computer running slow

[soaring_eagle]

my computer (running windows 98) is running really slowly at the moment, keeps crashing (esp. when i use big stuff like photoshop) and also keeps coming up with error messages just randomly when i'm on the internet.

Any ideas? :yep:

[Awesome Guy]

More ram is a possibility

maybe it is time for an upgrade,

what speed is the processor?

How big is the hard disk?

What are the errors you are getting?

[BlazeQ]

1) You may be maxing out your hard drive - See how much space you have left on your main HD
2) It could be a virus - Do you have a virus scanner?
3) A hacker - Do you have a firewall?
4) You could have Spyware - Download the free version of AdAware http://www.lavasoft.de and check your computer

[cmusicfan]

No, the real problem is windows 98. Windows 98 SUCKS. I had it for a while on this computer after i bought it off of ebay and it was so slow its not even funny. I got Windows 2000, and it runs seriously fast now.

I'd either stick with windows 95, or go for windows 2000.

XP bogs down your computer quite a bit, but if you're just using it for logging on the internet and listening to music it's ok.

[Art]

Originally posted by cmusicfan
No, the real problem is windows 98. Windows 98 SUCKS. I had it for a while on this computer after i bought it off of ebay and it was so slow its not even funny. I got Windows 2000, and it runs seriously fast now. Windows 98 SE is a much better OS than Windows 95. I have very little problems with my OS, and as a whole, I've had very few problems with Win 98

[BlazeQ]

Originally posted by cmusicfan
No, the real problem is windows 98. Windows 98 SUCKS. I had it for a while on this computer after i bought it off of ebay and it was so slow its not even funny. I got Windows 2000, and it runs seriously fast now.

I'd either stick with windows 95, or go for windows 2000.

XP bogs down your computer quite a bit, but if you're just using it for logging on the internet and listening to music it's ok. From what she put, it sounds like it's just running slow of late. Meaning that it was working fine before.

Windows 2000 is a better operating system, but the others certainly don't "suck".

edit: spealing currecsionz ;)

[Jay Tea]

1) I would definitely look into AdAware. Or you can basically do it yourself by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del and looking at what's running.
2) Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? That can help sometimes.
3) IIRC, Win98 does not handle memory problems very well, and it is good to turn your computer off when you go to bed to clear out the memory.

[soaring_eagle]

okay information overload!!!

Awesome Guy

More ram would prob be a good idea, but it was running fine about a week ago.

upgrade? yeah but not gunna happen

what speed is the processor - not a clue but was running fine before.

How big is the hard disk? ah something i can answer, 38.3GB, 19.2 free

What are the errors you are getting? in internet explorer

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 018f:bff87ed3.
Registers:
EAX=075001cc CS=018f EIP=bff87ed3 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=00000000 SS=0197 ESP=c4071024 EBP=00fce2f0
ECX=004afc00 DS=0197 ESI=82bf8354 FS=30af
EDX=00fce324 ES=0197 EDI=07610e90 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
55 a1 e0 9c fc bf 8b ec 83 ec 6c 53 56 57 8b 30
Stack dump:
ffecbad7 c4071054 c4071038 0000000e 00000007 c0000005 00000000 00000000 bff87ed3 00000002 00000001 c407112c 0001001f 00000000 00000000 00000000

most of the time, but usually (not ie) it just crashes no warning.


BlazeQ

) It could be a virus - Do you have a virus scanner? nope working on my dad on that one
3) A hacker - Do you have a firewall? - ditto
4) You could have Spyware - Download the free version of AdAware http://www.lavasoft.de and check your computer - i'll be doing that asap thanx


Jay Tea

1) I would definitely look into AdAware. Or you can basically do it yourself by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del and looking at what's running. - okay only "save" possibly. a screen dump below
2) Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? That can help sometimes. - good plan and no i've not
3) IIRC, Win98 does not handle memory problems very well, and it is good to turn your computer off when you go to bed to clear out the memory. - i do that already thanx

thanx for all the help guys i'll try those ideas out. :yep:

[jbm222]

To keep your HD at optimal performance, it's a good idea to run defrag at least once every two weeks. I use task scheduler to do this automatically when I'm asleep. But what you should probably do is download a more recent version of defrag. I think the windowsME will work on 98.

About firewalls and antivirus... If you have a cable connection, you have with out a doubt been hacked before. Your computer is online constantly and it's just insane not to have a firewall & antivirus. If you're on dialup, you might be safe from hackers because you're not online as often, and you have a different IP address every time you connect. But you should still have an antivirus program. Check out Norton Antivirus (by Symantec) and ZoneAlarm firewall. Both offer free versions that are more than adequate for most casual users. If you do extensive banking dealing with large sums of money or run a home office, you might want to upgrade to the paid versions, but otherwise you should be okay.

And more RAM can never hurt. If you wait for Best Buy to run a sale, you could pick up an extra 128MB for 20$. I'd recomend having at least 256MB.

[Hickeroar]

www.lavasoftusa.com download ad-aware 6 and scan your HD. chences are you'll find about 200+ things to get rid of...

[Young Twig]

Yeah, my friend had like 700 spyware files on his computer... :lol: Kazaa, WeatherBug... :nope:

[soaring_eagle]

okay great, more stuff for me to try! thanx guys!

[Ryan]

You might consider formatting and reinstalling windows.

[soaring_eagle]

Originally posted by jbm222
To keep your HD at optimal performance, it's a good idea to run defrag at least once every two weeks. I use task scheduler to do this automatically when I'm asleep. But what you should probably do is download a more recent version of defrag. I think the windowsME will work on 98.

About firewalls and antivirus... If you have a cable connection, you have with out a doubt been hacked before. Your computer is online constantly and it's just insane not to have a firewall & antivirus. If you're on dialup, you might be safe from hackers because you're not online as often, and you have a different IP address every time you connect. But you should still have an antivirus program. Check out Norton Antivirus (by Symantec) and ZoneAlarm firewall. Both offer free versions that are more than adequate for most casual users. If you do extensive banking dealing with large sums of money or run a home office, you might want to upgrade to the paid versions, but otherwise you should be okay.

And more RAM can never hurt. If you wait for Best Buy to run a sale, you could pick up an extra 128MB for 20$. I'd recomend having at least 256MB.

where is the best place to get a better version of defrag? I've just done one today and it doesn't appear to be too much faster.

I'm on dialup so it's not too much of a problem, where did you get the free firewall and antivirus, i can only find a copy that works for 15 days.

Aside from this i removed over 400 files when i used that ad-aware 6 thing, that is great.

Is it really a good idea to format and reinstall windows, i'm okay with computers but i'm not brilliant, surely that could do more harm than good?

Thanx for the help! :)

[BlazeQ]

I think there's just a trial version for Symantec. Or he may have been talking about the free online scan: http://security.symantec.com/ssc/home.asp?j=1&langid=ie&venid=sym&plfid=10&pkj=RMUOIVFWMFKPXKBQWNQ

Here's a free virus scanner program: http://www.grisoft.com/
I'm not sure how good it is, but it appears ito be the best free scanner.

Free firewall is here: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

[Jay Tea]

Well, yes, you could do a lot of harm if you reformat your drive. However, it looks like it may be a good solution. When I look at that error message, it makes me think that the problem is with Windows. "EXPLORER" usually refers to Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer shows up as IEXPLORE. Kernel32.dll is an integral part of Windows.

[Awesome Guy]

Originally posted by soaring_eagle


More ram would prob be a good idea, but it was running fine about a week ago.

upgrade? yeah but not gunna happen

what speed is the processor - not a clue but was running fine before.

How big is the hard disk? ah something i can answer, 38.3GB, 19.2 free

What are the errors you are getting? in internet explorer

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 018f:bff87ed3.
Registers:
EAX=075001cc CS=018f EIP=bff87ed3 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=00000000 SS=0197 ESP=c4071024 EBP=00fce2f0
ECX=004afc00 DS=0197 ESI=82bf8354 FS=30af
EDX=00fce324 ES=0197 EDI=07610e90 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
55 a1 e0 9c fc bf 8b ec 83 ec 6c 53 56 57 8b 30
Stack dump:
ffecbad7 c4071054 c4071038 0000000e 00000007 c0000005 00000000 00000000 bff87ed3 00000002 00000001 c407112c 0001001f 00000000 00000000 00000000

most of the time, but usually (not ie) it just crashes no warning.



Ok, so you are having memory dump errors, and the Kernel is causing another error.

Your system seems fine,

can you re-install your OS, and other software? That sometimes fixes that. These kind of errors I have found are usually caused by single files in the OS being corrupted by other programs.

If you don't want to re-install the OS, DO a proper uninstall of the last program you installed, and then re-install that, but first see if there is a patch for that and install that too.

Originally posted by cmusicfan
I'd either stick with windows 95, or go for windows 2000

XP bogs down your computer quite a bit, but if you're just using it for logging on the internet and listening to music it's ok.

XP only bogs down becuase it doesn't like java, and/or dynamic HTML

known fact: I recently bought a laptop with:

P4 1.6 GHz processor
512MB DDR Ram
ATI radeon 7500M video
and all the other gadgets I wanted.

the only time it ever crashed, was when I was trying to prview a website that I had to make for my web design class that had DHTML in it. The not liking java bit can be fixed easily by downloading the virtual java machine from from sun microsystems.

I have yet to figure out how to get DHTML to work.

as for OS's Windows 95 is a crappy OS, but was needed because it was a huge improvement from windows 3.1 or 3.11 for workgroups.

heres a little fact to get good operating systems, buy every other one

Win 95 bad
Win NT good

Win 95B bad
Nt4 good

98 bad
98se good

ME bad
2000 good

XP home bad
XP Pro good

[BlazeQ]

hey hey now Awesome Guy, I didn't post what was quoted above! :p

[Awesome Guy]

Sorry BlazeQ

My appologies

I have fixed it,

I meant to quote cmusicfan

[Awesome Guy]

Originally posted by Awesome Guy

Win 95 bad
Win NT good

Win 95B bad
Nt4 good

98 bad
98se good

ME bad
2000 good

XP home bad
XP Pro good

I think I should clear something up...

NT, and NT 4 dont like running games.
2000 doesn't like some games.

XP pro Loves games

The downside to all the above is, gamers had to buy the crappier OS so they could run their games.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, what Microsoft did that is even more retarted.......


Back in the day of windows 3.1, and 3.11 for workgroups, windows was a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for a small text based operating system called DOS. When windows '95 cam out this all changed. Instead of windows running over top of dos, DOS now runs inside of windows. This makes DOS less stable (how many times do you find yourself using the command prompt, and get an error like "this application cannot be closed", and then you click "OK", and it closes)

Either way, I will never be able to fix it, for I am not a programmer

[BlazeQ]

Originally posted by Awesome Guy
Sorry BlazeQ

My appologies

I have fixed it,

I meant to quote cmusicfan No problem, I was just feigning offense ;)

[soaring_eagle]

Originally posted by Awesome Guy
Ok, so you are having memory dump errors, and the Kernel is causing another error.

Your system seems fine,

can you re-install your OS, and other software? That sometimes fixes that. These kind of errors I have found are usually caused by single files in the OS being corrupted by other programs.


does re-installing my os mean that i'll loose all my stuff on my computer?

[Awesome Guy]

Originally posted by soaring_eagle
does re-installing my os mean that i'll loose all my stuff on my computer?


If you have important files, you WILL want to back them up with CD, or Tape, or disk

anything that isn't backed up will be lost

[soaring_eagle]

okay. so if i wanna save all my stuff so that it's just the same as it is now, can i use a cd?

[meenaghk]

if youre getting EXPLORER caused an error in xxx, you'll need to reinstall windows. you may get a workaround in the meantime, but it wont last - you will eventually need to reinstall windows. just make sure you back up any important info first of all....
ive been working in technical support for pc's for the last 2+1/2 years so thats a common error message. explorer is one of the main components of windows itself, and if it becomes corrupted, the only way to fix it is to reinstall windows.
yeah you can back up your info to a cd if you have a cdrw. its straightforward if youve got nero or easy cd creator or something. failing that you can just use floppy disks if the files arent too large.
gis a shout if you need a hand. :yep:

[SenorPapaCabasa]

sorry, to hijack this thread... but what is the best way to find out what kind of memory i need (pc133, etc)... i have a dell dimension 4300

[Awesome Guy]

sorry, to hijack this thread... but what is the best way to find out what kind of memory i need (pc133, etc)... i have a dell dimension 4300


How old is it?

what is the processor?

[SenorPapaCabasa]

its not quite 2 years old..... it has a pentium 4, 1.4 ghz

if i open the shell, is the memory stamped with what kind it is??

[BillSPrestonEsq]

windows xp works great...

[GMartin2R]

its not quite 2 years old..... it has a pentium 4, 1.4 ghz

if i open the shell, is the memory stamped with what kind it is??

yeah it should be labled. at that age i'm rpetty sure it would be pc 133... that's the standard stuff for most comps a couple years old and older to a point. i think the ddr was just coming out of development then or maybe it was still in development but whatever the case i'm fairly sure its' not ddr and the only other alternative that woudl make any sense it pc133.

[Awesome Guy]

yeah it should be labled. at that age i'm rpetty sure it would be pc 133... that's the standard stuff for most comps a couple years old and older to a point. i think the ddr was just coming out of development then or maybe it was still in development but whatever the case i'm fairly sure its' not ddr and the only other alternative that woudl make any sense it pc133.


I am inclined to agree that the memory is most likely PC133,

however there is a slim chance that it could be DDR because there was a guy in my program during 1st year college which was 2001-2002 year that built a computer around december 2001 with DDR memory.

Im gonna lean towards PC133 because at that time DDR memory was rediculously expensive.

[soaring_eagle]

if youre getting EXPLORER caused an error in xxx, you'll need to reinstall windows. you may get a workaround in the meantime, but it wont last - you will eventually need to reinstall windows. just make sure you back up any important info first of all....
ive been working in technical support for pc's for the last 2+1/2 years so thats a common error message. explorer is one of the main components of windows itself, and if it becomes corrupted, the only way to fix it is to reinstall windows.
yeah you can back up your info to a cd if you have a cdrw. its straightforward if youve got nero or easy cd creator or something. failing that you can just use floppy disks if the files arent too large.
gis a shout if you need a hand. :yep:

okay i've got a CDRW and a cdwr cd (at last lol ...) what's the best way to backup everything on the computer??? When i'm looking for the cds to reinstall with what exactly am i looking for???

[Awesome Guy]

okay i've got a CDRW and a cdwr cd (at last lol ...) what's the best way to backup everything on the computer??? When i'm looking for the cds to reinstall with what exactly am i looking for???


the CDRW software should have a backup option in it. if it doesn't, just burn a data cd of the files you want.

like setup programs

documents

and so on and so forth.

[soaring_eagle]

the CDRW software should have a backup option in it. if it doesn't, just burn a data cd of the files you want.

like setup programs

documents

and so on and so forth.

so if i just copy the whole of the C drive will that work?

[Awesome Guy]

so if i just copy the whole of the C drive will that work?

probably not, a cd only holds 650 - 700 MB MegaBytes

your C:\ Drive is probably in GB GigaBytes.

1000 MB = 1 GB

[BillSPrestonEsq]

that bugs


1024 mb = 1 GB

[Awesome Guy]

that bugs


1024 mb = 1 GB


its easier to explain as 1000 MB 1 GB

i know the difference, I am a computer engineer

[GMartin2R]

so if i just copy the whole of the C drive will that work?

even if that was possible that woudl take a ton of time and coudl possibly copy the corrupt fiels you are trying to replace too... what may work better is to go through and find which folder you wantr to back up. im thinking if you've got programs you want to backup just copy the application folder to the cd, given it's small enough. some apps will be larger than that. the main things i want backed up are my documents then if i've d\l music then that adn anything i've downlaoded. i dotn backup the windows folder or very many of my program files as i can reinstall them fairly easily adn all it takes is time.

[soaring_eagle]

okay so just the my docs folder would be okay then?

[BillSPrestonEsq]

its easier to explain as 1000 MB 1 GB

i know the difference, I am a computer engineer


I figured you did, it just bugs the heck out of me though.

and soaring eagle, if that is where you save all your files. (stuff you do, and downloads, and such) then that should be sufficient. Make sure you have all the program disks for your programs though.

Gmartin 99% of programs will not work if you copy their folder. You need to install it again so that registry entries and such get copied in so the programs actually work.

[GMartin2R]

oh ok... i've only copied a few programs to cd and back to the hd adn the have worked. albeit slower but they worked...

[soaring_eagle]

okay, so a sensible thing to do would be to check that i have all the programs and computer type stuff disks and cds, then burn all my docs onto a cd. aside from that is there anything else (at all) that i need to do to ensure that my computer is still going to run afterwards?

[GMartin2R]

umm your computer shoudl run when you reformat unless you have to reinstall the os, but what's important to back up are files that you created that you dont wnat to lose. aka documents, any project files that may be used again, pics that you only have there, maybe saved game files if you're so inclined, etc...
but yeha if you ahve all your programs available on cd for your hardware if there was anythign added hardware wise and backup all your other important files i think that woudl be all that you;d need. pretty much all that i can think of right now...

[meenaghk]

okay, so a sensible thing to do would be to check that i have all the programs and computer type stuff disks and cds, then burn all my docs onto a cd. aside from that is there anything else (at all) that i need to do to ensure that my computer is still going to run afterwards?

yeah i think youve covered just about everything there.
if youve got the windows cd or recovery cd, you can get windows installed and your basic pc will be up and running.
you probably have a drivers disk so that will get the main drivers back on again so the pc looks and acts more normal (mainboard, display, modem, sound)
after all thats on, you can install whatever other software you want back on the pc again. anti-virus, isp, office, printers, etc etc etc and just copy your personal files back onto the hard drive