PC almost at standstill

"RJK" wrote:


"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message
.. .
This follows on from my post describing a boot up failure, as the subject
heading of that is now misleading.

The consistent state now is that my Athlon XP 1800 PC takes about half an
hour to boot! And then every operation is similarly glacial. For example,
after double clicking My Computer it takes about 10 minutes for it to be
displayed. So even the simplest checks have become almost impossible. I
cannot even take screenshots to post here and have resorted to a camera.

Directly after powering up I see this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-64MB.jpg
That '64.0 MB' puzzles me. Is it unrelated to the total RAM, which is 1 GB
as shown here later in the boot-up process?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...tProblem-1.jpg

FWIW here is the RAM itself which I removed and replaced:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...XP1800-RAM.jpg

Here is a BIOS screen that appeared because I got fed up waiting 15
minutes for the PC to close itself down.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...800-BIOS-2.jpg
Can someone explain that entry about OS/2 Onboard Memory please? Anything
else significant about the info displayed?

When I continued from there to my get to my XP desktop eventually I wanted
to check that my reversing the weird change of drive letter I described
earlier (from its original D to J) had been implemented. So some 15 mins
later I had this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...t-Puzzle-1.jpg
As you see, D is present but has no info!

I gave up on trying to get back to Disk Mgmt tonight. Will try in the
morning.

I did also manage to get DiskKeeper open (no photo) which did not show D
at all as one of its volumes.

Task Manager showed this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-TM-1.jpg
I don't understand why Winlogon is taking a third of CPU resource about an
hour after starting the bootup and maybe 30 mins after the desktop was
assembled.

In short, I'm now dead in the water and getting desperate! Any suggestions
would be warmly welcomed please.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK


Hello Terry Pinnell

The 64mb refers to the memory on your Nvidia graphics card, which is
seperate to your system RAM, so you probably swapped out your RAM for
nothing.
OS2 setting is fine, unless you're running OS2 !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

After casting my eye through this thread, including Paul's excellent advice
regarding a prompt back-up,
...this appeared to be the most important issue. i.e. as a XP1800 based PC
is very old, in many ways, when it starts going tits-up, it's very important
to get all important, (to you), data backed out onto external media, (you
didn't mention if data loss was a concern).

When I tackle such older "IBM PC compatible" hardware, (if data loss is a
concern), I first pull the hard disk/s and pop them into an external hd
docking station, and back out all data directories, and sweep for all common
user created filetypes etc. and back them out as well.

So, you shouldn't really be trying to problem solve this PC until it's
backed up.

It sounds a little as though your hardware needs a thorough "going over,"
and preferably, your data restored to a much newer and robust system.

regards, Richard


Thanks Richard, appreciate that thorough reply.

Re backup, I thought I'd posted about that not being an issue but it seems
that my attempt at cross-posting didn't work. Have now duplicated it.

To summarise, I'm in reasonable shape to recover any important data loss
one way or another. But PROCESSING is virtually frozen, so just about all
operations suggested for diagnosis are impossible to apply!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

"Bob F" wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:
This follows on from my post describing a boot up failure, as the
subject heading of that is now misleading.

The consistent state now is that my Athlon XP 1800 PC takes about
half an hour to boot! And then every operation is similarly glacial.

Things I might try.

1. Run the disk manufacturers disk check program on every drive.

2. Run Memtest+ overnight. Add more memory if the motherboard allows.

3. Check that the drives each are running in the proper DMA mode.

4. I've seen Anti-spyware programs drastically slow down PCs. Remove/disable any
anti-spyware programs and all but one anti-virus programs. If that doesn't do
it, try running consecutively, at least one or two other carefully chosen such
programs and do full scans on all drives. Then remove extra such programs. You
don't want duplication here on any continuous basis.


Thanks Bob, I'll try to check out #3. Might take half an hour or so! I
can't see any chance of attempting #1 and #2 in the current state. And I'm
pretty sure #4 isn't the cause.

For the few days before this sudden problem I had been methodically
removing many unwanted programs in an attempt to free up more space on my
C drive. All was working normally. There was and is no internet
connection.


--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

On Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:54:42 +0100, Terry Pinnell wrote:

This follows on from my post describing a boot up failure, as the
subject heading of that is now misleading.

The consistent state now is that my Athlon XP 1800 PC takes about half
an hour to boot! And then every operation is similarly glacial. For
example, after double clicking My Computer it takes about 10 minutes for
it to be displayed. So even the simplest checks have become almost
impossible.

If you have another PC use it to make an Ubuntu Live CD or get somebody to
burn one for you and then try booting from that. If the PC boots and runs
OK then you can rule out hardware as a problem - other than your hard
disk. If it boots and runs with Ubuntu live then either you hard disk is
borked or your windows installation is borked (or possibly both).

FWIW I think it's odds-on that the hard disk and/or the windows
installation is the source of your problem. You will be able to
investigate the contents and condition of your hard disks using the Ubuntu
disk utilities.

--
Tony
'09 FJR1300, '04 Ducati ST3, '87 TW200,
'94 PC800, OMF#24

Terry Pinnell wrote:
This follows on from my post describing a boot up failure, as the subject
heading of that is now misleading.

The consistent state now is that my Athlon XP 1800 PC takes about half an
hour to boot! And then every operation is similarly glacial. For example,
after double clicking My Computer it takes about 10 minutes for it to be
displayed. So even the simplest checks have become almost impossible. I
cannot even take screenshots to post here and have resorted to a camera.

Directly after powering up I see this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-64MB.jpg
That '64.0 MB' puzzles me. Is it unrelated to the total RAM, which is 1 GB
as shown here later in the boot-up process?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...tProblem-1.jpg

FWIW here is the RAM itself which I removed and replaced:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...XP1800-RAM.jpg

Here is a BIOS screen that appeared because I got fed up waiting 15
minutes for the PC to close itself down.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...800-BIOS-2.jpg
Can someone explain that entry about OS/2 Onboard Memory please? Anything
else significant about the info displayed?

When I continued from there to my get to my XP desktop eventually I wanted
to check that my reversing the weird change of drive letter I described
earlier (from its original D to J) had been implemented. So some 15 mins
later I had this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...t-Puzzle-1.jpg
As you see, D is present but has no info!

I gave up on trying to get back to Disk Mgmt tonight. Will try in the
morning.

I did also manage to get DiskKeeper open (no photo) which did not show D
at all as one of its volumes.

Task Manager showed this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-TM-1.jpg
I don't understand why Winlogon is taking a third of CPU resource about an
hour after starting the bootup and maybe 30 mins after the desktop was
assembled.

In short, I'm now dead in the water and getting desperate! Any suggestions
would be warmly welcomed please.


Backup, etc.....

I had something like this. Its was one of the disks dying and I guessed
that the bios / disk controller was desperately trying to fix or resolve
it.

I'd pull all the hard disks, and the CD rom, and bung in a known good
disk and see what happens. If the PC gets quickly to the point it cant
find an OS (or boots if it has an OS), you can be sure the MB, RAM etc
are OK. Then go from there.

--
AC

On Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:58:29 +0100, AC wrote:

I'd pull all the hard disks, and the CD rom, and bung in a known good
disk and see what happens. If the PC gets quickly to the point it cant
find an OS (or boots if it has an OS), you can be sure the MB, RAM etc
are OK. Then go from there.

Ubuntu live CD is much less hassle and much more use - see my other post
in this thread. If it doesn't boot properly with Ubuntu live then he can
remove hardware progressively until it is down to CD drive, memory and
motherboard (plus graphics card if it isn't using onboard graphics). If
there is still a problem at this stage it would probably be easiest to
scrap the superannuated pile of junk and replace it. The cost of
replacement would be negligible - I have just thrown away a barebones setup
with a higher spec than this one because it wasn't worth trying to sell it.

--
Tony
'09 FJR1300, '04 Ducati ST3, '87 TW200,
'94 PC800, OMF#24

TMack wrote:

On Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:58:29 +0100, AC wrote:

I'd pull all the hard disks, and the CD rom, and bung in a known good
disk and see what happens. If the PC gets quickly to the point it cant
find an OS (or boots if it has an OS), you can be sure the MB, RAM etc
are OK. Then go from there.

Ubuntu live CD is much less hassle and much more use - see my other post
in this thread. If it doesn't boot properly with Ubuntu live then he can
remove hardware progressively until it is down to CD drive, memory and
motherboard (plus graphics card if it isn't using onboard graphics). If
there is still a problem at this stage it would probably be easiest to
scrap the superannuated pile of junk and replace it. The cost of
replacement would be negligible - I have just thrown away a barebones setup
with a higher spec than this one because it wasn't worth trying to sell it.

Thanks, but booting is no longer the problem.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

TMack wrote:
On Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:58:29 +0100, AC wrote:

I'd pull all the hard disks, and the CD rom, and bung in a known good
disk and see what happens. If the PC gets quickly to the point it cant
find an OS (or boots if it has an OS), you can be sure the MB, RAM etc
are OK. Then go from there.

Ubuntu live CD is much less hassle

No it is not.

and much more use - see my other post
in this thread. If it doesn't boot properly with Ubuntu live then he can
remove hardware progressively until it is down to CD drive, memory and
motherboard (plus graphics card if it isn't using onboard graphics). If
there is still a problem at this stage it would probably be easiest to
scrap the superannuated pile of junk and replace it.

See. All that, including the sourcing and burning of a disk, learning
Linux if you dont already know how to use it, or ...... just bung in a
spare ****ing hard drive.

Oh, the hassle.

The cost of
replacement would be negligible - I have just thrown away a barebones setup
with a higher spec than this one because it wasn't worth trying to sell it.


I really wish Linux fanboi bores would just **** off and die. Do you
guys realise how off putting you are to normal people? Im sure more
people would use Linux if you lot just shut up. Im surprised you people
don't email the UN and tell them that installing Linus will bring peace
to Syria, and feed the bloody third world.

And yes, I've do use linux, and for years before, Unix. A groove version
called Dynix too. I know what its worth is, and more importantly, is not.

--
AC

Terry Pinnell wrote:

This follows on from my post describing a boot up failure, as the subject
heading of that is now misleading.

The consistent state now is that my Athlon XP 1800 PC takes about half an
hour to boot! And then every operation is similarly glacial. For example,
after double clicking My Computer it takes about 10 minutes for it to be
displayed. So even the simplest checks have become almost impossible. I
cannot even take screenshots to post here and have resorted to a camera.

Directly after powering up I see this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-64MB.jpg
That '64.0 MB' puzzles me. Is it unrelated to the total RAM, which is 1 GB
as shown here later in the boot-up process?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...tProblem-1.jpg

FWIW here is the RAM itself which I removed and replaced:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...XP1800-RAM.jpg

Here is a BIOS screen that appeared because I got fed up waiting 15
minutes for the PC to close itself down.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...800-BIOS-2.jpg
Can someone explain that entry about OS/2 Onboard Memory please? Anything
else significant about the info displayed?

When I continued from there to my get to my XP desktop eventually I wanted
to check that my reversing the weird change of drive letter I described
earlier (from its original D to J) had been implemented. So some 15 mins
later I had this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...t-Puzzle-1.jpg
As you see, D is present but has no info!

I gave up on trying to get back to Disk Mgmt tonight. Will try in the
morning.

I did also manage to get DiskKeeper open (no photo) which did not show D
at all as one of its volumes.

Task Manager showed this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...P1800-TM-1.jpg
I don't understand why Winlogon is taking a third of CPU resource about an
hour after starting the bootup and maybe 30 mins after the desktop was
assembled.

In short, I'm now dead in the water and getting desperate! Any suggestions
would be warmly welcomed please.


one thing you never showed was the temp of the cpu.
What happens if you boot into safe mode?

Latest info. Disk Mgmt window raises various puzzles:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...DiskMgmt-2.jpg

Device Mgr also shows 3 optical drives instead of the 2 I actually have.
Probably unrelated to the current issue, but reported just in case...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/.../Devices-1.jpg

Everything still impossibly slow. Back on main PC to send this during the
¾ hour needed for close/restart, to check if my attempts with sfc /scannow
and my fiddling with page file have had any effect.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

After serious thinking Terry Pinnell wrote :
Latest info. Disk Mgmt window raises various puzzles:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...DiskMgmt-2.jpg

Device Mgr also shows 3 optical drives instead of the 2 I actually have.
Probably unrelated to the current issue, but reported just in case...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/.../Devices-1.jpg

Everything still impossibly slow. Back on main PC to send this during the
¾ hour needed for close/restart, to check if my attempts with sfc /scannow
and my fiddling with page file have had any effect.

Considering the amount of time you already seem to have wasted on it,
and the fact that you say you have backups, I would just format the
thing and reinstall Windows.

--
SteveH