make sure you turn off it's active scanning. Do a full scan every few days instead. This SHOULD increase the performance of your pc.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Last edited by NextDesign; 25-02-2012 at 04:02 AM.

Quote

# 11 25-02-2012 , 04:11 AM

Acid44

Guest

Posts: n/a

I've never had a problem with AVG taking up resources, in fact, even with the slow downs I'm having now, I'm hard-pressed to find the CPU over 10% use in normal situations (browsing, opening explorer windows, etc.)

Too tired to be bothered at the moment, but in the morning I'll try turning off the active scanning and see if it helps

Quote

# 12 25-02-2012 , 04:16 AM

Technical Director
Join Date: Feb 2004

Posts: 2,988

Try downloading process explorer. It's a much better task manager than the default. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896653 Take a look at your memory, as well as your I/O when it starts to slow down. That might let you know what's taking up so much time.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Quote

# 13 25-02-2012 , 03:46 PM

19 year Veteran
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: U.S.A.

Posts: 2,140

Ugh... I have AVG on my virtual machine, and another laptop, and it's amazing how much it slows it down. I regularly catch it at 100% cpu usage. Actually, about 10 seconds ago I caught it at 100% for a minute an a half, which stopped all execution. Even the opening of a window. I really like ESET nod32. It's by far the lightest on system resources.

If you're 100% convinced on sticking with AVG, and can't afford the $19 (at Futureshop) for Bitdefender (3 year subscription for 3 pcs) or nod32 (1 year subscription, 1 pc), then make sure you turn off it's active scanning. Do a full scan every few days instead. This SHOULD increase the performance of your pc.

Originally Posted by NextDesign

Never had any problems with AVG on my machine. I have spybot, ad aware, and AVG running in the background, and my PCU tops out at 30% for maybe about a sec, but I'm running a quad core AMD with 8 gig's of ram. Maybe upgrading your PCU would fix that.

I've never had a problem with AVG taking up resources, in fact, even with the slow downs I'm having now, I'm hard-pressed to find the CPU over 10% use in normal situations (browsing, opening explorer windows, etc.)

Originally Posted by Acid44

Acid44, I'm thinking now that you have a hardware problem, and it sounds like maybe it's with your RAM. You say your PC is outdated and just recently it's been really sluggish. It could be that some board sockets for your ram sticks are going bad, or one of your RAM sticks are going bad. If it's the sockets then you might have to replace your main board, if it's just one of your sticks of RAM try replacing one to see if that helps. I doubt it's a ventilation or fan problem. If it was, your system would freeze up alot or even shut down.

Of course this is all just speculation as it could be a totally different problem all together.

Last edited by THX1138; 25-02-2012 at 03:49 PM.

Quote

# 14 25-02-2012 , 04:12 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 139

Acid44, I'm thinking now that you have a hardware problem, and it sounds like maybe it's with your RAM.

Originally Posted by THX1138

That's what I thought too at first, but he mentioned that it was building up slowly to become this sluggish. If it was RAM it would just happen suddenly, no?

I still recommend running Hijackthis - as Nextdesign mentioned it might be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing - but you can just run it to do system scan and post the log in here; or maybe better to some pc tech forum; in 99% of cases when you ask for help they will want to see that log file.

System scan doesn't change any files - it just tells you what's running on your PC. The only way to damage your system is if you randomly check some of the processes and click 'fix checked' without knowing what you're doing.

Last edited by nov2011; 25-02-2012 at 04:15 PM.

Quote

# 15 25-02-2012 , 05:21 PM

19 year Veteran
Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: U.S.A.

Posts: 2,140

That's what I thought too at first, but he mentioned that it was building up slowly to become this sluggish. If it was RAM it would just happen suddenly, no?

Originally Posted by nov2011

Not necessarily. I have heard of ram problems that happen over a period of time. I have heard of issues where ones PC will be running fine at start up then later on it slows down pretty good. It was determined that it was the ram in that instance. If you read a couple of posts back by Acid, he mentioned that his PC sped up after a scan that showed nothing. That really sounds like a hardware problem, but anyway, your guess is as good as mine. It could be something totally different.

Quote

PC Running Like Complete Crap

Posting Rules Forum Rules

Similar Threads

Topics

Free Courses

Full Courses

VFX News