Sluggishness on T42 [edit: Problem Solved!]

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astros55 · #1 Post by **astros55** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:31 pm

I've been experiencing some random slowdowns on my T42 for the past week or so. It's really noticeable in that when I click the arrow on the notification area in the lower right of the screen, it slowly expands, then crawls back. Also, when I minimize a window, the minimize speed does not noticeably slow down, but the desktop icons reappearing do, kind of just quickly popping up, rather than just appearing like usual. Drop down menus in FF appear slowly. Fortunately, it doesn't affect anything enough to make it unusuable.

The slowdowns come and go periodically, even during the same session. It occurs/goes away whether I'm using wifi or ethernet; battery or AC; before or after standby; one or more programs are running or no programs are running (not counting the background processes); task manager doesn't show any unusual spiked or sustained use of resources.

I've run adaware/spybot. I haven't installed anything in a while.

Any ideas what's going on?

Thanks.

#2 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:52 pm

I suppose a few things could cause this problem.

AFAIK, AdAware and Spybot do not necessarily catch virus's. You need antivirus software for that. These days you can get a virus infection just by being connected to the internet. Everyone connected to the internet should be using a firewall to help prevent this. You ought to try running a virus scan - in Safe Mode preferably.

Having a hard disk on it's way out can cause slowdowns.

If you have any scheduled tasks, they might be running in the background at certain times. Check in Start > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks for any tasks or programs that may be set to run automatically. Even Windows Update can be a scheduled task.

Take a look in Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer for any error messages - particularly at the times you noticed the slowdowns. Also look for a file called userenv.log in the C:\WINDOWS\Debug\UserMode directory. You can open it in wordpad to view. This file usually shows up if Windows does not shutdown cleanly.

astros55 · #3 Post by **astros55** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 5:58 pm

Thanks for the suggestions. I forgot to mention that I'm running Symantic Client Firewall and Symantic Antivirus; I ran the AV, but not in Safe Mode. I might try that too.

Haven't looked at the event viewer or scheduled tasks, so I'll do that when I get back later tonight.

Of course, the hard disk possibility you mentioned is pretty scary. Any thing else I would look for if that were it?

#4 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 6:12 pm

astros55 wrote:Of course, the hard disk possibility you mentioned is pretty scary. Any thing else I would look for if that were it?

Look for any SMART or ATAPI errors in event viewer. You can also run drive fitness test. See this page for more info.

#5 Post by **Kyocera** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 6:29 pm

Event viewer is a great tool to check for problems, I also check CPU usage if some wierd thing starts happening, in the past there were some spyware, malwares that would cause the cpu to stay at 100% even when doing minimal tasks.

fschwep · #6 Post by **fschwep** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 2:20 pm

If you are running Symantec Firewall and Symantec (Norton) Antivirus in the background constantly, that by itself could be the cause of some slowdown. Symantec products are known to be very resource-hungry.
I would suggest deinstalling the Symantec products and using another firewall, such as ZoneAlarm (first download ZA while Symantec is still running of course

). I also have my doubts about AV software that runs constantly. I don't let it do that, but I do regular manual scans. Better to use non-MS software for browsing and e-mail (I saw you use FireFox; next stage is to give up on Outlook and use some serious email software like The Bat, which even in its older versions is very capable). There have also been one or two threads in the general forum about which processes to deactivate to speed up your TP.
Also consider doing a good defrag on your harddisk (in spite of the above, I do use Norton Systemworks for that, and I select the Windows swapfile to be set at the beginning of the disk). Also set the minimum and maximum size for your Windows swapfile to be identical (for instance, 1 GB, or twice the amount of RAM installed), so it can be defragged into one continuous large file.
If you have Norton Systemworks or similar software available, let it check for discrepancies in the Windows registry (first empty the waste bin and delete the list of recent files in Windows). There may be some faulty registry entries that cause the machine to search for files it cannot find. And of course, switch off all auto-update functions of any software (including Windows itself).

Just my two cents...

astros55 · #7 Post by **astros55** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 4:08 pm

Here's what I have done since the last time.

I've kept a track of the event viewer and nothing strange has been logged, esp. nothing having to do with the hard drive. Some warnings have appeared, but they consist of:
"The COM+ Event System failed to fire the ConnectionMadeNoQOCInfo method on subscription...." which I've read has to do with with Windows/MSN messenger, which I have had disabled for a while now.

No scheduled tasks occurring.

The userenv.log file has appeared and it has this:
"USERENV(4a0.4a4) 15:33:22:145 CUserProfile::CleanupUserProfile: Ref Count is not 0
USERENV(4a0.6a0) 15:33:36:085 GetGPOInfo: Local GPO's gpt.ini is not accessible, assuming default state." Does that mean anything significant?

fschwep, I've run the symantec firewall and av for over a year now, and have never had this problem. do you think that makes a difference? also, during a slowdown today, I disabled both programs, and there was no difference.

I have yet to defrag the hard drive; will try that today.

Btw, I had this problem right before the slowdowns:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=
I've upgraded the BIOS to 3.17 (the latest), and with the exception of 1 or 2 freezeups, it's been fine; but then the current slowdown problem showed up.

Thanks for all the help thus far everyone. I just wanted to explore every option before calling IBM tech. I just hate the idea of sending off my T42. It's like my 4th child (my 2 cats and 1 dog being the other three).

#8 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:05 pm

astros55 wrote:The userenv.log file has appeared and it has this:
"USERENV(4a0.4a4) 15:33:22:145 CUserProfile::CleanupUserProfile: Ref Count is not 0
USERENV(4a0.6a0) 15:33:36:085 GetGPOInfo: Local GPO's gpt.ini is not accessible, assuming default state." Does that mean anything significant?

The first message unfortunately appears to be quite normal - even though it's an error. One or more programs are not releasing themselves from memory when you log off or shutdown. I doubt that this is causing your slugishness problem, except maybe at log off or shutdown.

I did a search on my hard drive for gpt.ini and found the file in C:\WINDOWS\system32\GroupPolicy folder. Group policy has to do with Windows security settings. Perhaps this could cause a slugishness problem at times. I would try running System File Checker. Go to Start > Help and Support, type in 'system file checker' (without the quotes) in the search box and press Enter. You'll see an entry 'System File Checker (sfc)'. Click on that to see how to run the program.

astros55 · #9 Post by **astros55** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 3:55 pm

The saga continues...

Well, I haven't had a chance to do the sytem file checker. But I have been able to consistently replicate the slowdowns by plugging/unplugging the AC power: fine when plugged, slow when not. For the most part, I can narrow down the problem to the power one way or another, though sometimes it still is a little unpredictable.

I haven't changed/created any power scheme settings ever. I have the latest Maximiser.

What do you guys think?

#10 Post by **Kyocera** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:12 pm

I would probably get out the multi-meter and check the battery, Volts, Amps, Resistance, also check the pins where the battery plugs in for resistance. The service manual has specs for the resistance between the pins, if out of specs the battery is no good. It also may be the power supply flaking out, check the resistance there also. There is a thermal fuse in the battery, the battery will actually work even if this fuse is comprimised but it is almost useless. This happend to me on my old 380ED, however I did not experience system slow down, just other abnormal behaviours.

It is difficult to find a standard multimeter that will check anything other than miliamps, if you know an electrician or someone into electronics get them to check the amps, that is the crucial test.

chikin03 · #11 Post by **chikin03** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:34 am

I'm not familiar with modern power saving laptops, but I would guess that you've stumbled on the problem. It makes sense that mobile CPU's would step down when unplugged. This probably doesn't help much, but you probably have too much running/have too slow of a CPU. My old desktops did this on boot up--probably because they were starting way too many processes and a modern OS with way too little CPU. This is not a rare problem, so I doubt viruses are the answer (some spyware can mess up tooltips and icons, though, so rechecking it might not be a bad idea).

--Chi

#12 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:39 pm

Click on the Battery Icon in the task tray on the lower right of the display. Choose 'View Scheme Settings' to see what your current settings are. Note: when on this page click on the battery icon on the lower right to see the battery settings, and click on the power plug icon to see the AC adapter settings.

If you don't see the Battery Icon in the taskbar, launch Battery MaxiMiser Wizard from: Start > All Programs > Access IBM > Battery MaxiMiser Wizard. Choose to 'Show Battery MaxiMiser Gauge on Taskbar'.

Also you can right click on an open area of the display and choose: Properties > Screen Saver > Power... > Advanced Settings. See that Set CPU Power Management and Set PCI Bus Power Management are both set on Automatic.

Finally, if you have an ATI Graphics adapter, you may find PowerPlay. Right click on an open area of the desktop and choose: Properties > Settings > Advanced > PowerPlay. If you enable PowerPlay, that slows down the graphics processor when running on battery. There is also a setting in Battery MaxiMiser Wizard as to what battery charge level PowerPlay comes into effect.

astros55 · #13 Post by **astros55** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:26 pm

GomJabbar wrote: Finally, if you have an ATI Graphics adapter, you may find PowerPlay. Right click on an open area of the desktop and choose: Properties > Settings > Advanced > PowerPlay. If you enable PowerPlay, that slows down the graphics processor when running on battery. There is also a setting in Battery MaxiMiser Wizard as to what battery charge level PowerPlay comes into effect.

PROBLEM SOLVED! PowerPlay seems to be the culprit. I don't even remember enabling it, but once it was disabled, the slowdowns were history: the task tray expands normally, icons reappear normally. And I was able to recreate the slowdowns by re-enabling PowerPlay; so that pretty much narrows it down. If this solution doesn't last, I'll re-post with details.

Thanks again to everyone for their help and suggestions.

Sluggishness on T42 [edit: Problem Solved!]

Sluggishness on T42 [edit: Problem Solved!]

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