Slow computer - CPU?

[joydivision]

I replaced the hard drive on a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB RAM and the client is complaining its still slow. The old drive was full of bad sectors.

It seems to take too long to boot and it takes several seconds to load IE, its a clean install and only MSE is running. Its a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB RAM, I know this is not state of the art but on a clean install and a brand new system it should run a lot quicker. Sometimes the HD light stays on solid. There are no problems in event viewer. I have swapped the RAM and no difference. I have changed the IDE cables - no difference.

The fan is spinning quite fast and I have noticed the heatsink is stone cold and the CPU temperature is running at 34c so something isn't right. I thought P4s ran hotter than that anyway. I suspect the heatsink isn't doing its job and the CPU is over heating, would this make it run so slow though?

Any other ideas? I am also going to test the PSU. I've charged my client £80 so far and in his eyes its not fixed it. He has been very nice and patient about it and I am willing to go to the extra mile to sort this. He kept aplogising and said its ok its just slow but I told him I am not happy with it as its not right.

If I can't fix it I have offered to fit a new motherboard and processor for free if he pays the parts.

What do others think the problem could be?

 

[iisjman07]

Try temporarily disabling (or uninstalling) MSE; I know a lot of techs like it but I personally found it to be bloated when I tried and I know some people who've had issues with CPU spikes/memory leaks. Try applying some good quality (something like Arctic Silver) thermal compound (paste) and see if that makes a difference, although personally I don't think this is the issue. A heatsink can't really fail AFAIK because it's 'just a hunk of metal'. I'd think about upgrading the RAM to 1 gig, I remember SP0 and SP1 worked alright on 256mb of ram, SP2 liked 512mb, but SP3 IMO should have a gig. My XP machine next to me ran terribly on 512mb of ram but I upped it to 2GB when I got bored and that sorted it out a treat

 

[joydivision]

Thought about MSE but I have installed on older machines without issue. And what could I replace it with AVG etc are just as bloated.

As for the RAM although I agree 1GB is better it shouldn't be the issue here as its only using 300MB anyway. The symptons are strange as it will just die for several minutes then come back to life. It does have this Rapport thing on it which is some kind of security software for online banking I suspect this with MSE may be causing some of the issues.

Something just dosn't feel right though. I've installed MSE on lots of these old machines and they haven't behaved like this.

 

[hondablaster]

What kind of P4 2.4 CPU is it. Each core has different potential and L2 cache sizes. CPU-Z?

Avira seems to run lite.

Do an HDtune performance test. Perhaps its just a slow HDD.

Even if you find the culprit @ 512mb its not going to be long before its a slo mo again. Can you recommend a RAM upgrade take some work of the file swap?
*Shrug*

 

[joydivision]

Actually CPU-Z is a brilliant idea, if I can post exactly what CPU it is maybe people can help me check the BIOS settings as I suspect that might be an issue.

I have already bought the 512MB to upgrade it to 1GB but then I found the original RAM is unbranded and PC21000 (not PC3200) so I suspected the RAM was holding things back. I replaced it with a single Kingston 3200 module.

 

[shamrin]

I'll bet you dollars to donuts it's MSE - it just doesn't like some older machines that only have 512MB RAM. I've stopped putting it on older low-spec machines because of this. Avira never fails to please on these type of situations.

If the heatsink isn't working it could conceivably be the CPU is the bottleneck. Intel chips are supposed to slow down (rather than burn up) when they get to hot.

/sch

 

[JosephLeo]

I once had an intel Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz and once it reached past 52 degrees celcius the computer would go from capable of playing Unreal Tournament 2004 at 60 frames per second- to a meager 15. So I think without a doubt the heat is the problem.

 

[joydivision]

Thanks I will try and sort that heatsink out on Sunday (its my Birthday so day off tomorrow!).

I assume they clock back while still running at the same clock speed?

The fan does make a noise like its over heating (e.g that constant revving sound). As mentioned the heatsink is stone cold too. I have already removed about 1 inch of dust from it but it made no difference.

I have MSE on another machine I am working on, Celeron 1.2 Ghz and 512MB SDRAM it runs a lot faster than this P4 but MSE is a major hog for it so I may replace it with Avira.

 

[vdub12]

Windows with all updates just does not run very well with only 512MB of ram.

I up sell almost every client with 512 or under.

Is the P4 an "HT" chip or just single core? Im sure its the ram. I would try and up sell a memory upgrade if they don't want it then I guess they will have to live with the performance.

 

[Martyn]

Just try some extra memory and see. Even if you think it doesn't need it Windows will grab it with both hands. Anyone running less than 1 gig gets that advice from me.

 

[NeutronTech]

Yeah, I've noticed too that 512 just isn't enough for XP anymore.

Oh and OP, MSE might very well be the issue. I don't really think the "problem" with it is limited to just older machines. I've installed it quite often because I do really like the program. But, I have had 3 or 4 computers, one vista, and the rest XP that acted like I was burning in the CPU when MSE was running.

One of those XP machines had 512 of ram and I threw in another 512 and the mysterious hard drive and cpu activity ceased. Put it back down to 512 meg, and back to slowsville. Some of the MSE processes are quite large and maybe it's depending too much on the swap file while scanning every file you access. Seems to me this could slow stuff down.

What I don't get is how another OLDER machine with only 256meg ram can run MSE without a problem. It really seems to be a selective problem. I just wish I could narrow it down to something specific. The only thing I have noticed is that when MSE gets out of control, the memory usage of the program skyrockets. But no clue what specifically causes it.

Could also be the CPU throttling back. Are there settings in the BIOS that are set to step the speed back at too low of a temperature? I'm not sure if there is any Windows software to modify the SpeedStep settings.

Not sure if you checked it or not, but check your Virtual Memory settings and make sure that it is set to be controled by the system. I've had a few in lately that was set to user control, and the amount of memory allocated as less than half that of the physical RAM. Should be 1.5 times the physical total. But you really want the system to manage it. You probably already know that though.

 

[joydivision]

As said above its a clean install so MSE out not to be doing much . I will remove it though. I realise 512MB is too little but all the system is doing is running firefox, MSE and windows.

 

[MobileTechie]

Use msconfig to stop all startups and non Ms services to narrow it down.

Then use performance monitor and counters to see if it's disk, memory, could or other.

More ram would be a good idea anyway.

 

[atlanticjim]

Use msconfig to stop all startups and non Ms services to narrow it down.

Then use performance monitor and counters to see if it's disk, memory, could or other.

More ram would be a good idea anyway.

Rather than hunting for the resource hogs by blindly disabling, use Process Explorer to eludicate the culprits. It is my first tool to boot off of USB when I get a primary complaint of slow performance.

"Process Explorer. . don't leave the shop without it"

Also check that the HD is NTFS and not FAT and also running UDMA and not PIO.

 

[KompuKare]

What hasn't been suggested is a Linux. If I am not 100% sure about the hardware, I like to actually install Ubuntu (I can always remove it afterward) and see if all the hardware works fine. If CPU-throttling continues in Ubuntu there's obviously something wrong with either the CPU and it's cooling.

Of course, just because something works in Linux doesn't mean there aren't problem (bad drivers etc. or even some device with Windows insists on initialising and Linux does not) but that way at least you know it's not bad hardware.

If Process Explorer does show high Hardware Interrupts usage, I'd disable almsot everything in the BIOS and see if that cures it. Also, there is this program for checking latency called DPC Latency Checker http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml which might prove handy.

 

[hondablaster]

Could you post what the Statistics for the commit charge look like in Windows Task Manager? Im just curious for my own knowledge.

 

[ComputingSolutions]

I replaced the hard drive on a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB RAM and the client is complaining its still slow. The old drive was full of bad sectors.

It seems to take too long to boot and it takes several seconds to load IE, its a clean install and only MSE is running. Its a P4 2.4Ghz with 512MB RAM, I know this is not state of the art but on a clean install and a brand new system it should run a lot quicker. Sometimes the HD light stays on solid. There are no problems in event viewer. I have swapped the RAM and no difference. I have changed the IDE cables - no difference.

The fan is spinning quite fast and I have noticed the heatsink is stone cold and the CPU temperature is running at 34c so something isn't right. I thought P4s ran hotter than that anyway. I suspect the heatsink isn't doing its job and the CPU is over heating, would this make it run so slow though?

Any other ideas? I am also going to test the PSU. I've charged my client £80 so far and in his eyes its not fixed it. He has been very nice and patient about it and I am willing to go to the extra mile to sort this. He kept aplogising and said its ok its just slow but I told him I am not happy with it as its not right.

If I can't fix it I have offered to fit a new motherboard and processor for free if he pays the parts.

What do others think the problem could be?

Take off the heat sink, clean the processor and heat sink from previous thermal compound and apply new thermal compound to reseat. P4 is slow in this multiprocessor core age. I'd suggest 1gb for 32bit XP and 2 for 32 bit Vista/Win7. If it's an older OS..they shouldn't be on the Interwebs..

He's better off buying a totally new computer than paying you to put in a new mobo/processor/parts.

With a new drive/install or whatever, I'm thinking winxp, but disable the effects and etc for performance?

 

[shamrin]

What hasn't been suggested is a Linux. If I am not 100% sure about the hardware, I like to actually install Ubuntu (I can always remove it afterward) and see if all the hardware works fine. If CPU-throttling continues in Ubuntu there's obviously something wrong with either the CPU and it's cooling.

This is a really good idea for sorting out hardware v software problems. I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on a 2GB flash drive and carry it everywhere now. Is it the DVD drive or the Windows drivers? Boot Ubuntu. Is it the sound card or the sound card drivers? Boot Ubuntu. Is the HDD dead or is it just that Windows can't read it? Boot Ubuntu. It's been super handy and carrying it on a flash drive is easier than installing/uninstalling.

/sch

 

[MobileTechie]

Rather than hunting for the resource hogs by blindly disabling, use Process Explorer to eludicate the culprits. It is my first tool to boot off of USB when I get a primary complaint of slow performance.

"Process Explorer. . don't leave the shop without it"

Also check that the HD is NTFS and not FAT and also running UDMA and not PIO.

I wouldn't say that was blindly disabling as such. I tend to approach troubleshooting with the first aim to define the area the problem is affecting and narrow it down. Doing a limited startup or just safe mode is a very efficient way of ruling in startup and services as being the problem. And then I go from there to see which specific example of these is the root cause.

 

[joydivision]

Still having no luck with this, stripped it down to basic services and it boots up quite quickly then it just slows down. It can take five minutes to open up control panel othertimes seconds. Process explorer doesn't really show much activity. It is a healthy system, the error logs are all clean too.

Tested the hard drive and its fine.

I am starting to think an overheating CPU running in 'limp' mode is the only explanation. Will swap the PSU too as the voltage readings are very high 12.6v on the 12v rail.