problems
Willy Saul Zamler
I'm having a hard time with my computer.
It's extremly slow.
it's a 400 Mhz, with 128 M sdramm pc100 ...
and even my housemate'c computer, a good old 386 with half a meg of memory
ok, maybe more) is faster than mine.
it's not the cpu, cause I tried with my old one, it's not the memory since i
tried the old one as well as friend's memory, and there's still something
wrong.
could anyone help me to figure this out?
or even come over here to help me to fix it?
Thanks.
--
Willy Saul Zamler
wza...@trentu.ca
ICQ # 33060167
Jeff McLeod
Jeff McLeod <hi...@blaze.trentu.ca>
http://blaze.trentu.ca/~hijem
Trent University
____________________________________________________________
Very funny Scotty ... NOW BEEM DOWN MY CLOTHES
- Cpt. J.T. Kirk
____________________________________________________________
.sig = advice.sig
Jeff McLeod
running (may be some you don't need) as well you might want to check your
conventional mem and what resides on himem.
Derek Martin
reformatted, and now it's all good. Also, make sure in your bios (hold
delete key when rebooting to get to the bios) that your processor speed says
400 mhz, not 266 or something silly like that.
Jeff McLeod <hi...@trentu.ca> wrote in message
news:Pine.ULT.3.96.99110...@blaze.trentu.ca...
kbon...@ivory.trentu.ca
Hrmph...this got me to thinkin' about how slow my computer has been lately too.
Although your advice seems worthwhile, its a little vague. How does one figure
out which background processes are unnecessary? And (I feel like I should know
this one) what are optimal memory settings? Where can i find this stuff out?
Tell me please! :)
Kellie
>..sig = advice.sig
>
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
<kbon...@ivory.trentu.ca> wrote:
>How does one figure
>out which background processes are unnecessary?
Well, I suppose you could start by figuring out what programs you're
loading at startup, and then deciding if you really need 'em. MS Office,
for instance, will throw up its own little toolbar for you, sometimes.
Not that anyone here is likely to have the hundreds of dollars necessary
to purchase Office 2000 in any of its progressively bigger and more
expensive packagings.
(insert a comment from Andre about piracy here)
>And (I feel like I should know
>this one) what are optimal memory settings?
The rule is still to throw everything up into high memory, but you
probably don't have to worry about that until you start loading DOS
drivers for your mouse and CD drive -- I don't think you can control where
anything else ends up, anyway.
If you've got more than one actual disk drive, see if you can move your
virtual memory file to the disk that gets less action. That's about it,
aside, of course, from buying more. Anyone else has memory-tweak tips wrt
Windows, I'd love to hear 'em.
I was editing a giant image file the other week -- something like 720 by
14400, at 32 bpp -- and it was depressing how the ol' P166 with 32MB of
RAM just bogged down and swapped. Brought back *real bad* memories of my
486-2/66 with 4 meg.
>Where can i find this stuff out?
There used to be magazines published for microcomputer hobbyists that
discussed this sort of thing. Good luck finding a good general computing
magazine these days. They're either aimed at business, newbies, or
gamers. The first two will consist of pages and pages of ads with
articles that consist mainly of reprinted press releases and discussions
of how slow and obsolete the computer you bought last month is, but never
any real detail as to why. The gamer mags are focused solely on games, of
course, and are thus also very concerned with new hardware. PC Gamer is
pretty sane about this sort of thing, being perhaps the best, but it's
still not a *general* computing magazine (cf the old Compute!, for
instance, or Byte, when it was still fat).
--Eric Smith
(Oh, lord, another good-old-days rant. Watch me wax nostalgic over
Gopher!)
Derek Martin
(in control panel, system, performance, virtual memory) or you should set it
to twice the amount of your RAM... that is, if you have 64 meg ram, set it
to 128 meg virtual memory.
Also, under file system, go to hard disk, and change the computer role to
desktop server... if you have a celeron or p2, this should increase
performance a bit....
BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is to run a "thorough scandisk" and disk
defragmenter as often as possible (weekly at least) AND to reformat your
computer as often as you feel manageable (i'm thinking of making it a
monthly ritual).... You wouldn't believe the amount of speed difference this
made for my system.... my 450 felt like a 266 until i did them :)
Derek
Bonnie MacKinnon (705)748-1495 <bmack...@ivory.trentu.ca> wrote in message
news:FKwxvx.70...@news.trentu.ca...
> Sounds to me like a job for TFLOP!!! /Bonnie
>
> In article <FKwt0u.7o...@news.trentu.ca>, kbon...@ivory.trentu.ca
writes:
> >
> >Hrmph...this got me to thinkin' about how slow my computer has been
lately too.
> >Although your advice seems worthwhile, its a little vague. How does one
figure
> >out which background processes are unnecessary? And (I feel like I should
know
> >this one) what are optimal memory settings? Where can i find this stuff
out?
> >
Bonnie MacKinnon (705)748-1495
Jeff McLeod
An excellent website for pc's is http://www.mkdata.dk/
"A complete illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware"
It would be even more interesting if I had graphics instead of lynx.
Let me know how you like it and if it answers your questions.
On Tue, 9 Nov 1999 kbon...@ivory.trentu.ca wrote:
>
> Hrmph...this got me to thinkin' about how slow my computer has been lately too.
> Although your advice seems worthwhile, its a little vague. How does one figure
> out which background processes are unnecessary? And (I feel like I should know
> this one) what are optimal memory settings? Where can i find this stuff out?
^
Hadean Dragon
problem... Have you tried running stuff under DOS? Get a copy of, say,
Quake or some other game with a shareware version (that runs in DOS), skip
Windows by using F8 at the "Starting Windows 98" prompt, try playing the
game and see how fast it is compared to your housemate's computer... If it
runs fine, then a reinstall is in order, since Windows is prolly FUBARed if
it's going that slow (Windows is FUBARed normally, but that would be really
really FUBARed... ;-p )
If software doesn't seem to work, and you're not scared of hardware, try
removing all but your hard drive and video card (even removing floppy, etc.)
and see how it runs then... if it's still slow, there's only three choices
left ;-) (now I know why I hate computers... and love 'em at the same
time... argh, aacckckkk)
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Derek Martin <dcma...@trentu.ca> wrote:
>to reformat your
>computer as often as you feel manageable
Shouldn't be necessary if you're defragging -- it'll come to the same thing.
Here's a fun thing to try, though: drop to MS-DOS mode every now and then,
CD to \WINDOWS\TEMP, and do a DEL *.* to get rid of all of the temp files
that misbehaving programs didn't dispose of properly. I had 30 meg lying
around in there a few weeks ago (mostly a legacy of some heavy image
editing). That'll clear up the disk for more goodies as well as the swap
file (assuming that its size changes -- I dunno how Win95 manages it).
>(i'm thinking of making it a
>monthly ritual)
What backup media are you using?
I'm leaning toward CD-RW myself, on the theory that, though I'd have to swap
disks, they'd be cheaper per meg than tape (wouldn't they? hmmm...). CD-RW
are rated for a finite number of read-erase cycles before they stop working,
but then so's magnetic tape (was it Bart Domzy or Richard Hurley who found
out, rather too late, that he'd been making useless backups of his Sun
because the tape was stretched?).
--Eric Smith
Jeff A. Kolesnikowicz
> >to reformat your
> >computer as often as you feel manageable
>
> Shouldn't be necessary if you're defragging -- it'll come to the same thing.
Not really - I find it's a great idea to clear that bad-ass registry...get
rid of temp files that are hidden in the \windows\system directory...lose
all the other windows magic that is installed
I found that doing a "format c: yes" once every 3 months or so does magic
for windoze.
of course I put all important on another harddrive or a seperate
partition so I don't kill everything
Cleaning out the temp dir only does so much good - I discover hundreds of
megs of useless crap when I format c: yes and reinstall the stuff I need
(Don'tcha hate most of those uninstall programs? They Never work properly
- there's always stuff left over afterwards and if you uninstall enough
programs , you have a good portion of your hard drive taken up by useless
dead programs - these prorograms usualy exist in the windows\system dir so
that you can't tell what to delete and what to keep - that's my rant)
--jeff
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Jeff A. Kolesnikowicz <cs...@trentu.ca> wrote:
[> Eric Smith wrote:]
>> Shouldn't be necessary if you're defragging -- it'll come to the same thing.
>I discover hundreds of
>megs of useless crap when I format c: yes and reinstall the stuff I need
Ah, well, much of the stuff I need, I've downloaded. I don't have the
installers lying around, either, so I guess this makes your strategy a
non-starter for me. Oh, well. A crappy Windows experience just keeps me on
my path to Linux, anyway, so it's not as though I'm suffering to no end.
--Eric Smith
Jeff
On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal wrote:
> In article <FKwyAH.Ls...@news.trentu.ca>,
> Derek Martin <dcma...@trentu.ca> wrote:
>
> >to reformat your
> >computer as often as you feel manageable
>
> Shouldn't be necessary if you're defragging -- it'll come to the same thing.
>
> Here's a fun thing to try, though: drop to MS-DOS mode every now and then,
> CD to \WINDOWS\TEMP, and do a DEL *.* to get rid of all of the temp files
^
I think this is even funner putting this line in autoexec.bat will take
care of your temp dir every time you reboot
echo Y | del c:\windows\temp\*.*
> that misbehaving programs didn't dispose of properly. I had 30 meg lying
> around in there a few weeks ago (mostly a legacy of some heavy image
> editing). That'll clear up the disk for more goodies as well as the swap
> file (assuming that its size changes -- I dunno how Win95 manages it).
>
> >(i'm thinking of making it a
> >monthly ritual)
>
> What backup media are you using?
>
> I'm leaning toward CD-RW myself, on the theory that, though I'd have to swap
> disks, they'd be cheaper per meg than tape (wouldn't they? hmmm...). CD-RW
> are rated for a finite number of read-erase cycles before they stop working,
> but then so's magnetic tape (was it Bart Domzy or Richard Hurley who found
> out, rather too late, that he'd been making useless backups of his Sun
> because the tape was stretched?).
>
> --Eric Smith
>
>
Jeff, P.A., and Jesse McLeod <jmc...@trentu.ca>
http://blaze.trentu.ca/~hijem
Trent University
_______________________________________________________________
Very funny, Scotty... Now beam down my clothes!
-Capt. J.T. Kirk
_______________________________________________________________
.sig file = advice.txt;1
Derek Martin
image of your brand new drive (and can span CDRs)... so to reinstall, you
just copy the image over :) It's sooo fast and good.... Win98SE with all
drivers for my stuff installed takes only 210Meg, and you can format and
transfer the image over and have a new clean running system in a half hour
:) Soooo gooood....
Jeff <jmc...@trentu.ca> wrote in message
news:Pine.PMDF.3.96.99110...@trentu.ca...
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Derek Martin <dcma...@trentu.ca> wrote:
>Well, I use CDR... in cooperation with Norton Ghost, which makes a bootable
>image of your brand new drive (and can span CDRs)... so to reinstall, you
>just copy the image over :)
Yeah, that'd be perfect for this application: get your bare system set up
the way you like, and then essentially clone it to disk, whence it may
return as often as you like.
But you'd have to do your original backup first thing after installing only
your "bare" system, though, because otherwise you'd just be backing up the
useless cruft (in, say, the registry) that you're trying to get rid of.
Ah, too many good things require planning ahead...
--Eric Smith
(Where'd you get Ghost, btw, and for how much?)