Computer Speed Help

[DaveN]

I got a new gateway Pc a couple of months ago, (1. 1 gigahertz, Windows ME, pretty much your basic PC). I primarially use it for internet, etc. I haven't installed ANY software on it, but it is the slowest PC I have ever used. At work, I have a ~300mHz system, and I run Autocad, outlook, word, excel, and normally an internet session all at the same time, and I have no problems or delays. This PC at home takes forever to boot up, forever to load anything, it seems that all it wants to do is make hard drive noise.



I got a relatively basic model, and it seems that it's waiting on the hard drive to get done reading the data. Once a program is loaded, it seems to run fine, as long as the hard drive isn't required (to read additional data). Is there anything I can adjust or replace to help this out?



The other thing is, I was playing around with the system information, I have 128 meg of ram, and the other day (with nothing loaded) it says I have 8 meg free. This doesn't seem right to me... ...



I'd call Gateway, but everytime I call them for help they tell me to turn the power off, turn it back on, or to reinstall everything. I've done all that a few times now and it's getting old.....



Any help is appreciated!

 

[Bob Wagner]

Ram is cheap

buy another 128megs of ram for less than 30. 00



Check your systems resources

 

[WOWZY]

My Gateway PIII 550 ran super until I put a few programs on it w/ only 64M of ram. I upgraded to 128 and it did better but not like when I first got it. I then upgraded to 384M of ram and it seems faster than when it was new and I have alot of stuff on it.



I have two 64m chipsets that I'm not using and will sell to you for a good price. Send me an Email if you want them.



-- email address removed --

 

[JAnderson]

CTRL ALT DEL and see what programs are running.

Sounds like some extra services are running. There is no way you should be using 120MB RAM. YOU should be less than 64MB in use at start up.



Not too sure about win ME but go to control panel and look for services if you dont find it there look for Admin tools then services. See whats running and get back to us.

 

[Newf Limo]

From the desk top, click START, click RUN, type in MSCONFIG hit enter. This will tell you what you have in your start-up menu. You can remove what isn't necessary with "Selective Start Up. i. e. programs that run in the background. If you don't know what it is though, leave it alone. There are a few things you need to get your computer to boot. You won't lose these programs, you will just have to open them from the start /programs menu or send a short cut to your desk top, and open them from there. These companies like to put a bunch of bull in the start up menu so they are ready to be used but it really drags down your system resources. Good Luck!

 

[DiTrani]

More Memory

Sound like you've got a slow disk and/or controller setup. Make up for it with lots of RAM. Get 256M (I've got 512M in the machine I'm typing on now). Things will still load slowly the first time but Windows will cache and subsequent loads should hit the cache instead of disk. If you get 512M, load all you programs once and leave them loaded. The more memory you have the better Windows will cache (it's not as simple as just having enough to cover your loaded programs).





CD

 

[Gray Ghost]

Thank you very much Microsoft. Me is a dog. Had the same problem. Now I'm running XP. All of the new systems take lots of memory. If you don't have enough memory, the system loads some OS and runs, then caches it and loads some more. This goes on until it can run. These new machines take more hardware than I use to have on mainframes.

 

[Eventer]

It's a Windows thing.

Dave,



There are several things you can do to speed up your PC.



1) Defrag your disk on a regular basis. Since you are running Windows ME you are using FAT32 as your file system. This file system does not handle lots of disk reads/writes well and over time files on your disk become fragmented (non-contiguous). You can use the defragger that came with WinME. Do a scan disk first then defrag. Do this on a weekly basis and it won't take too long. You can get to both scan disk and defrag by opening My Computer then right clicking on your disk icon, click Properties, Tools then either Check Now or Defragment Now.



2) Add memory. You should be running at a minimum of 128MB, preferably 256MB. Make sure you buy the correct memory for your computer (probably SDRAM - 133 but check to be sure). One thing not a lot of people think about is to make sure that your contacts on the DIMM are of the same metal as that in the memory slots on the motherboard. Most will be a silver color (probably tin).



3) As stated earlier, use MSCONFIG to remove everything you don't need.



4) Install System Monitor (from Add/Remove Programs | Windows Setup tab) and watch for excessive CPU usage. (A consistently high percentage, not just a brief spike. )Programs such as Norton Utilities are known to be CPU hogs.



5) This is probably not an issue, but don't let your disk become too full. Windows needs space for the swap file.



6) And finally, upgrade to Linux. Your computer will scream! (Edit: I meant respond faster not scream in agony!)



Good luck!

 

[DaveN]

OK, did the Control alt delete thing, this is what is running-



explorer

inkwatch (watches printer ink)

cmmon32

savenow

mrtmngr

qagent

rundll32

navapw32

sk9910dm

starter

systray

bcmdmmsg



Anything look like a waste?



Sounds like the general consensus is that I need more memory (I have 128 meg now) but where I'm confused is that's what I have at work, with a slower pc, and I run alot more applications, and have no problems.



As I was typing this, I stopped for about two minutes, my hard drive never stopped, and I'm not doing anything, no d/l, nothing running.....



What is Linux? Isn't that a Windows replacement? Does windows based software work with that?



I appreciate all the help from everyone! Thanks!

 

[Iceman1]

I upgraded both of my Dell to 512Meg Ram through www.crucial.com Their prices were pretty cheap. Might want to check them out..... Mike

 

[Diesel Freak]

RAM

just get some more RAM..... it is cheap, and you can help lower the overabundance of RAM in the current market... . I would appreciate it a lot.

 

[Eventer]

Dave,



The following link will give you some direction as to what can be removed or unchecked when your PC boots the next time.



Optimizing Windows Startup

http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%3D1027%26a%3D12641,00.asp



and then when your are done with that, try this



Tuning Windows

http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%3D1027%26a%3D10855,00.asp



You can also use MSCONFIG starting with Win98 to manually check what you want to load. Look at unchecking any DOS drivers (in config. sys), the run= and load= lines in Win. ini and anything else not required.



VERY IMPORTANT: Make ONE change at a time unless you are sure exactly what change you are making. Write down exactly what you did and where you found it. Then test your changes to make sure everything still works.



Looking at your Close Program list, trying unchecking these in MSCONFIG from the Startup tab:



inkwatch

savenow

cmmon32

mrtmngr

qagent

sk9910dm

starter

systray

bcmdmmsg



Leave the following running

explorer - essentially your desktop

rundll32 - required by Windows

navapw32 - Your anti-virus software



BTW - Linux is a replacement operating system for Windows. It is not necessarily for the faint of heart or someone who doesn't like to get down and dirty with their operating system. It is based on UNIX and it shows.

 

[Doc Tinker]

An alternative to doing the scandisk/defrag option is to use tuneup. exe



You can do the tuneup by going to START then RUN and type in tuneup then click OK



Tuneup does a few cleanup things and then automatically starts the scandisk and defrag stuff. It's a lot easier than doing each feature one at a time. After using tuneup my system always runs like new. Tuneup can also be set up to run automatically, when you aren't at the computer. Watching the defrag run is boring, unless you like watching a computer play a pong game against it's self.



Also - go to CONTROL PANEL then SYSTEM and click the PERFORMANCE tab, then the FILE SYSTEM button and then the HARD DISK tab. Change the settings here to see if it will help you. From the VIRTUAL MEMORY button you can see if the system is set up to let Windows manage your virtual memory. If this setting has been changed to specify a different setting, it might be slowing your computer down. I only use the "specify my own settings" if I have a fast second hard disk that I only use for virtual memory.



It doesn't appear that you are running a anti-virus program, from what is listed in your CONTROL-ALT-DELETE list. If you aren't, please get one. You might have a virus.



I'm using AVG 6. 0 - it is available for free from http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.html





Hope this helps



Doc

 

[E7mack96]

did that gateway come with a 5400 rpm drive , and at what data transfer rate? . I updated an old compaq 5190 with a maxtor 45 gig drive and a pci ultra ata/100 card. I run Me as well. This thing runs great. bootup is very fast too. Gateway usually uses a slow hard drive, and at 66mhz. Upgrade to 100 mhz card and fly.

 

[Power Wagon]

Several good things have been mentioned. . . but, here's a rundown list...



1. Scan for viruses. More than one of them kills you by eating your free memory.



2. Convert your virtual memory to a "fixed" size. You do this in the control panel. Done it in ME, but dont' recall the particulars, as I don't use ME. Letting windows manage it's own swap isn't good, as it constantly adjusts the size and content.



3. Shut off all the little icons that load across the bottom of your screen. Some of them pre-load entire applications into ram to make them start quickly.



4. Defrag the hard drive



5. Get more ram.



BTW, don't bother with more than 384 megs of ram for ME or 98. The memory management system does not deal with it correctly, and may result in slower performance and instability.



Last resort: Reinstall.

Microsoft reccomends reinstallation of most versions of windows in less than a year for the average user. Sounds brain dead? I didn't make it up, it's their word, not mine.

 

[dmurdock]

ME is definitely one of the weaker offerings from Microsoft. However, it can be made to run ok. If your not computer literate, stay away from Linux, it's not quite ready for prime time yet (I love it, but I deal with computers/software all day, so I'm used to it). There's always a thorn in the bunch, and I guess I'll be it. 128 meg of ram is plenty for what your talking about. Without seeing the system in person, I only have ideas, some of which you can address, some of which you have to live with.



1-Most likely your motherboard has 1 ide channel, and the cd-rom and hard drive are sharing it. Since cd-roms are a lot slower than hard drives, the channel reverts to the slowest of all the "devices" which are attached to it. I've seen many dells set up like this. Unfortunately, this is one you have to live with (if it is indeed the case).



2-To follow up on pw's suggestion, right click on "my computer", click on "performance", click on "virtual memory". If you stick with 128 meg of ram, choose a setting somewhere around 150% of this, (ie:, say 200). There are 2 entries, one for minimum, one for maximum, set both to the same number (ie:200). This will "fix" the size of your virtual memory (which is just hard drive space your computer uses just like it was ram) and keep it from getting defragmented. After doing, this, you will have to reboot. After re-booting, defragment the hard drive (as has already been explained). This will put the virtual memory file in one spot all together on the hard disk, and will improve performance (to a degree).



3-You didn't mention it, but what OS are you using at work? This is getting off base, but you can run NT Workstation and it will be as fast or faster than 95/98/me, and rock stable. Although it's drawback is that it's not quite as user friendly as 95/98/me.



4- do a search for a freeware program call "end it all" or "enditall" (can't remember how they title it). You can launch it and it will kill all non-necessary processes which may be running behind your back. You can do this to get a feel if this is what's causing your problem. If so, then as mentioned above you can use msconfig to permanently turn off stuff you don't need.



5-Boot time: Depending on the hardware you have installed, this can take a while, but is really more dependent on the motherboard bios and chipset than the operating system, so I wouldn't worry about it so much. Some motherboards are lot more MS friendly than others. Also, if you have a cd in the cd-rom or a scanner/printer etc. . hooked up (and powered on), the OS needs time to communicate with all these devices and get "in sync" (not really, but good enough for this explanation), so these can slow the boot process.



If you have other questions, just post'em here, you'll get plenty of answers (and maybe even one will be right )

 

[DaveN]

Update-

Well, I went through and deleted all sort of crap(the six different internet services, all the garbage on my desktop, etc. ). That helped it quite a bit, it freed up about 20% of my resources. I appreciate everyone's help, it's definitely better. I'm going to still try to tweak it out (try out all the other more techincal suggestions) but from the sounds of it I have a mass produced non optimized system that has some limitations. I think that some of the reasons why I'm not seeing the performace I have at work is that we have a pretty good IS department, I'm sure they have everything tweaked. (we're running wondows 98 at work for the person who asked... . ) I do think I'm going to try more memory, since it's so cheap.



Again, thanks everyine for the help!

 

[JR2]

What do you gurus think of the programs that free up memeory, like memory turbo or similar??

 

[dmurdock]

memturbo

I read what it does, and I don't think you'd notice any difference between running this application and just re-booting. The main problem with applications (not just for windows, but in general), is depending on how they are coded (written/designed, etc... ), they may not give memory or resources back when you shut them down (this is known as a memory leak).





Here's another program which does all of the above plus a lot more, and it's free:



here's the link to read about it/download it...



http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%3D1478%26a%3D13909,00.asp





Here's a real watered down explanation on this memory situation:





Basically, a memory leak is a condition in which a program (say Word) demands some memory from the OS (say windows). When you are finished using word, you shut it down. At this point, word is supposed to free (give back) the memory it was using so something else can use it. Sometimes it doesn't. So, now word is not running, but the memory is still "checked out". Almost all programs suffer from this, some more than others. Contrary to popular belief, most of the micro$oft applications manage memory quite well, perhaps because some of the operating systems (os's) they run on (windows95/98) manage memory so poorly .





Now here's what I consider even more important for ya'll to understand. .



System Resources!!



Adding ram has NO (read 0) effect on system resource usage. System resources are pre-defined amounts of memory set aside for 5 basic underlying processes. There is mainly 1 you can control, that is the GDI process, or the process which monitors/controls everything you see. The GDI process doesn't keep that pretty picture on your desktop in memory, it just keeps track of WHAT pretty picture you have on your desktop. If you have 50 icons on your desktop, it is keeping track of all 50. Other things it "keeps track of" are what fonts you have loaded, what cursor you use, etc... . All of this stuff is necessary to keep track of, but you can reduce it's workload by "cleaning up" the desktop. Another process (not the GDI), keeps track of all the programs you have running in the taskbar (all those icons over on the bottom right by the clock). If you have applications running in there which don't need to be running, turn them off. Two of the biggest resource hogs I've seen are Comet Cursor and Weatherbug. You can usually kill these programs by right-clicking on them and going through the menu, looking for something to uncheck like 'start automatically', etc...





What ram WILL help you with...



For an analogy, we can say that "system resources" are your filing system and your address book. Your hard drive is your filing cabinet. RAM is how much deskspace you have. Virtual memory is "temp" folder in your filing cabinet.



The more ram you have, the more junk you have on your desk at a time. Now the faster the processor you have (read brain), the faster you can switch between one thing on your desk and another. However, once you have used up all your deskspace (ram), you have to take something off of your desk and put it in a temporary spot until you are ready to get back to it (put it back on your desk/back into ram) or file it away (put it back in the filing cabinet/hard drive).



This also gives an admittedly bad example of why tons of ram really won't help you that much (if you are using windows 95/98/me). Going from a school desk to an executive desk would really help out (say going from 32mb ram to 128 or even 256). However, going from an executive desk to say a desk the size of a basketball court could actually slow you down. That's because you can't manage all of this space, and you would spend half your time getting up and walking to the other side of your desk to get something. This is the problem the windows 95/98/me family has, it is a poor manager of ram. Now windows nt/2000/xp (all basically versions of windows nt) are all pretty good managers of ram, and the more you give them the happier they are.

 

[mdlowry]

Linux--What now?

Originally posted by Eventer
6) And finally, upgrade to Linux. Your computer will scream! (Edit: I meant respond faster not scream in agony!)

Good luck!

I recently removed Mac OS 9 and replaced it with Yellow Dog Linux. I agree! Much faster! Now I just need to learn more about it. I've not had any experience with Linux (or Unix), and am looking for some more info.

Michael