Thinkpads Forum

Since I have an X60 I'll post my question here to begin with, but maybe it belongs in an entirely other forum.

I'm hoping a more computer-savy person may be able to help.

Running X60 with XP Pro. Haven't updated any Thinkpad software for a few months (used to update regularly but ran into prodlems with bugs in an update and spent a few days fixing that; now I leave it alone if everything runs fine).

Within the past 2 days the X60 has gone from being quick to being so slow it's useless. To give an example, it takes 6 minutes to load Firefox or Explorer. Obviously something is not right. I ran PC Doctor, where everything pased. I ran a virus scan and it was clean. I defragged the harddrive.

It worked fine after that, which was yesterday. Normal shutdown last night. This morning it's doing the exact same thing.

Anyone has advice on where to look? Maybe a fresh start is necessary?

Interesting, how many processes do you have running? (when its working quickly vs. slowly)
Download CCleaner, and have that give your system a sweep, I know it frequently cleans up a lot of junk I have on my laptop.
Or, if your able to back things up try downloading some updates (if they are 'critical') and see if that helps. Or always just do a reinstall, and have a fresh start!

I use CCcleaner regularly and run it probably once a week. It is the most updated version I have.

After a slow start up I have 75 processes running with an average of 52% CPU usage. None of the processes seem suspicious, and I have checked those I was unsure of.

I am not a tech guru, but my only assumption is that something is hiding in the computer somewhere; something that is not supposed to be there. I only assume this because the CPU usage seems unusually high with no applications running and it has become extremely slow.

I run CA Security Suite with an active firewall and don't download nasty things.

I'd hate to have to wipe everything clean, but maybe that's necessary.

You could be right (regarding the hidden system bug).
I am not that big of a tech guy, but there are others here that are tech geniuses and I'm sure they may have a better idea/solution than wiping it clean (hopefully at least!).

I would do a RESTORE using a point just before you noticed the slowdown. If that doesn't work, then full Windows reload is probably necessary. I find a semi-annual reload of Windows XP Pro, usually keeps my computers running in top shape. Kinda like spring cleaning.

I guess a full restore would be beneficial. My BT hasn't worked for nearly a year since my X60 fell on its right, forward corner. Now that my dissertation is done I don't even want to look at my computer for a few weeks anyway.

I'll try to run HijackThis and see if it finds anything unusual. Otherwise, it's spring cleaning time.

Have you installed anything recently? Maybe it's a conflict of some sort.

Theoretically, it could be a defect with the fan making it run hot and then the cpu throttling down. Much more likely your are involuntarily participating in a zombie network and peddling penis pills as we speak

Trolle wrote:I only assume this because the CPU usage seems unusually high with no applications running and it has become extremely slow.

Have a look in the Windows Task Manager, on the Processes tab, and see which process, or processes, are consuming CPU capacity. With XP Pro SP3, I have 84 processes loaded on the M52 desktop I am typing this message on, but they are only consuming about 1% of CPU capacity.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Also try this:

1) Right-click "My Computer"
2) Choose "Manage"
3) Choose "Event Viewer"
4) Choose "System"

Look for any alerts with red triangles.

Often a hardware failure (either disk, RAM, or network) can cause a slowdown, as the operating system repeatedly tries to recover.

I had an issue where System Update messed up my network drivers. The system would work, but would keep failing when trying to access the Ethernet port at startup, and generate 1000's of error log entries.

You may have way too many temporary files. Check your Explorer cache sizes and settings. Up to IE7, Microsoft settings for cache were a default 1Gb and if full, could drag any machine to its knees.
... JDH

Well my X60 has only 24 processes, processor @ 0% (mostly) unless I'm running things like Photoshop Elements.
See whats running at 52% - it might be your defrag program thinking its a quiet time to do it's thing. Or the anti-virus doing a full system scan.