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]

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]

Originally Posted by PrairieDawg

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]

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

[Psycho101]

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]

Originally Posted by wazza300

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Chike

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??):
New build cold boot problem

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]

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?