Computer Running Incredibly Slow

Redisle

Okay so as the title says my computer has suddenly started running inredibly slow... its fine for maybe 30mins when it comes on and then it just starts freezing, reallly slow accessing data, everything stalls.. its a very strange problem. I thought maybe it was a hardware problem so i booted hirens boot cd and first ran memtest.. took 24mins for one pass! (is that normal?) but had no erros. I also ran tests on cpu,hard drives, and again on memory but no problems appeared. Basically im thinkinig its windows but i only reinstalled 2 or 3 weeks ago.. Its as if windows is having a hard time accessing the harddrive.. also the access sounds of my first hd have got far louder than they used to.. i have checked the drive with a special harddrive diagnostics software and everything seems okay... im pretty much about to reinstall windows again but just thought id ask to see if anyone had any ideas before?
I have cleaned all temp files,registry, there isnt that much stuff installed,

Also i have been having other problems with windows recently fear:extraction point just suddenly stopped working.. even after reinstalling it three times it wont run when the normal fear will.. when i launch it the screen flickers twice then the usual crap we are sorry encountered an error.... etc.. a google of the error did not help.. and dont say my system isnt good enough for the game, it ran perfectly before.Also it is not an overheating problem, i have speedfan running and the highest temp is one of the hd's @ 34degrees, everything else is in the 20's.
So ya does anyone have any ideas why my comp is running so slow before i go reinstall windows?

Specs:
Amd athlon64 3700+ skt 939 @Stock, AC Alpine 64
2x512mb corsair pc3200
250gb & 320gb wd cavier sata II
Sapphire Radeon x800 gto fireblade @stock of 400,500, up to 407,570 when gaming,Zalman vf700cu,
Epox 9npa ultra

Thanks Guys!

ethernet

You've checked the most common causes of this problem.

Have you installed any software lately since the reinstall? Have a look at what's booting with your PC. Run 'msconfig' and look at boot. If you're uncertain of what something is in there, Google it.

Failing that, I'd chance saying your HDD is failing. Classic symptoms showing in your case. Back up soon!

sdanseo

You're lucky, you have two HDDs. Back up what you really need so that you have one copy on each HDD (presuming you have the space), and test the PC with one HDD at a time to see which one is giving trouble

If you don't have the space, try this even so, but beware that a crash on the wrong one will leave you without a bckup. Wouldn't thiunk the chances of a crash would be increased too much, the only abnormal thing would be the few reboots.

Redisle

Okay guys thanks for the replies... i figure my 250gb must be giving trouble because thats where windows was installed and now i have installed windows onto a new 80gb partition on the 320gig drive and its fine so far..Ill just continue like this and use the 250gb minimally or for stuff that wouldnt be too bad to lose.. now like i always tell myself after i reinstall windows i must go install all the things i need then make an image of the hd.. this is like my 4th reinstall since i got the computer and i still havent got around to it maybe i will this time.. just maybe.

beolight

what (or how) exactly do you have to do before

Redisle

beolight wrote:

what (or how) exactly do you have to do before

Im not exactly sure what you are asking...what i have just done is reinstalled windows onto a fresh partition and downloaded all the xp updates and installed antivirus. Then i booted from hirens boot cd and loaded up acronis disk director and made an image of my new xp installation.. what this allows me to do is that next time i need to reinstall windows i can just restore this image and i am back to having a fresh install of xp with updates..


As for whether i have chose the right harddrive or not i am beginning to have my doubts.. i am still getting a relatively loud accessing noise from one of the harddrives and i am afraid it may be from the new 320gb one i have just installed windows one.. the reason it think this is that i just copied some data from one partition to another on the 250gb drive and no loud loading noise . I am really screwed if the 320gb fails cause i have all my data on there now... hopefully everything will be okay anyway but just in case i am putting as much of the stuff as i can onto both harddrives including a copy of that disk image on both so if a harddrive does fail it wont take me too long to get up and running...
It is strange that this new wd cavier se16 is displaying bad signs.. loud accessing noises etc.. this drive is only 3 months old if not less..

ethernet

Silly question, but is your PC tower slightly uneven? May explain the extra noise. Then again, following Google's recent publication on hard drives, it's more likely to fail in its infancy than later.

Redisle

I think it is pretty straight.. althogh not always.. the base it is on is just wide enough for the legs so if i pull it out to access cables etc it would be tilted slightly.. at the moment its okay though.. it is very strange that one drive is louder than the other now though.. the noise seems to have died down a bit now for some reason.. i was thinking of moving the two hd's to 5.25inch bays with some of them noise dampening mounters but then they would have to airflow over them.. at the moment they are sitting right in front of a 120mm fan so they run nice and cool..
I think i will stick with it anyway and if the loading noise gets bad again i will put windows back on the 250gb,put loads of data on the 320gb then unplug it inside the case.. it would be very unlikely to fail when not in use..

that will be a last resort though.. hopefully it has sorted itself out now,i have all my data on the two hd's anyway just in case anything happens but meh.

Just had a quick read off that google study too.. interesting stuff..

hopefully eventually we will all be using ssd flash drives and we wont have to worry about stupid mechanical failures.. until then its all backup backup backup

Michael G

I have just discovered the virtues of Norton Ghost, which I bought a few months ago on my brother's recommendation. It cost about €60 (best price from Amazon but when I quoted the Amazon price in a Dublin shop they agreed to match it).

Norton Ghost lets you back up your system to a second hard drive. Two days ago I installed software that conflicted with what was there already and made the computer hang after opening Windows (XP, SP2). After one failed attempt, I was able to boot from the Ghost CD and restore my system to a backup I had made a couple of days earlier. All problems solved.

Redisle

Ya hirens boot cd included norton ghost but it would not work for some reason so i used acronis disk director instead.. does the exact same thing

Webmonkey

If all fails and something that occurs a lot on mine is that the Transfer Mode of the IDE channels change from DMA (Direct Memory Access) to PIO (Polling Input/Output) and this makes the PC Crawl, even though it seems there is no stress on it.
Just an idea.

Michael G

Webmonkey wrote:

If all fails and something that occurs a lot on mine is that the Transfer Mode of the IDE channels change from DMA (Direct Memory Access) to PIO (Polling Input/Output) and this makes the PC Crawl, even though it seems there is no stress on it.
Just an idea.

How do you change it back?

Michael G

ab_cork wrote:

Ya hirens boot cd included norton ghost but it would not work for some reason so i used acronis disk director instead.. does the exact same thing

The first time I tried to use Ghost, my machine hung. The second time, it worked.

Webmonkey

What I do, is go into device manager (Control Panel -> System, Hardware Tab -> Device Manager) and Open the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and remove the Primary and Secondary IDE Controllers and restart computer. They will reinstall on next boot and with abit of luck sort themselves out.