XP: Suddenly gone sluggish and choppy.

[goobimama]

Not really sure what's wrong with my system. It's suddenly gone sluggish and choppy. Almost like the system has downgraded to a Pentium II.

Even the startup sound is choppy. I can hardly watch a movie without it skipping frames. If I launch any program, the music stops, the mouse goes unresponsive and only after the program has (finally) loaded, does the system resume.

So any idea what's going on with my system? Cause this very problem has happened before and in the past I've just reinstalled Windows. But I'm tired of constantly reinstalling it so if there is any solution at hand, it would be really appreciated.

I have NOD32 antivirus installed and it doesn't detect anything. Disk defragmentation is also done on startup disk.

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Post your task manager process list snapshop. Maybe some process is the culprit. Also, is your system a laptop or a box? if on laptop, check whether the high performance power profile is selected. I had a lot of headache previously because of this, i thought my hardware has gone kaput but its my brother who selected battery saver profile while power was out and it reduced my proccy from 1.6 to 900 something MHZ.

[goobimama]

Pentium 4 3Ghz Desktop
512*2 DDR400 RAM.
7900GT 256MB graphics
120GB 7200rpm HDD.

CPU usage in Task Manager always very healthy (idle process normally 97% and such)

Ah. Also, I forgot to mention. I sometimes get a "Data Execution Prevention" message by Windows Explorer. Then it gives a bye bye message "Windows Explorer is not responding." with the End Task button. Clicking the end task button restarts Windows Explorer (and not Windows itself).

Here's a screeny of Task Manager:

[praka123]

pagefile.sys may be set manually to 1GB may it help also,multiple accounts are there?that too may add the burden.
but,if it is a sudden lose of performance,chances are that ur windows is not getting enough memory for execution(I know that u may be having 4GB of RAM though)

Look at system information and for conflicting things.

[Batistabomb]

Data Execution Prevention is a safeguard in WinXP where the OS denies access to a program if it tries to run code from a memory area which is previously declared either as data area or belongs to another program.

Try to increase the page file size

This could also indicate a virus infection on your PC. Scan with AVG / Avast (my choice) or whatever anti-virus is installed on your PC. Scan in Safe-Mode if possible.

[infra_red_dude]

Also post the HiJackThis log file. Secondly, try to disable DEP. Refer here: http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips566.html

Third, remove the manual page file setting and instead let the system manage it.

[CyCo]

though it doesnt show, but if u have installed 2 anti virus softws that could happen ...

One thing u cd do is goto start -> run -> msconfig -> startup and then tick off everything except for antivirus and the programs u want at startup. This generally helps a lot.

[Krazy_About_Technology]

^ he doesn't seem to have more than one antivirus on his system. looking at his process list, i think only nod32 antivirus is running (ekrn.exe) . There is no suspicious looking program running. I think the problem is because of something else, maybe the pagefile and DEP thing as others have said.

[max_demon]

The Safari and the iTunes Program are the problem , they are taking unusual MB of RAM

also post log of Hijackthis

Nero indexing service is also suspecious

[ravi_9793]

1) chk for bad sector
2) In task manager, find which process is eating most memory.
3) remove all external devices.

Also post the perfomance in safe mode..and safe mode with networking.

[goobimama]

Thing is, I've been running this exactly the same way for all these days without any problems. I'm sure iTunes and Safari won't suddenly jack up the RAM usage. And the problem is there while loading windows itself, cause the startup sound itself is jerky.

Anyway, I tried booting in Safe mode, removed all external devices. Removed the sound card. Checked for bad sectors. Everything checks out perfect. I reinstalled XP on a different partition and it's running faster than my three legged dog (which runs pretty fast, I might add). I guess I'll stick to the new installation of XP and migrate from the old one, deleting it in the end.

Thanks a lot for the help. Appreciated.

[praka123]

you may not be able to trouble shoot rectify every problems in closed source OS's like windows or mac.so the obvious solution for every major incident is the script:delete,format-reinstall {no offense}

But with a Linux or BSD distro,u dont have to reinstall or even reboot for most changes!

[goobimama]

Yeah, but Linux doesn't support my sound card and is not the best at playing High Def, so I'm a little lost there...

[praka123]

^Hope Goa LUG guys be there to help you.or even better IRC chat in freenode @ #ubuntu will mean total resolution of ur problems.most cards are supported,it is,with some cards that u have to tinker with!

[goobimama]

The guys at Goa LUG have been dying to get Linux on my system!

I asked around, the Auzentech X-plosion is definitely not supported by Linux... at least without any serious tinkering...

[praka123]

@goobi:a simple google-linux search showed that ur card comes under
C-Media cards.I think,ur card can be made working,if ur ready to spare some time .ALSA seems to support it.

Give some details from ur Windows system regarding which chipset to be precise it uses,so that a modprobe module and some editing in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa helps u to enjoy ur card under Linux

OK.your card is in the supported list as the chipset of ur card is "C-Media CMI8770 PCI chipset (8CH audio single chip with DTS® Connect and Dolby® Digital Live Real-Time Content Encoder)"
and in ALSA(advanced linux sound architecture) page,urs is shown supported!
(CMI8770)
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...:Module-cmipci
so that means some tinkering..esp with the help from ALSA or other linux chat rooms in IRC

AND....if u still have ubuntu,try running(alt+f2) gksudo gedit /etc/modules and add "snd-cmipci" in first of a new line and save exit.also,try in a terminal, "sudo modprobe snd-cmipci" and now in terminal run "alsamixer" and see any response

Sound HOWTO:
__________________________________________________ ___________
OK.Goobi.am trying to help you,provided you also try!
i am just copying from alsa-page here:
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/ind...:Module-cmipci

First I suppose,ur using Ubuntu.
Now,
press alt+f2 to get a "run" dialog.inside you run:

gksudo gedit /etc/modules.conf

and in the file,add below lines as exactly:

soundcore

# ALSA portion
 alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
 alias snd-card-1 snd-cmipci
 options snd-cmipci id="first" mpu_port=0x330
       
# OSS/Free portion
  alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
  alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

save and exit.

again,press alt+f2 to get a "run" dialog.inside you run:

gksudo gedit /etc/modutils/alsa

and add below codes:

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-cmipci
# module options should go here
       
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

save and exit.
now again,press alt+f2 to get a "run" dialog.inside you run:

gedit ~/.asoundrc

and add below lines:

   pcm.cmipci {
      type hw
      card 0
      }
       
  ctl.cmipci {
      type hw
      card 0
      }

save and exit.now close all ur applications in ur ubuntu Gnome Desktop and open a terminal(in menu Applications>Accsrs>terminal) and run below command:

sudo telinit 1

^^^dont panic when Display(X) shuts down and after few seconds showing u a screen with "Press CTRL+D or enter root password".
^Once above screen is shown with a prompt,
PRESS CTRL+D to have the system running to init 2.login and open sound mixer(the loud speaker icon) by right clicking "unmuting" and "Open Volume control" to unmute Master,PCM,surround(important) etc so that the audio is acceptible for u.Try and report back.

AND FYI:

Originally Posted by ubuntu forums

Q: Are Auzentech Soundcards compatible with Linux?
A: Auzentech soundcards have limited compatibility with Linux. C-Media, our chipset manufacturer, has released the Linux driver for 8738, 8768, and 8770 chipsets. However, the driver does not support Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive. According to C-Media, Dolby and DTS do not intend to open their source for Linux OS. You can download the Linux Driver for CMI8738, 8768+, and 8770 from the Alsa Project:

^TRY!anyways!
we may be lucky to enable Dolby/DTS with OSS drivers as per ubuntu forums.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=236826
We'll see it later.try and reply!

[goobimama]

Awright. I'll give linux a shot then. I suppose I could drop in Ubuntu on one of the partitions just to see how it goes...

Btw, DTS encoding is the reason I got this card...still, I guess it is worth a try.

[infra_red_dude]

Sorry for digging the Windows part again but seems like DMA is disabled or the SaTA/IDE controller drivers are messed up. Check in device manager.

[goobimama]

^^ Will do. How would I know if the IDE controller is messed up?

[praka123]

^see System Information(in menu...systemtools? (forgot path!)
look at devicemanager!

[infra_red_dude]

Goto Start > Run type devmgmt.msc and expand the hard disk and the ide/sata hard disk controllers entry. Check if there is any problem. Also, in the hard disk drive entry check if DMA has been disabled.