Help? Crashing slow computer issue

D

dab1986

New Member
Hi there,
i'm new to the site, and am not sure if this is where this type of discussion belongs. I read through a bunch of the posts on the board and everyone seams so helpful :) but there wasn't an answer to my issue.
My computer lately (last month or so) has been rediculously slow at times and 4 our of 7 nights it freeze's over night while it's sleeping, and more recently it's been freezing while i've been using it.
What throws me off though, is that the computer "sounds" like it's still running, fan and all. And when i turn it off and back on, it doesn't go through the issues of the computer being improperly shut down.

I am running Windows XP Home. I have a 320GB hard drive, 2GB of ram and anything else you need to know, ask (but with instructions to find out :P)

Any input, advice information would be GREATLY apprecitated!

Also, it might be unrelated, but in the last 3 months i installed the newest version of Microsoft Office.

thanks!!

Dez
 
Um simple things first

1.Defrag Drives
2.Disk Clean up

How full is your HDD?
What do you use the computer for?
What CPU Does it have?
 
I do those things weekly (or every 2 weeks if i forget)
i also have AVG antivirus that is updated nightly and run spy bot search and destroy and ad-aware atleast once a month.
only about 1/2 of my hard drive is full (160 GB)
mostly i use the computer for internet surfing and school work. a bit of music downloading but lately it's all been for research and writing.
how do i find out what the CPU is?
i'm sorry i know a bit about computers to get my by, but i don't always understand the jargon.

thanks for the quick response :)
 
I don't think so... it never has an issue turning on and off
although.... the other day i noticed when i was rebooting the power button was stuck in...
could that be affecting it? i wouldn't think so, but you'd never know ;)
 
When going into the Start>Programs>Accesories>System Tools for the disk defragmenter tool found there that will have the analyze option to see how high the percentage of file fragmentation is. If low near 0% you can pass on that for the time being and start looking at device drivers issues like the video card drivers being corrupted with a need to remove the present ones on for a fresh update.

Often when coming out of the standby/hibernation mode when leaving a system running 24/7 the various drivers remain inactive or simply will hang a system. Another thing to start looking at however is the actual temps for the cpu and system in general if the board is equipped with a hardware monitor in the bios setup that will display what the sensors on the board are reading. The power button is a momentary switch but a stuck button doesn't help any.
 
You won't have to worry now if you haven't updated AVG in the last few days since the thread laznz1 pointed out before has been updated with additional information there. That was a temporary situation that effected XP systems where Grisoft would see that corrected fast.

The most likely problem you are seeing there has also effected other systems where display problems were seen instead of Windows simply hanging up once it comes out of standby. That's where only the basic vga drivers included in Windows would work leaving the drivers for the card still sleeping. Your option now is simply to set all power options like turn display off after 20min. to never as well as disabling the standby sleep mode until this is cleared up.
 
okay, i'm not sure if the problem is when it goes into sleep mode cause sometimes it will freeze on the home screen or the user log in screen, no screen saver or "sleep mode" option initiated.
:S
 
If you should end up seeing the dreaded blue screen of death commonly called the BSOD make sure to look at the information seen on one. Often those point out a driver problem which can also cause problem when Windows is first loading up the desktop.
 
I have never seen the "blue screen of death" in the batch of issues, but i do know what your referring to.
any other insites? :)
 
Besides something like video or sound drivers hanging you may want to look over what is seen in the startup tab found in the msconfig utility to see what would generally be loading up along with Windows. You may end disabling several if there's a good number in order to find out what program you have on is hanging instead. With certain types of applications you simply have to see a full reboot in order to have them load up correctly.
 
dab1986 said:
Hi there,
i'm new to the site, and am not sure if this is where this type of discussion belongs. I read through a bunch of the posts on the board and everyone seams so helpful :) but there wasn't an answer to my issue.
My computer lately (last month or so) has been rediculously slow at times and 4 our of 7 nights it freeze's over night while it's sleeping, and more recently it's been freezing while i've been using it.
What throws me off though, is that the computer "sounds" like it's still running, fan and all. And when i turn it off and back on, it doesn't go through the issues of the computer being improperly shut down.

I am running Windows XP Home. I have a 320GB hard drive, 2GB of ram and anything else you need to know, ask (but with instructions to find out :P)

Any input, advice information would be GREATLY apprecitated!

Also, it might be unrelated, but in the last 3 months i installed the newest version of Microsoft Office.

thanks!!

Dez
Click to expand...

How long has it been since you checked inside it for dust on the fans/heatsinks. Plus have you updated your drivers lately.
 
It sounds like the case was setup still seeing the first install of Windows and simply left running without periodic maintainance. This is why I had pointed out seeing what the level of fragmentation would be seen by using the analyzer option seen with the defragment tool included in Windows.

DUSTMARE! :eek: I recently had to look at one case that never saw "any" cleaning in almost 2yrs. time since the case had been built and literally pulled a blanket right off of the board itself. That was serious neglect and explained why the hard drive failed to see a fresh copy of Windows go on from simply being cooked! Everything inside was polluted with dust and dirt.
 
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