Help!, Slow, Slow, Slow

katie84 · 26 Dec 2008 at 13:25

Hi,

I'm at my parents over Christmas (lucky me), and my Dad has been complaining his PC is very slow, and goodness me, it is.

Initially, it "hangs" on the Asus screen when booting up, then eventually (c.5 mins) boots up, but every process seems laboured.

The CPU was operating around 60% when idle, but when checking the task manager, there's nothing out of the ordinary happening.

I've done a virus scan, ad aware scan, cleared down all his temp files and a defrag, and it's still really slow.

Can anyone advise me further? for the record he has 4GB ram, an AMD64 6000 processor, and a 320 GB HDD, of which he has used around 80GB.

It's running Vista HE.

Thank you xx

MarcLister · 26 Dec 2008 at 13:28

Is there anything set to load up in Windows, such as antivirus, firewalls etc? Might explain the long boot up.

And is the CPU running hot? You can probably find out the CPU temp in the BIOS.

How long does the Asus screen hang for? Latest BIOS? Perhaps re-flash the BIOS?

katie84 · 26 Dec 2008 at 13:33

Hi, it hangs on the ASUS screen for ages - 4-5 mins or so.

The computer constantly makes the noise you hear when it's doing something.

The only things that startup are AVG, Windows Defender and WIndows Explorer.

gillywibble · 26 Dec 2008 at 13:36

Definitely check temps. Could be an overheating issue. Might be worthwhile seeing if the CPU and PSU fans appear to be spinning properly.

katie84 · 26 Dec 2008 at 13:37

Ok, will do, thanks

katie84 · 26 Dec 2008 at 14:03

Sorted the hanging at the bootup - for some reason, the BIOS was set to bootup from the DVD drive first, then the HDD - I switched that and it fires up well (I think he had a windows error and had previously booted up from his disk).

It's just the processes I need to sort now, I only have the internet running and AVG on, and the CPU is running at c.80%.

TheVoice · 26 Dec 2008 at 14:08

80 degrees is very hot. Might be worth opening the PC up and clearing out any dusts that has accumulated on the fans and on the CPU cooler.

MarcLister · 26 Dec 2008 at 14:58

4-5 minutes is a mental time. Even for DVD/HDD booting. Glad you got that sorted.

80oC is really very high. I would have thought even default cooling on a modern CPU anything over 55 or even 50 is worrying. Especially with it being quite cool out.

Duke · 26 Dec 2008 at 15:07

80% load or 80oC temp?

katie84 · 26 Dec 2008 at 15:33

In "Task Manager", CPU Usage is c.70%, whilst checking the bios, the CPU temperature was over 90oC!

hegemon · 26 Dec 2008 at 15:43

katie84 said:
The CPU was operating around 60% when idle, but when checking the task manager, there's nothing out of the ordinary happening.

60% CPU use at idle is very much out of the ordinary, find out which processes are are using the CPU in the task manager and investigate or take a screenshot and post it here.