BleepingComputer.com: WM very Sluggish and IE virtually unusable

Good day to you Gurus,

Dell Vostro 200
Vista Home Basic/SP2
Intel Celeron 420@1.6 Ghz
1GB RAM
32 bit operating system
Task Manager 68 running processes. Physical Memory 65 - 75%
Hard Drive 150 GB with 78 GB free.

For the past few weeks my system has got slower and slower.
When I start my computer and open Windows Mail and click on Send/Recieve I get the message Not Responding. If I leave it to open itself it will after about five minutes even though it is set to check for new mail every minute.
If I open Internet Explorer first thing it is fine but after about 15 minutes it will just hang. If I close down and reboot, sometimes IE will work but more often than not it freezes.

I have run:-
Kasperskys On Line Scanner
Malwarebytes [in Safe Mode as well]
Spybot S & D
AVG 8.5
SAS
ATF
CCleaner
AdAware
None of them found anything.

I know that the machine is very basic but it is used mainly for the Internet.

Please could you suggest what I should do next.

As usual, thank you for your time.
George.

Hello George,

The system is not very powerful, and barely meets the requirements for vista. You mention that the system is running 68 processes, you will need to reduce this number significantly.

I would start by uninstalling programs you no longer use.
Using a cleaning tool such as CCleaner.
Running a defrag tool (IObit smart defrag)
Altering some of the services http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/Archive.../servicecfg.htm
adjusting what programs start with windows by using msconfig

I agree, your system is really at the low end of being able to run Vista, let alone run Vista and then do any real computing on top of that.

Until you upgrade, you will want to keep tabs on how many concurrent processes you’ve got going.

Cheers,

I know that the system is very basic but it does for what I want it for and that is just the Internet. I do not need any bells and whistles. I have a more powerful computer for work [and definitely NOT Vista].

Could you please tell me how to access the Services and how to do a Disable.

George.

You can access the services list by pressing the windows key and the letter R then type services.msc in the run box. This should bring up the services list where you can double click on the entries and disable them.

You should only disable services that you do not need and are not critical to running the system. The black viper list should show you which ones are safe.

I am going to work from the Black Viper list. I have a further question. Could this problem be caused by the fan cooling. I am not saying that there is a problem but just got the idea from a lot of reading that I have done. What temp should a computer run at and how do I find what it is runnig at?

George.

Good cooling is always important. http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php is a good tool that should give you an idea what temperature components are at. The tool will only be able to tell you the temperature if your hardware has sensor information.

I believe that Celerons work between 67C - 85C.

Here are the temperature readings that I got. They seem ok to me.

System 35maxCPU 37c max
THRM 40c max
Core 49c max
HDD 39c max

I have followed Black Viper and will see how things run now. Physical Memory is down to 60%.

Just did some checks.

WM still hanging.
Yahoo Messenger keeps going back to the Sign In screen
MSN Signs in ok but I get a message saying :- Due to a connection problem changes you make might not be applied to other computers you use.

Any comments?

Will try it all again tomorrow.

George.

Sorry, mistake in the last message. It should say Internet Explorer still hanging.

Can you open the task manager and IE. Open the processes page and locate iexplore.exe right click this entry and select change priority select High. This should let you processor give more time to IE and reduce the hanging.

Have you used the cleaning program and the defrag?

This morning Yahoo messenger started normally so it must have been just a glitch last night. WM downloaded messages in abot two minutes. It took me four minutes for this page to come up. Have now set priority to high. Will see if it makes any difference. HD is defragged every week.

George.

Priority set to High but IE is stil hanging.

The event viewer may be able to give some answers. if you click the start ball/orb and type event viewer in the search box, you should find it. Have a look through the categories applications, security etc for warnings/errors. Let us know what you find.