slow computer performance

[pedroboe]

I have Dell 500 PIII, 512 MB RAM, Gforce3 200 64MB and have been reading this site for a while. Had some tweaks done which really improved the speed on my setup. Now, it has become really slow, fom the moment I click on something till t opens the progam, also my broadband connection seems to be suffering... I am at a loss. I downloade and used "clearmem" but, not much improvement. My file sstem is NTFS and I have 15% free on a 12G. HD. Could it be the 15% free is too little? I defrag constantly, daily. I can't put my finger on the problem. I even rolled back the latest Nvidia Driver. Help!

 

[Bootsy]

what's your paging file at?

 

[pedroboe]

the paging file is at 767MB right now. I did try using he "no paging file" tweak, since I have 512 of Ram, but at some point Photoshop would not open because an alleged virtual memory lack of..... so I went back to "system managed" memory... what should I do?

Thanks

 

[Lonman]

Is there anything running in the background that could account for your performance degradation? Hit ctrl+alt+del and bring up the task manager to see what's running. 15% hard drive space is ok... can you pinpoint when this started? Did you install something, or a combination of things that you can recall?

 

[pedroboe]

unfortunately, I like to tweak my computer way too often. Everyday I do somethiong new to it. It started a couple of days ago but everything seemed fine. I do regular scans for viruses and trojans ( I was suspicious this was the problem) I changed both my antivirus and firewall programs. I have now Trend pc-cillin and Black ice defender. I used to have both Norton equivalents. I also deleted both hotmail accounts from Outlook, since Outrlook was acting funny as if it had a mind of it's own: pulling down menus, getting out of inbox mode without my consent (oh god, I do have a virus don't I?)
There are 37 processes running in the Windows task manager CPU usage fluctuates from 13 to 24% and commit charge is : 172/1246M
Hope this gives a clue... I could change the cache setting again, but not sure what values to assign....

thganks

 

[Bootsy]

hmm, the paging file should be ok with 767 mgs...im outta ideas...try a system restore to a point wher you didnt have the problem.

 

[Laurens]

When your rig is getting slow press control+alt+delete and check out what's eating your mem. and cpu so much, maybe you can find the source overthere. If you don't know what one of those programms actually is then post the excact name her (****.exe or something like that) and we than we could help

 

[pedroboe]

I have another problem.... it won't run games, or #d screensavers. I am getting a white square telling me that it " could not find any compatible Direct 3D devices" does this mean that my Gforce 3 is damaged? I noticed the Nvidia Chameleon demo program dissapeared too. I run the Direct X diag tool and it fails both direct draw and 3D tests... boo!!!

#D Mark 2001 won't run and it's telling me to get a better computer or something.... video card problems, or video driver?

I do have an ATI radeon ddr somewhere in the closet......

 

[DarkSiege]

Did you overclock your g-force card? It may be damaged if you did.

 

[pedroboe]

yes I overclocked it using the tweak utility and the coolbits utility. Is there a way to test the card? is there a utility for that?
I uninstalled the driver and was able to run a 3D screensaver, although performance is very slow....

 

[DarkSiege]

Try a system restore?.......I am not sure if that will help, but you can always go back....

 

[pedroboe]

Well...

on the road to recovery... the video card is not damaged. I uninstalled all of the Nvidia Drivers that I downloaded from the Nvidia site and from here and reinstalled the original Leadtek driver (for XP), from the CD ROM. it now works, although still slugish; here is the bizarre part: I ran 3D Mark 2001 and got 3105, the highest score my setup has ever gotten !!! I remember this setup running much more efficiently and fast, however; the 3D Mark benchmark was the best. What is going on?

I will uninstall my firewall (Black Ice) and the antivirus (pc-cillin) and see what happens. Thanks for your suggestions!

 

[DarkSiege]

Good luck!
I had problems with Black Ice....I'm not sure if that relates to this though...

 

[Bootsy]

good luck...theres always the public skool next door you can donate it to =]

 

[DarkSiege]

LOL i don't think his comp is that bad.....

 

[Bootsy]

oh no i didnt mean that hehehe i've just kicked a computer or two in my time iz all =]

 

[Moker]

Tiny makes a nice firewall.

You might try that.

 

[DarkSiege]

I use sygate personal firewall and it's doing fine....no problems

 

[pedroboe]

I have Tiny, I don't know Why I uninstalled it. It's my computertweakitis nervosa......
about trowing my rig out: I would love to get my hands on a 1.5G P4 or Athlon, but I am still paying for the Dell, believe it or not....
The expwerience is still bizarre. My 3Dmark 2001 benchmarks get better and, supposedly are decent, acording to the online comparisons to similar equipment, but the actual speed from the time I click on something (to open a program such as Outlook or IE) and the program is ready to be used, it must take at least 6 seconds. The aquarium screensaver almost doesn't open either and sometimes it just poops out and cannot open at all. I messed with the refresh rates. Right now on 85hz, but running out of ideas. there seems to be a mouse issue, or something like that....

I will try uninstalling the PC-cilling antivirus and see what happens. No, no one be looking at my ip address while I go defenseless, he he.

 

[DarkSiege]

You should not change the refresh rate of your monitor unless the manual says you can...it can cause damage to your moniter and comp...