Random lags with WinXP

[Snogger_T]

So I recently noticed that my computer is having some strange lags at random times when anything I do. This started maybe only a few days ago. The lags will consist of programs opening slowly, text appearing on screen late when typing something, pressing the start menu button will not animate and delay to open the start menu, scrolling down a web page will lag, etc. There doesn't seem to be anything that causes it directly and it seems to be completely random.

So far I've tried running spybot/virus scans (all clean), defraged, ran chkdsk on my windows drive and updating windows. Nothing has fixed it that I've tried. I was going to try and run some memory test on my RAM, but wanted to get some opinions first since that takes a while. Any suggestions on what it could be?

[PrairieDawg]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Have you installed any programs lately? Although virus and trojans are the obvious culprits often I find that people have way too many programs starting in the background that are unnecessary.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Have you installed any programs lately? Although virus and trojans are the obvious culprits often I find that people have way too many programs starting in the background that are unnecessary.

- I haven't installed anything as of late, but I did actually clean up my background services a week or so ago (forgot to do it after my clean install back in may). Everything was actually running extremely well after that, but sometime over the last few days it has started this lag problem. Just hoping it's not hardware related and at worst I have to do a clean install of windows.

[wazza300]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

it could be your ram,have you tried with just one stick? and see if it laggs as much?test each stick individually

[Psycho101]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Problems like this are almost never anything to do with viruses or spyware. they can cause this kind of behaviour, but it's not a common occurance.

Open Task manager and click the title bar of the CPU column. Is there any program that's consistently jumping to the top of the list at idle or while you're doing anything that exhibits this lag? Ignore the System Idle Process, this should have ~99% usage normally when idle with nothing intense running, as it's just a looping inactive CPU thread(s).

It could also be caused by corrupt system files. You can run the System File Checker by opening a Run dialog box in the start menu and typing sfc /scannow and hitting enter. XP will now scan all system files and verify they are the correct version and that none are corrupy. The files are usually restored from the C:\Windows\System32\|Dllcache folder. However if it has problems with the backup versions or it detects that a cached .Dll is not of the correct version it will ask you to have your Windows XP install CD in the disc drive that was originally used to install Windows.

If you have problems running SFC /scannow, something to do with not being able to locate the suorce directory after asking for the XP install disc, do the following: Copy the i386 folder from the XP disc to c:\ (simply right click, copy and paste or just drag and drop). Now open Regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Setup . Look for a key on the right called SourcePath and change it to read C:\. Now re-run sfc /scannow .

It's also worth checking that you haven't accidentally disabled any crucial services by mistake. It's easy done. A few times, with the services list set to sort by enabled/disabled I've right clicked the wrong service as the list is re-ordered with out me noticing. It's important that you do not change any services settings using msconfig. Always adjust your services by right clicking My Computer and clicking manage to run the Management Console. Altering services via msconfig can in some cases lead to strange effects/bugs.

Run msconfig and go to the startup tab to see if you can disable anything here that loads at startup. Anything you can live without should be unticked. Loads of crap accumulates in here, such as updaters for Adobe Acrobat, Java, Google Chrome etc. Kill them. Make this list nice and lean. Programs that help make other programs load faster such as the MS Office per-loader don't benefit you much, so kill them too.

If this solves nothing, it's time to get a bit more heavy handed. Hopefully you have System Restore running on the OS partition (it's not a good idea to disable it, if you want to tweak it just restrict the space it can use). Now's a good time to try and restore to a point before all this lagging started. Hopefully you will have a restore point available that allows you to go back far enough. Only go back the minimum amount needed to solve the issue as going back too far may break any programs you installed after the restore point (due to registry entries being missing ).

Finally if all else fails, you can always try a repair install rather than a full format. A repair install will leave all your programs and data in tact. Make sure your backups are up to date just in case and run the repair install by booting from the XP install media. follow the instructions to install and the setup program should detect a current XP install on the disk. It'll ask you if you want to repair by hitting [R]. Do so and wait for virtually all the system files etc to be re-copied and the non user data areas of the registry to be reconstructed.

As with all problems that are a combination of IUTWANID (Ee-You-Too-Wanny-Dee" - It Used To Work And Now It Doesn't), IMRTIUTB ("Im-Rooty-Ooty-Bee" - It's More Rubbish Than It Used To Be) and RATH (Randomly A Thing Happens) in 99% of cases it's some sort of system change initiated by the user involving a software component. Nobody is superman or has a photographic memory, so can't be expected to know exactly to the letter what changes they made. I've been in the same situation before. Follow these simple trouble shooting steps and if none of it works, a full format and re-install is probably your only way. I don't like suggesting a format as it's kind of like chucking out the baby with the bath water, but in some cases it's simply quicker, especially when (like you have) a good backup routine is in place.

If the problem lingers after a fresh install on a newly formatted drive, then, and only then would I suspect hardware. RAM is a candidate, as is thge OS HDD itself. Run this "SMART" monitoring program: BenchmarkHQ. This allows you to read info the HDD records about itself. If it shows a large number of "Spin Up Time", "Seek Error Rate" and "Re-allocated Sectors" etc or anything is marked in red, the drive may be on its way out.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

it could be your ram,have you tried with just one stick? and see if it laggs as much?test each stick individually

- I actually pulled my 2nd stick of RAM earlier today and I'm only using one stick currently, and I ran memtest on it for about 6 hours with no errors. I'm still having the same problem, so I'm going to just stick with this one stick and do everything Psycho101 suggested. I don't really mind reformatting too much. I've done it so many times by now that it's almost 2nd nature how to get back to my current setup.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Alright. I've completely reformatted and reinstalled WinXP and I am still having the same lag problem. I have no clue where to go now to solve this problem. Seems it's definitely a hardware issue now. Any suggestions?

[Chike]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Did you use the Express install of CD or did you install onlu those needed or latest from GB site?
For more then 2x1GB memory configuration usually more MCH Core is needed, try 1.2-1.24v first, sometimes less is needed try 1.05-0.95v if more does not make it better.
Start with oprimized defaults if you haven't loaded them yet.
Please add a link to your ram specs or at least model/part number.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Did you use the Express install of CD or did you install onlu those needed or latest from GB site?
For more then 2x1GB memory configuration usually more MCH Core is needed, try 1.2-1.24v first, sometimes less is needed try 1.05-0.95v if more does not make it better.
Start with oprimized defaults if you haven't loaded them yet.
Please add a link to your ram specs or at least model/part number.

- I take it that you're talking about the Gigabyte drive CD, I just installed the things I needed off of that. I updated my signature with a link to the ram listing at newegg and it should be noted that I ran memtest86+ on my RAM for about 6 hours.

Here is a link to the way my bios is setup (unless it resets when you reinstall windows XP??):

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/new-build-cold-boot-problem-32149/

I'm debating if I should use one of my other HDD's and try installing windows on it to see if maybe my current windows drive is maybe going bad. It is a pretty old raptor (probably 4ish years old).

[Chike]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Can't make which are your settings, you have never posted any(at least I couldn't see them).
No BIOS settings do not reset when you re-install OS,
I am spesifically concerned about the jmicron drivers, do you see ani SCSI driver in device manager or are there only AHCI/ IDE Channels drivers/controllers?
Is the problem only with disks or is there any other kind of lag, e.g. mouse movement or graphics user interface?

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Can't make which are your settings, you have never posted any(at least I couldn't see them).
No BIOS settings do not reset when you re-install OS,
I am spesifically concerned about the jmicron drivers, do you see ani SCSI driver in device manager or are there only AHCI/ IDE Channels drivers/controllers?
Is the problem only with disks or is there any other kind of lag, e.g. mouse movement or graphics user interface?

- I only see IDE in the device manager.

The problem seems to be with all phases of using my computer. It will lag sometimes when typing text, sometimes when moving a window around the desktop, when scrolling on a webpage, when opening a program, when clicking the start menu, etc...I can't find anything specific that causes it. It happens at least once every 30 seconds to a minute. I've never had this problem before when doing a clean install of windows (even using the same hardware). My windows HDD is fairly old though...so I am wondering if it's maybe starting to fail.

[Psycho101]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

It would be useful to know if the lag was present as soon as Windows was installed and booted for the first time (before you installed any drivers).

If the lag started after the drivers were all installed then that introduces another possibility. Drivers allow the use of more complex higher level functions, so it is entirely possible that it's a piece of hardware failing. Default Windows drivers sometiomes don't let hardware use the full extent of it's capabilities and using them the Hardware can seem Perfectly OK. Upon the instalation of correct drivers, the component is allowed to run as intended, maybe exposing any fault that's present. I've had this with faulty GPU's under Windows 98. Default VGA drivers worked fine (apart from only having 16 colours on screen) but propper drivers caused issues.

As you've used the motherboard install CD, you're using pretty old drivers. if this is what you've always used then it's strange that this should be an issue. Either way, it's much better to get the most up to date drivers for all the seperate mobo hardware from the actual manufacturers of the components, not Gigabyte. Intel Chipset drivers from the Intel site, Realtek site for sound and NIC, JMicron site if using any of the purple SATA ports.

I would do as you suggested and try another HDD. A faulty disk would certainly explain your problem. If you have anything valuable on it, get it off there as soon as you've installed XP on the alternative drive. Connect it up and take the data off in Windows.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

- The first driver I installed was the video card driver, and there was a lag when I dragged the file over from my USB drive to the desktop...so yeah, it was there from the get go. The lag was definitely not there in anything I did when I built the system back in May.

I've never actually installed drivers for each individual component of the mobo like that, but I suppose I should once I get all this sorted out.

I have 3 storage drives right now (I keep nothing but windows and programs on my windows drive) and one barely has anything on it, so I can use that one to install windows on and test it. Was really hoping it was a software related problem since I didn't really want to spend money on a new HDD.

[Psycho101]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

I understand. It's never good having to spend money on something you wish you didn't have to buy.

Give the spare drive a go, making sure to completely disconnect the Raptor, SATA cable and SATA power, just to be sure.

If it turns out to be faulty, this would be a great opportunity for you to delve into the world of SSD's. Are you in the US? If so, Kingston are releasing a 40GB V Series "Boot Drive". It's plenty big enough for Win 7 and the bulk of your Programs if you move the page file to another drive. The drive itself is a cut down Intel X25-M. Because it's 40GB it has only half the number of flash IC's meaning that only 5 channels of the 10 channel controller are used.

Performance is 170MB/S read and 45MB/s write. Don't be put off by the seemingly slow write speed, it's random writes that count. the drive can still pull ~40MB/s random 4K writes which is the main usage pattern for an OS and Applications. You'll notice the difference a lot! The drive works out at $80 after mail in rebate. Once you go SSD you'll never want to use a mechanical drive again for an OS.

[Snogger_T]

Re: Random lags with WinXP

Alright, I installed windows on one of my other drives, and it appears that my windows drive was indeed going bad. I'm actually surprised at how much faster everything is running right now. So now I have a few questions.

First, is there any way to get my old drive restored? I hate just throwing a drive away and I would like to keep it as at least a backup drive if I can get it fixed.

As far as the SSD's go, looking around...it seems that to get one of the more reliable ones, it's going to cost around 130 (after rebates). So my question is whether they are better than going with a raptor right now? I can get a raptor drive for roughly $180's, but I do hate having 150GB's for a windows drive when I only keep programs on there (I have several drives for file storage and my audio recordings). Also, would the SSD's be a good windows drive for audio recording? I've read that some of them will have stutters sometimes, and that is the worst thing you could have happen when recording something.

And on a little bit different subject, for a clean install of windows. What are the steps you would recommend taking to have it run most efficiently? What is the best way to update drivers for each component of the Mobo?

Advice on all of that would be greatly appreciated.