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Slowdown help

post #1 of 35
10/2/05 at 7:01pm
Thread Starter 
Since the other thread is dead and is unlikely to get replies, I'll make a new, updated one about my problem.

Anyway, here's what going on. When I play any game, I will experience random slowdowns where the framerate drops substantially sometimes where the game is still playable although jittery, and sometimes to a point where it is unplayable. After about 3-5 minutes, the gameplay returns back to normal and runs without a hitch. These moments of slowdown are random, but they average about 10-15 minutes apart although sometimes don't come for a very long time and sometimes come very often.

I downloaded the latest fan bios since someone on the forum suggested it might be a heating issue, but it hasn't helped at all. I also have the laptop propped up about an inch using spacers underneath so that air can circulate better to the fans. Someone suggested that I should use cans of compressed air to clean the vents, but I am unsure of how to do this. Do I just blow the air directly into the fan vents or do I need to unscrew the plates off first?

Also, if that doesn't help, what else do you think could be causing the problem? Is there some sort of diagnostic test I can run to see if there's something wrong with my videocard or anything like that?

My computer specs are:
Pentium IV 3.0 GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon X800
1 GB DDR3 Ram

Any help/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
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post #2 of 35
10/2/05 at 7:39pm
Try keeping task manager open while you game. When you start to experience slowdown, immediately minimize via windows key. Check out processes. click on cpu button to make the order go according to CPU draw/do the same with the mem usage and maybe it will show some app that's drawing alot of resources. Have you defragged? Try closing all non essential processes and set the priority of the game higher. Check your startup menu, it may have a ton of apps in it which can be disabled in msconfig. As for cleaning the fans, I take the covers off carefully blow out the dust away from the unit while ensuring the fan isn't spinning. Then I wipe the blades gently with a qtip.

I hope one of the above works so you can get back to gaming proper.
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post #3 of 35
10/2/05 at 8:06pm
Thread Starter 
I've never defragged before as I'm very computer illiterate so I googled it and read through a bunch of articles and forum postings about defragging because I've heard of other people messing their computer up through defragmentation.

So I read that it's wise to run a thorough scandisk before defragging and before running scandisk, it's recommended that computer processes are turned off. So I press ctrl+alt+delete and look at my processes. I have 48 processes running, CPU usage: 2% and a Commit charge of 260M/2461M. Is it safe to turn off all of those processes except for explorer and the ones that start in Sys? Also there are Network Services running and I'm not sure if it's safe to turn those off. I get warning messages when I try to click on End Process with any of them so I just left them alone for now.

Also, if I accidentally turn something off that I'm not supposed to, will those processes automatically be turned on when I restart Windows?
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post #4 of 35
10/2/05 at 10:40pm
anything that has system following it windows will not allow u to turn them off.
anything that has a user name after it u can turn off.
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post #5 of 35
10/2/05 at 10:45pm
Wow 48 processes is quite a lot. I've got my computers down to 16 at idle. You have to be careful with what processes you disable. Some are critical but most are useless.

This is a good Processes Guide.
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post #6 of 35
10/2/05 at 11:04pm
What is the room temperature where you are running the machine. Also, how long have you had your machine and what type of environment are you running it in - Dusty, etc....
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post #7 of 35
10/3/05 at 12:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gobstopper
"I've never defragged before as I'm very computer illiterate so I googled it and read through a bunch of articles and forum postings about defragging because I've heard of other people messing their computer up through defragmentation."
+ Defragging the hard drive will not mess it up. It's actually required maintenance for a hard drive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gobstopper
"So I read that it's wise to run a thorough scandisk before defragging and before running scandisk, it's recommended that computer processes are turned off. "
+You are correct to do a scan disk before a defrag, especially since you haven't done it before. Also do a clean up of temp files, recycle bin etc. because it doesn't make sense to properly place files that are going to be deleted anyways. Running processes during scan disk won't cause any harm though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gobstopper
"So I press ctrl+alt+delete and look at my processes. I have 48 processes running, CPU usage: 2% and a Commit charge of 260M/2461M. Is it safe to turn off all of those processes except for explorer and the ones that start in Sys? Also there are Network Services running and I'm not sure if it's safe to turn those off. I get warning messages when I try to click on End Process with any of them so I just left them alone for now."
+You don't need to turn off processes right away. 48 processes with a commit charge of 260M and 2% CPU usage is very normal for an xp machine. Actually they're pretty low. The suggestion I'm making is to keep the task manager open on your desktop while you are playing the game. When the game proceeds to degrade in performance, minimize the game by pressing the windows key on the lower left of the keyboard. You can then observe the processes that are running. If there are processes other than your game that are consuming large amounts of resources write them down exactly as you see them, then type the processes into google search engine. There will be sites that show what these processes are. You may then trouble shoot from there. If no excess resources are happening then it's something else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gobstopper
"Also, if I accidentally turn something off that I'm not supposed to, will those processes automatically be turned on when I restart Windows?"
+When you restart the processes should be back to the way they were.
Have you scanned for sypware/viruses? If so you need to do it more than once and with a few different programs. Two out of many free ones are Ad-Aware and spybot. Try these things to see if they help.
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post #8 of 35
10/3/05 at 2:55am
Thread Starter 
G-Omaha: I've had it since February of this year if I remember correctly. The room temperature varies a lot from being around 70 degrees F in the afternoon to around 58-60 degrees F at night. It's fairly dust free as well.

Denn: You sure about that? Explorer.exe is followed by my username and I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to end that process.

Michael2575: Oki doke, I'll give that a try. And yeah, I run ad-aware and spybot at least twice a week and all they find are cookies and the MRU negligible files that are just Windows cookies I believe.

During the transition point between the normal gameplay and the stuttery gameplay, the system sounds like it locks up for a split second and the audio gets scrunched up (that's the best way I can describe it) and then the gameplay will switch from either being normal to laggy or from laggy to being normal. I don't know why it does that, but it makes me think it might be a sound issue although I highly doubt it. I haven't downloaded any new sound card drivers since I got my machine. Have there been any new drivers released?
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post #9 of 35
10/3/05 at 9:44am
Gobstopper, to defrag and get great results-
First- turn off the pageing file space on your hard drive (Virtual Memory)
Second- restart your system and boot in to safe mode
Third- perform your defrag
Fourth- before you restart your system turn back on your paging file
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post #10 of 35
10/3/05 at 6:05pm
make sure you have enough empty hard drive space to perform the defrag on. ie. if you got 30gb of data, make sure you have 30gb of unused space.
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post #11 of 35
10/3/05 at 9:44pm
opps... u r right. forgot about that one.
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post #12 of 35
10/3/05 at 11:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by inanna1523
make sure you have enough empty hard drive space to perform the defrag on. ie. if you got 30gb of data, make sure you have 30gb of unused space.
Didn't know that you needed half of the disk to be free in order to do a defrag Really don't that the statement is accurate because experience and this Microsoft site state differently http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...us/defrag.mspx

Quote:
Originally Posted by Microsoft
A volume must have at least 15% free space for defrag to completely and adequately defragment it. Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, defrag will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk
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post #13 of 35
10/4/05 at 1:28am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by zenetty
Gobstopper, to defrag and get great results-
First- turn off the pageing file space on your hard drive (Virtual Memory)
Second- restart your system and boot in to safe mode
Third- perform your defrag
Fourth- before you restart your system turn back on your paging file
Sorry, but could you tell me how to turn off the virtual memory? Also, how do you purposely start a computer in safe mode? And will the computer start up normally (not in safe mode) after I defrag and restart?
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post #14 of 35
10/4/05 at 2:17am
Gobstopper,

While I normally don't do this, I think in your case, it may be the best "way to go". Please find a friend that is more computer literate than you and have them review this thread and interceed on your behalf.

I fear that should you start to follow some of the suggestions/instructions presented, you might just totally screw up the machine because of your limited level of computer literacy.
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post #15 of 35
10/4/05 at 2:36am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I'm having a friend read this thread and asking him to help me out. The weird thing is, I was testing it out and ran task manager when I was playing, then alt tabbed out when it slowed down and found no processes besides the game that was using up the system. Then when I tabbed back in, the game was running fine. I kept doing this (alt tabbing) when it slowed down and tabbing back in and it fixes the slowdown. While it's inconvenient, it'll have to do for now since I don't really know what else to do.
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post #16 of 35
10/4/05 at 1:13pm
CPU bottleneck or heat problem perhaps?
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post #17 of 35
10/8/05 at 2:48am
Thread Starter 
I was testing the slowdowns to see if they were caused by heavy gaming or not so I loaded up Starcraft and played. I experienced the periodic quick stuttering of the audio and video for about 1 second that is usually the transition point between normal play and the slowdown I experience, except in Starcraft, it didn't switch between the two. It would just stutter for a second and keep going. With other, more recent games, I will experience the stutter and I will get the slowdown for a few minutes, then it will stutter again and then go back to normal. Does this new information lead any of you to suspect what the problem is?
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post #18 of 35
10/8/05 at 7:12pm
hey gob do this, go to the start menu and select run and type in msconfig. when the window appears select the startup tab. it should be the last one. look at the list count up how things are in the menu. and then see how many of them are checked off. if possible try and get a screen shot of it.
i have a theory, but before i say anything else i wanna see whats running.
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post #19 of 35
10/8/05 at 7:20pm
Thread Starter 
Oki doke, here it is. I couldn't expand the window so I took it in three screenshots instead of one. Total of 31 things checked.



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post #20 of 35
10/8/05 at 7:40pm
I'm quite interested in a solution to this. Right now my 9860 is at Sager being serviced for two problems, one of which is the issue mentioned in this thread. The other being that it died and wouldn't boot about 3-4 weeks after this slowdown issue started. I'm not sure if one problem is somehow tied to the other.

I will report back when I get my machine back with whatever info I get from Sager. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they can actually fix the slowdown problem.

Boot
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