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Lately, everytime I have looked at slow boot up problems and slow run times, the problem turned out to be not enough RAM memory. My rule of thumb fo XP is that it a SP1 system will work ok in 512 mb, an SP2 system really needs 1mb and an SP3 system needs 2mb to run acceptably. Usually I look at these older computers and find that they were bought with 512 mb years and steadily upgraded with additional software and service packs, but the memory was never upgraded. I would look at memory first.

This is a good thread. I just wish there were some solutions here. I keep all my data on a Home Server. Often when accessing a file I see the same problem. Quickbooks and Quicken are exceedingly bad at accessing network files. I finally just copied them locally and back them up to the server. We were talking 2 minutes just to open the data file versus about 15 seconds locally. Here’s hoping some other good tips are posted.

More info. Finally stuck a new hard drive in the computer installed XP SP3. Using Notepad, I attempted to browse and open an inf file. Ths system immediately shutdown / went to standby. Now I will start swapping out hardware components to see if I can figure out where things are going wrong. This a slow process since I have too many other things going on right now and can’t devote much dedicated time. Going to run a memory test first.

Sounds like a problem with a shell extension:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm

Looked at that but it appears to focused on right clicks and this problem comes up with the standard click when in file open dialog. That is why I did a repair install hoping that Windows would replace that module, but no luck so far. This is no longer a front burner issue so will find another hard dirive, probably this weekend and install windows from scratch to make sure there is no hardware that is screwing up here.

Anybody know how to get a computer out of standby? I’ve tried the power button, the mouse and mouse buttons, various key combos, etc, but the only thing that works is to hold the power button in or turn off power at the PS on the back and then power up to a fresh boot.

Put it in Windows Explorer’s Favorites: Select the folder inside Explorer and drag it to the Favorites section at the top of the left pane. Once there, it’s always in easy reach when you’re in Explorer.

I’ve looked everywhere and cannot find a favorites section. I have libraries, homegroup, computer and network in my left pane. I do not use the library or homegroup features. Are you sure you are talking about windows explorer and not Internet explorer?

What the heck is a DVD region? That is a term I have never heard of and I have been working on computers for almost 40 years.

I have been working on this computer off and on for a number of days.
Have done a complete AV scan on the drive by removing and attaching to another computer with the latest Norton Internet Security – nothing found

Reinstalled the hard drive and installed the new MS Security Essentials complete scan nothing found

Installed and ran Malware bytes – nothing found

Ran ccleaner and cleaned the registry and temp files. no help

Perfomed a windows repair install – file open still crashes the system

No error messages in the system logs, and the computer appears to be in standby mode, but nothing brings it out of that mode. I have to power off and reboot to get the system back up. i’m starting to think it may be hardware, but then why does it only happen when trying to do a file open.

I’m also going to put a different hard drive in and install xp from scratch and a couple of programs to see if the problem still occurs. If so then it definitely is a hardware issue. In the meantime the client is very happy with her new computer.

Put in a different computer for this user today and I now have the computer here in my shop. Will look into the things that folks have replied when I bring up in the bench over the weekend. My plan is to run a repair install after I try various other things and if none of those work. I will post any results. Stay tuned.

I think only a few days. This is not my computer, I’m the outside IT guy who gets called when things break. I’ve never seen a problem like this one. I’m thinking that the only solution is a windows repair install, but not sure that will fix it. This is an accountants computer and can’t be down long, so we are going to get another computer for her to use and then have more time to work on this issue.

It is not a blue sceeen type of crash. It is a total system lockup that does not respond to anything other than holding the power button in until the system powers off. then we power back up and there is no indication in the event logs that a shutdown even occurred. In reading the system manual – Dell Dimension 3000 a flashing power light indicates that the computer is in system standby and that clicking the mouse, pressing a key on the keyboard, etc, will wake it up. However, nothing that has been tried and that is a lot of stuff works except to hold the power button in.

The problem to me seems to be in the common file open dialog code. It especially seems to be a problem when there are more files than can be seen in a single window, but requires scrolling to get to a file farther down the list. The failure can occur with mouse clicks or even using the scroll wheel.. The other programs like IE do not have a problem with scrolling within a window. It only occurs when doing a file open and there is a need to scroll thru a large list of files. Really strange.

have not pulled a wire yet, but both adapters have an IP so my guess is that it should be fine. been working off a desktop tonight.

Think I found the solution.

1. Click the Start Button
2. Right Click “Network” and then left Click Properties
3. From the “Network And Sharing Center” window click “Change Adapter Settings”
4. On the “Network Connections” window, press the ALT key on your keyboard to being up the menu bar
5. Click the “Advanced” menu and then “Advanced Settings”
6. In the “Advanced Settings” window you will see the “Adapters and Bindings” tab and under “Connections” you will see the order they are in, you can use the arrows to the side to move the connection priority up and down.

It will still connect all 3, unless you tell it to disable them….but at least traffic will go over the ethernet port first (when connected)

My wireless connections was set to be first. Changed it to be local ethernet first and then wireless.

I was just connected via wired. Unplugged the cable and turned the wireless on. In a command window ran ipconfig /all and got no connections. tried release and renew and got an ip for the wireless. Plugged in the wired ethernet cable again and ran renew again and have an IP for both wired and wireless. But my problem is I want to force use of the wired connection if it is present since that runs much faster than my wireless particularly when doing things like backups or copying large files between the netbook and my home server. If there was a way to force using the wired connection then I could leave them both enabled.

The only option I get when I go to the network center is to connect to a dialup or PPOE connection rather than connect to an existing network which is already functioning in my home.

I never disable the wired connection, but I do turn the wireless off in order to force it to connect via wired since that is much faster when doing large volume copies. If I pull the wired connection out and turn on the wireless, I never get connected until I reboot. I have tried using Ipconfig and release and renew, but no luck. Never had this problem when I was running XP. Only since upgrading to Win7.