Andro1d Posted January 4, 2009 Report Share Posted January 4, 2009 Hey everyone,Well my friend has about a 3 year old eMachine and as of recently he has started to see many issues arise in his PC. We just did an RAM upgrade to 2GB total since that is all his Mobo supports. About 2 days after installing the RAM, his computer began to become extremely slow. It takes forever to boot into Normal and Safe Mode, his mouse lags across the screen when you move it, PC games are unplayable, and when ever you click a program or the Start Menu it will freeze with that.My first thought was to run several AV scans, so I did and those came up clean. Then I ran a Chkdsk and full defrag and those completed with no problems. Then I booted to a boot CD and checked the memory and the hard drive and I got no errors on both of those.I am all out of ideas, and if you guys can think of anything my friend would really appreciate it!Thanks ahead of time for your help! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sarahw Posted January 4, 2009 Report Share Posted January 4, 2009 Probably best to take out the memory and see if you have the same symptoms. Did you burn test the memory?Vista has a tool in 'Administrator Tools' or memtest. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2009 Hey sarahw,I ran a full test on it via memtest and it came up with no errors. Tired with only one of the new sticks in, same issue. Also put back in the old RAM and still have the same issue. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sarahw Posted January 4, 2009 Report Share Posted January 4, 2009 Could be the hard drive, is it working hard? any noises?Software/OS errors? check event veiwer. Obviously no malware or you'd know.Check the performance monitor, hows the cpu and ram going. Paging? Virtual memory?Also, check the temps, overheating can slow you down. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Honda_Boy Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Sounds as if the hard drive might be dying. When I had a hard drive die on me, it got to where it'd take forEVER to load anything. Windows took 10 minutes to start towards the end. I quickly froze the drive (literally, stuck it in a freezer for a few hours), then slaved it to another and backed up all that I could (about eight 150+ MB videos didn't transfer out of 300-400 or so).Just how long is it taking to load Windows exactly?You say a games can load but are unplayable so that leads to lean more towards overheating though. Once the game is loaded, it's in Memory so the performance would be more impacted by heat than a failing hard drive. Be sure to check all the temperatures. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
bozodog Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 What about heat issues? A broken clip on a processor heat sink drove us crazy troubleshooting. We also had a fan going bad on a power supply that created slowdowns. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheTerrorist_75 Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Shut down the PC and unplug it. Clear the CMOS by moving the jumper and/or removing the battery temporarily. Put the jumper back in the previous position and replace the battery. Plug in the PC and start it. Enter the Bios on startup and find the memory settings. Set them to Auto.Also make sure the memory sticks are compatible with the motherboard and that they match each other. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Hey,I will have the computer again on Wednesday so I will try everything then. I will update you on what I find out. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 I are not getting any HD sounds or errors. I didn't see anything in the event viewer as well.Checked the Task Manger and didn't notice anything strange there. Ran speedfan and didn't notice any outrageous temps.Windows will normally get to POST and take about 15 mins there, then it will go to a black screen for about 10 minutes. Then will say welcome to windows for about 5 minutes.I mean unplayable because it is just so laggy, they take forever to start, and very very laggy to play.No noticable temps that are looking too high.I still can't find the memory option in the bios.One thing just occured now, we took off everything at startup to see if that would increase start up time, and it helped a little. Now though, if we hover the cursor over the task bar we just get an hourglass and can't click anything. Also can't get to the task manager. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted January 8, 2009 Report Share Posted January 8, 2009 is it an option to reload it? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 What do you mean by reload it? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Back up the data, format, then reinstall XP. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
darkerside04 Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Have you made sure its malware-free?1st thing I do when there's any problems is eliminate the known positives. I recommend downloading Malwarebytes antimalware, installing it, updating it, and then giving it a run. What are your results?From there we can check out the rest. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rhema7 Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Try JKDefrag also Find at snapfiles may help a bit. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 I would start by tapping the F8 key once a second after the POST beep when you first power on until you get an enhanced startup menu. Choose safe mode.Does it boot to safe mode quickly but not normal mode? If so we can troubleshoot that by starting with a clean boot and enabling items one at a time.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353If the problem persists in safe mode; I would go with the suggestion of clearing your CMOS settings and reconfiguring your bios. Possibly the settings for the new RAM and old RAM are different and it got all bollixed up trying to change from one to the other and now supports neither well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 He decided he just wants to reinstall Windows, so we are gonna do that on Monday. I will let you know any updates. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Well we finally got to reinstalling Windows and it is still laging really bad. He decided that I am going to just build him a new computer. I was hoping if you guys could look at the parts, and let me know if it looks good. He can't really go over $600, and with what I haave below, after rebates it is about $600.Casehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811156191PSUhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817152028Mobohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128373CPUhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103300CPU Heatsinkhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835185125RAMhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231226HDDhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136098GFX Cardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814127359Optical Drivehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106263Thanks again! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 As a side note. If still lagging after reloading, my hunch would be a bad harddrive. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andro1d Posted January 19, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 Thats what I was thinking myself shanenin. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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