multiple problems?

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hello one and all!

got a few questions to ask, as usual. is it possible to fry (overheat) a processor? our ‘puter (hereafter known as the beast) lives in an armoire. usually, when we shut it down, we either listen to make sure that it does shut down, or leave the door open if it doesn’t (which happens on occasion) so that the temperature doesn’t get too hot and overheat anything. a few weeks ago, i neglected both precautions and left the house for a few hours. i came home, to find the beast still running and the temperature on the external case thermometer read just a nudge below 101 degrees. i immediately shut the beast down, turned on all the overhead house fans and left both armoire doors wide open. it cooled down very rapidly.

at about the same time, and i don’t exactly remember whether it was before this happened, or just after, or at the same time, my husband and i noticed that the beast started running slower and slower. we used to be able to log on to the ‘net, and open as many windows as we wanted, with no problem whatsoever. now, it takes almost three minutes just to open the home page, and the maximum windows that we can open is two. that requires opening one, then the other, and the waiting. then, one can attempt to do something in one window, then switch to the other one, click on what one wants to do there, then sit and wait.

in june, i had cause to reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the software, because we got slammed with a whole bunch of virii in a very short period, and this seemed the only way around it; i did so on the recommendation of a friend who had been helping me. i also installed mcafee virus scan, personal firewall plus, and webroot spy sweeper. i have used norton in the past, but he suggested that i switch this time, as he doesn’t like norton, and doesn’t understand it when i have problems concerning it. the beast performed fine for about a month or so, then it started slowing down.

i went to the western digital site this afternoon and downloaded, installed, and ran, diagnostic software for the hard drive; it told me that the hard drive was fine. anyway, the gist of all this is this: i do not know why the beast had slowed down, and don’t know what to do about it, either. we are both ready to shoot it.

we are running windows 2000 professional, with office 2000 pro. i have already told you about the anti-virus stuff. the beast has a 2.53gHz intel processor, an asus P4P800S motherboard, 512mb of RAM, a WD 80 gb hard drive (WD-800BB), an audigy 2 sound card, an nvidia geforce4 mx440 with agp8x video card, verizon dsl software and modem, a regular faxmodem, an ibm monitor, and the usual keyboard, mouse, scanner, and printer, with appropriate software.

if you need any more info, please let me know. does anyone out there have any suggestions for us as to what to do about this? i am at a complete loss. thanks in advance for any help that you can send our way. until the next time take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Hello again, ladyleadfoot,

That’s quite a tale you relate there. One thing I can say right away is that I don’t think you have a fried CPU.
They seem to either work OK or not work at all. ( usually )

The first thing I would suggest, if you haven’t done so already is to clear out your Temporary Internet files ( tifs ) and all the temp folders. You can do that from internet options>general page.
Next I would run the malware removers, at least Adaware SE and Spybot S&D and any others you may have on hand. let us know if you don’t have them. You can download them

Make sure your virus definitions are installed and up to date. You HAVE kept them updated, haven’t you? Run the AV again.

Have you kept Windows updated with all of the hotfixes?

This is a START. Post back with some results. There are more things to do if that doesn’t work. Don’t want to hit you with too much at a time.

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hi bob!

long time no see. hope all is well. well, glad to know that it doesn’t seem to be a fried cpu. that’s a major relief.

yes, i have done so, that is, clear out all the files. i have also run the malware removers, having installed them earlier for yet another problem that i had.

yes, i have kept the virus definitions up to date, and run mcafee daily.

yes, i have kept windows updated.

all this is why i am at a loss. thanks for not overloading me too terribly much. i’m so worn out right now, between this and some other things that are running my life (yeah, you read it right!) , that i can only handle so much.

will eagerly await your next chore/suggestion. until then, take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Have you run Task Manager to see what is consuming your CPU?

Joe

--Joe

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once i find it (gotta look up where it is, if it isn’t what and where i think it is), what do i do with it? what do i look for, i guess i am asking. thanks for the suggestion. i knew there was some place that i could look to see what was using resources, but i didn’t know what it was called, or where it was, or what to do with it. i know how to use most of the programs that i install, but i don’t know much about utilities, especially the ones that come with windows. take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Well, lets see……

Does the system seem to boot up to a usable state in a reasonable amount of time?

Do you have the McAfee AV set to do a virus scan on every boot up?

Is the slow down only happening when you try to go on the net? Is it Ok before going on line?
( I’m trying to see if the slow down is system related or Internet related )

Did you see anything using Task Manager, hogging your CPU time as Joe suggested?

Try these next.

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to answer your questions, bob…

it takes a bit longer to boot than it used to, but i haven’t timed it, especially since i never did before. it’s a subjective thing, i know, but it does seem to take longer.

mcafee is set to do a scan daily at 2000. there are times when i’ll do one just for the heck of it, especially when something seems hinky. needless to say, i’ve been scanning a whole lot lately.

the slow down is more noticeable when on the ‘net. it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to almost 5 minutes to get to pages that i used to be able to get to as soon as i could type in the URL and click. once there, it takes as long as, if not longer, to navigate around the site.

with the task manager, i didn’t see anything unusual, except for when i went to http://www.neopets.com. any time i went to any page/window/screen (whatever you want to call it) on the site, the CPU usage would jump to 100% for a second or three, then drop back down to 2-4%, usual usage, i guess.

on another note: i called the person that owns the company that built the beast today, to see if they were going to be at the ‘puter show in chicopee tomorrow, so that i could take the beast in to have them look at it for me. no, but he did take the time to call me back and help me as much as he could on the phone. he had me create a new user account, just in case the one that we use is corrupted. when we tried to do that, we had to do a work around, as i couldn’t add a new account from control panel/users and accounts. something had me blocked; it was all greyed out. he figured out the work around and then we created the new account, and restarted the beast. things are still as slow as they were before.

i’m at a loss here, as you may have noticed. tomorrow, i am going to buy a new hard drive, current is 80gb; i’m going for 250 or 300gb, and am considering buying winXP pro, and starting all over again. maybe win2k pro is just tired and corrupted. i was going to wipe the hard drive and reinstall it tonight, but thought better of it. no sense in doing so if i’m going to buy a new hard drive. nonetheless. i am open to any and everything that you suggest for me to try.

for your help, and, as always, it’s great to see you again. until the next time, take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Just had a thought or two.

Go to DSL speed test at SPEED and see what your actual upload and download speeds are.

Also try PCPITSTOP and run the full system test from there to see what they might suggest. You will have to register and DL a small file to do the tests but they are fairly comprehensive and will point out any bottlenecks they may find and how to correct them.

Another note. If you really are going to get a new HD and or system, DON’T format the existing one. Save it and connect it as a slave drive. You may be able to save some important files or data to use on the new HD.

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okey dokey. went to the speed test. what i read was this: 1280kbits 160kbytes. from what i remember, my download is supposed to be 768k, and upload should be 384k.

went to pcpitstop, and here is what the results told me:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date Tested: Sat Sep 16 16:36:56 EDT 2006

This system performs well on our benchmarks, and should have plenty of power for most applications. You may be able to add a few system upgrades or tweak some Windows settings to improve performance. Regular system maintenance is also important to keep your system running in top condition.

Configuration Summary: Our analysis was based on the data collected from this computer. A summary of the data collected is shown below. Click on any of the subsystem names or flags in the table below to see more information, or use the test details to see all the data on one page. For a list of programs running on your computer, including spyware, see the Windows details page. The test history page has a summary of previous tests for this configuration. See how your system compares to others we’ve tested.

Subsystem Status Description
System Intel Pentium 4, 2530 MHz
Memory 512MB RAM
Disk Drive C
Video MSI MS-StarForce GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X)
Internet MSIE 6.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727
Windows Windows 2000 Pro SP4
Security
Compare

Internet Configuration
Description Your Results
Bandwidth Down 1380 Kbits/sec
Bandwidth Up 22 Kbits/sec
Average Ping 58 ms
Ping Loss 0%
TCP Receive Window (default)
External IP Address 151.203.160.234
Internal IP Address 169.254.26.128
Browser MSIE 6.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727
IE current cache 465 MB
IE max cache 100 MB

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there were yellow flags for the hard drive (defrag) and cache overflow and a red flag for security issues. i have copied their suggestions down, and will give them a shot. before you say anything, i have tried, as recently as two days ago, to defrag the hard drive, to no avail. all it did was sit there. i know what it’s supposed to look like, even if i’m not using norton any more (i miss norton!, at least the utilities. maybe i’ll treat myself to them again.), and still, the screen just sat there, and didn’t show any activity at all. i do my best to maintain the beast in tiptop shape; that’s why all this is driving me !!!!!

i’m afraid i don’t quite understand what you mean by not formatting the old drive. i have already backed up all the data that is on it. how would i connect it as a slave drive? i had thought about using it for all my programs and the larger drive strictly for data, if i were certain that it worked properly. is it possible to have one drive formatted with one operating system and the other with another?

thanks again for your help. i’m eagerly awaiting the next chapter. until then, take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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Wow, a lotta information there, lady.
Try the suggestions from Pc Pitstop and post back.

In the meantime, some light reading on how to install and configure hard drives is HERE
( with pictures ! )

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Hello there,
You can have seperate operating systems on one computer yes, when you boot up it lets you choose which one you want to use, so if you had 2 hard drives, you could have one on each, you can have more than one OS on a single HDD, but i would avoid doing that if you are unsure, just incase you confuse yourself .

I notice you have a lot of internet cache, definately clean it out first by click Start>Run> Then type in diskmgr to run the disk cleanup utility. Also ensure that the applications you are using to access your internet have been updated.

Another useful thing to do might be to Right click the My Computer under the start menu, then go to Properties, click the Hardware tab, then device manager, look in the list that appears for any items with a ? next to them, as there could be some driver conflicts or hardware problems.
Sorry if that’s not helpful, but i try…

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I’d suspect that a defrag of the hard drive will speed things up if you haven’t done one in awhile and especially if you haven’t done one since you reformatted & reinstalled everything.

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Doc,
But she said: “tried two days ago, to defrag the hard drive, to no avail. all it did was sit there”.

Seems like a couple of different problems.

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Oops !! However, I’ve seen instances where a badly fragmented drive will take quite a while to show any activity using Windows native defrag utility and take more than 12 hours to complete the operation. I won’t even waste my time with the Windows defrag utility anymore. I always use PerfectDisk. She can get a 30-day trial of Version 7 here and if she likes it, she can then buy the new Version 8 that just came out. Either way, she can defrag that drive in less time and see if that’s her problem.

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Many electronic components are sensitive to heat, and it is possible to fry not only the CPU but also memory, graphics cards, and many other components. That is why they have heatsinks and fans.

When you overheat something it sometimes causes it to fail immediately, but often it simply “weakens” the components. This usually leads to increased failure frequencies for the next year or two, and to intermittent faults.

StuartR

PS. To get to task manager just type Control-Shift-Escape, or Control-Alt-Del and choose Task Manager from the menu.

SR

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thanks for your words of wisdom, stuart. i kinda figured that things like that could happen. after all, it seems that, if it’s going to happen, i’m the one that it will happen to. sounds as though maybe i should start looking for a new beast; i’m going to the ‘puter show tomorrow to buy some ink and a new hard drive, so maybe i’ll price them, too. it’s been about three years or so since this one was built.

thanks also for telling me where to find task manager. i finally found it last night after i looked it up in the book on windows that i have. felt kinda dense when i realized what it was, and where.

have a wonderful day, and take care and God bless.

smiles-
ladyleadfoot!!!

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I hope I didn’t miss it in your posts, but I wonder if you’ve got a build up of dust inside your PC?

Being in the armoire, the air flow will be restricted, and possibly causing the dust to build up inside the PC.

For the heck of it, break out a screw driver, and look inside. If need be, unplug all the cables and cords, and carefully vacuum. A can of compressed air will help too to get the really tight spots!

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Another suggestion, get it out of that armoire. Or at least remove the back panel of it so it is open and has a lot of air flow. Also put a grill on the door so you have air flowing through the cabinet.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Why not just ask her to build a new addition on the house for it Dave ???

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I do a little wood working and most of the “Computer desk” designs have the CPU box enclosed in a side cabinet. I wish these “Designers” would get with people that use computers and or fix them, so they will learn about what heat will do to a machine.

Even the one that “Norm” (Old Yankee Workshop) built had very poor ventilation. At least he has a larger area in the back for the cables to be feed through, just needs some opening on the front.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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