T43 getting slower everyday....

Message

elazarus · #1 Post by **elazarus** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:27 am

I have a 2 year old T43 that is pretty solid except for taking a long time to boot, shut down....and open programs.

It has a 1.86 Pentium M and 1.5 gigs of Ram.....I have run everything from CCleaner to Defrag and so it is pretty clean.....but I don't know why it doesn't move along.

Just opening Word or Firefox is just plain slow.....

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Elliot

#2 Post by **Johan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:35 am

... what operating system do you use? Windows XP Professional?

elazarus · #3 Post by **elazarus** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:49 am

Thank you for responding.

Yes, I use Windows XP Pro...and out of a 30 gig hard drive I have plenty of space 20-22gigs.

Elliot

wearetheborg · #4 Post by **wearetheborg** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:16 am

The hard drive may be dying..

#5 Post by **Johan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:24 am

Well, unfortunately I don't have any bullet-proof explanation right at hand, but I believe that it would be interesting to check how many (resident) programs you have running while e.g. starting Word or Firefox... are there something "invisible" just eating up all your system resources?

To check the actual RAM usage, open the Task Manager, or (better!) get the free and very usable program Process Explorer for Windows. See what processes/programs run, and see if you have some programs that have started automatically, but which you don't need. Disable or remove such unnecessary programs - use another very good, free tool for this: AutoRuns for Windows.

Have you checked for spyware? I use the free tool Spybot from time to time to remove spyware and to make sure that I haven't picked up any nasty stuff.

You might also check the Event-viewer log (go to Start --> Run --> and type "eventvwr").

Try serach after "xp startup time" using Google - many hints will come up (clean Prefetch, try BootVis etc.). Did you check your Registry using CCleaner? If something has gone bad there, this may explain many things. Fixing the registry, however, is probably not something you will want to try as the first thing.

Do you have your ThinkPad updated with the misc. system software... using the Software Installer/System Update? Check this thread for the difference.

Depending of how many programs, printers, access points etc. you have installed and configured, you have the (more or less pleasant!) fall-back solution to simply back up off your user files to an e.g. external HDD, and make the ThinkVantage Rescue & Recovery disks (which you certainly should have made already, or if not do right now!), and then simply reinstall Windows XP all over again, completely from scratch. I have had to do this - rarely - from time to time, when everything else had failed, and some error was simply impossible to get rid of. It takes some time, yes, but you get a new, fresh system!

Try check the Windows OS forum here... it may be a good place to search for software-related ThinkPad nformation.

Update: It just crossed my mind that your network settings may also have an impact on boot time and program startup! If you have e.g. mapped some network drive, and it is not present, the time-out owing to tihs could cause long boot- and program stratup times. Please clarify if your problems exist both while "stand-alone" (not connected to anything, WLAN and Bluetooth off), or if the problems are worst when connected to some network.

Good luck!

Best regards,

Johan

elazarus · #6 Post by **elazarus** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:21 am

WOW, Johan.....

Thank you for your thorough reply with so much information.

Starting tonight, I will go to work on all the various suggestions that you made. With so many different angles to go at it, I am sure I will find 1, 2 or many slow downs along the way.

As for the Spyware...I do run Ad-Aware and use Windows Defender...and Spam Bully keeps me from even attempting to open any suspicious e-mail. So on that angle, I am comfortable.

But, there may be so many "things" that get added over a period of time and in my "Newbie" experience of the behind the Registry scenes, it can take one or 2 items to make all this slow to a crawl.

I will report back after I have done the steps.

Again, Thank you

Regards

Elliot

#7 Post by **jdhurst** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:34 am

Also check your temporary files. Windows and third party applications use absurd amounts of space for cache and temporary files (measured in total in the gigabytes). Windows has to sort through much of this to get started and to work. Use Disk Cleanup to dump this stuff and then set cache settings for under 100Mb of temp files wherever you can see such settings. ... JDH

FTC · #8 Post by **FTC** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:37 am

Hi, check also that your drive has not degraded to PIO mode :

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... light=udma

#9 Post by **Johan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:55 pm

jdhurst wrote:Also check your temporary files. Windows and third party applications use absurd amounts of space for cache and temporary files (measured in total in the gigabytes). Windows has to sort through much of this to get started and to work. Use Disk Cleanup to dump this stuff and then set cache settings for under 100Mb of temp files wherever you can see such settings. ... JDH

JDH; what swap-file size do you recommend for a "rather straight forward" Windows XP (SP2) installation, i.e. a setup with only a few common programs installed (Firefox, Microsoft Office 2003, Outlook Express, cable network etc.)? The ThinkPad here being a T42p w/2.1 GHz Dothan, 100 GB Seagate 7200.1 (NTFS, all being in one partition, the C-drive), and 2 GB RAM.

I guess you refer to the settings found under: Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance (the uppermost choice, don't recall its English name... Danish XP here!) -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory (-> Alter).

Right now, the (default) setup used here is this:
Drive: C: [IBM_preload]
Free space: 79657 MB

- User-defined size (checked)
- Size by start: 2046 MB (in the user-configurable box)
- Maximum size: 4092 MB (in the user-configurable box)

Below this, it says: "Total size of pagefile on all drives:"
Minimum allowed: 2 MB
Recommended: 3096 MB (!!??!!)
Actual allocated: 2046 MB

The file C:\hiberfil.sys is sized 2.096.116 bytes and the file C:\pagefile.sys is sized 2.095.104 bytes (- phew!!). Prior to checking these values, I have run the built-in Windows XP Disk Cleaner and the free utility CCleaner, so all "old junk" ought to be gone (leaving only new junk!). What is the suggested optimum swap-file size? Thanks very much in advance for sharing your expert advice!

Best regards,

Johan

chan_man · #10 Post by **chan_man** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:48 pm

Another thing that adds to startup time is the number of fonts that you have installed on your system. I know installing Corel Draw will install about 100 to 150 fonts and this will slow the startup times.

#11 Post by **bill bolton** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:23 pm

Johan wrote:What is the suggested optimum swap-file size?

Having played around extensively with swap file sizing over time, I have come to the conclusion that for general purpose use under W2K and XP, trying to second guess the Microsoft default (of 1.5 time installed RAM) is a waste of time, given the amount of disk storage typically available in recent years.

In respect to temporary file sizes, I think JDH was referring to web browser Temporary Internet Files caches etc.

Cheers,

Bill B.

#12 Post by **jdhurst** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:58 pm

Bill B. is correct - I was referring to Temporary Internet and Temporary Java files. I don't think paging files slow down Windows. My NetVista A30 page file is 1.2Gb and my T41 page file is 524B. In both cases, I let Windows manage them. ... JDH

SteveS · #13 Post by **SteveS** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:23 pm

I had this same problem – slow to boot from power on, as well as recover from sleep mode. It got to where it was taking 3 minutes for a cold start boot. Finally one time it never recovered from sleep mode (I guess it was in a coma!), so I pressed the power switch long enough to power down and restart. That broke something in the software and it would never successfully boot after that, getting hung right after entering the log on password.

The death was a slow process as you described – getting slower to boot every day. I could not recover from the boot lock up problem and ended up taking the drastic measure of rebuilding the disk from the service partition.

I can’t say for sure that I found the problem, but by reason of elimination, I have a theory. After I rebuilt the disk, I installed all the original applications and files. The only think I did not do is re-install Client Security Solution 7. I have read on the forum of many accounts of the disk security feature adding considerable time to the boot sequence. That was about 3 months ago, and so far, I have not experienced any increase in boot time.

Since I can’t prove cause and effect, the CSS is only a theory. There may have been some kind of virus at work, although I did scan regularly.

I miss the password manager feature of CSS, but I am not willing to risk down time again to CSS.. It is too bad that you can not get that feature without activating the disk security feature – IBM seems to have built the entire system around the disk security function.

sugo · #14 Post by **sugo** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:31 pm

elazarus, how many processes do you have in XP?

elazarus · #15 Post by **elazarus** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:22 pm

Right now it is showing 41 processes

Elliot

sugo · #16 Post by **sugo** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:14 am

41 is fairly reasonble imo. It must be a small subset of them slowing down the entire machine.

elazarus · #17 Post by **elazarus** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:56 am

You've got me on that one "Subset"

I have run the tests suggested by Johan.....and out of everything there was just one red flag that did not do much....It was a Microsoft tool.

Just a thought...maybe just a dumb thought. I see that the battery does not last long....I mean 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Could there be a correlation between the battery drain and some clutter slowing down the machine?

Thank you

Elliot

#18 Post by **jdhurst** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:59 am

elazarus wrote:<snip> Could there be a correlation between the battery drain and some clutter slowing down the machine?

Elliot

In general, No. My T41 has run as the same fast speed since inception (because I maintain it well) and the battery has been used at will until used up after 40 months and then replaced. It had zero impact on machine performance. ... JDH

sugo · #19 Post by **sugo** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 11:07 am

elazarus wrote:It was a Microsoft tool.

Just a thought...maybe just a dumb thought. I see that the battery does not last long....I mean 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Could there be a correlation between the battery drain and some clutter slowing down the machine?

Thank you

Elliot

Which MS tool? If there is a process slowing down the machine, that means the process is consuming cpu cycles or performing extensive hard drive reads/writes. Both of them mean higher power consumption and shorter battery run time.

elazarus · #20 Post by **elazarus** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:15 pm

It was from the SpyBot run:

MicrosoftWindowsSecurityCenter_disabled

settings:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\Services\wscsvc\Start!=W=2

Looks like it turned off the Windows Firewall. I just turned the Windows firewall back on and ran the Spybot and it came up with no problems.

I ran the IBM tools and PC Doctor came up with zero......but I have a 5 year old HP with a 15.4" monitor that is 9 lbs + which is too heavy to take on business trips but is faster than this computer and this has a much newer chip and a lot more RAM.

Thank you

Elliot

elazarus · #21 Post by **elazarus** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:13 pm

"Shot in the dark"

I see the IBM Updater will not install as it says an older version is there yet it does not uninstall it.

Could there be a lot of IBM "Bloatware" that should be removed and then add in what is necessary considering I haven't used them for 2-3 years???

Thank you

Elliot

sugo · #22 Post by **sugo** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:00 pm

Have you considered a fresh Windows install and only install drivers + any essential thinkpad apps you might need?

elazarus · #23 Post by **elazarus** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:08 pm

Yes, I think that is the answer.....

Problem.....I have all the disks for my 3 Desktops but I can't find the case with all the IBM/Microsoft Disks....

Last year I moved from California to Texas, so a lot of computer info is not where it should be......I guess today is as good of a day as any to go up to the attic.

I agree with you.....I would save hours and days by investing 1 day to do it right.

Thank you

Elliot

elazarus · #24 Post by **elazarus** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:31 pm

Sugo, you are a genious and I feel so dumb.

Earlier I posted that I could not find the disks. I Googled IBM/Lenovo buy disks, restore etc.

All of a sudden I read how to reinstall from a Partition that is on the HD but you can't see it.

I am typing this as it isfinishing the Factory Pre-installation and then, of course, I need to update windows/drivers/Apps but this will save so much time.....

Thank you all....

Film at 11

Regards

Elliot

newt43 · #25 Post by **newt43** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 1:32 am

Some people might shoot me for saying this, but before you wipe your hard drive and reinstall windows, try uninstalling Access Connections. It has caused me precisely the same problem you have. With Access Connections installed, the best boot time I ever achieved was 2.5 minutes--and that was before I upgraded to the latest version of the software, which caused my computer to hang for 5 or 6 hours after the logon screen. I'm sure it's a fine program, but to get it to work right you need to go through a set of fairly involved contortions--uninstalling and reinstalling things in highly specific, very sensitive sequences--that render the whole thing not worth it.

So, go ahead: uninstall AC and see what happens (and let us know).

Cheers!

elazarus · #26 Post by **elazarus** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 9:42 pm

I guess it was a quiet Sunday....so I was thinking how to fix the problem and I did not have the disks....so it was Google time to see if Lenovo would sell a REcovery whatever.....

The next thing I see is that there is a hidden partition and I can restore the T43 to the day I received it and it would format etc with the IBM software doing the work.

So I jumped right in.....WOW! Within 30 minutes I had a Clean machine and then I used the IBM updater to get all new (updated) drivers and then put my programs in......

Now the computer is booting up like the first day and shutting down in 10 seconds instead of 5 minutes.....plus I can open programs "normally" instead of waiting.

Does anyone know how I can clone this partition as Acronis wants to format (repartition?) the WD HD USB and erase the data...

Thank you everybody.

Elliot

mysbca · #27 Post by **mysbca** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 1:34 am

elazarus wrote: Does anyone know how I can clone this partition as Acronis wants to format (repartition?) the WD HD USB and erase the data...

"Create Image" (saves it as a file) instead of "Disk Clone", then you can restore this image back whenever you need to.

mgo · #28 Post by **mgo** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:57 am

elazarus wrote:I guess it was a quiet Sunday....so I was thinking how to fix the problem and I did not have the disks....so it was Google time to see if Lenovo would sell a REcovery whatever.....

The next thing I see is that there is a hidden partition and I can restore the T43 to the day I received it and it would format etc with the IBM software doing the work.

So I jumped right in.....WOW! Within 30 minutes I had a Clean machine and then I used the IBM updater to get all new (updated) drivers and then put my programs in......

Now the computer is booting up like the first day and shutting down in 10 seconds instead of 5 minutes.....plus I can open programs "normally" instead of waiting.

Does anyone know how I can clone this partition as Acronis wants to format (repartition?) the WD HD USB and erase the data...

Thank you everybody.

Elliot

Yes, save as Image. And, congratulations on some really good computer work. I've used Acronis for years and it really saves the day for me. Good for you for jumping in there and fixing your problem on your own. Now, you can enjoy your system even more and feel more confident about fixing things when they go wrong.

elazarus · #29 Post by **elazarus** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:05 am

Thank you for your kind words.

There appears to be some MAJOR differences in Image software. as they want to erase the destination drive. I keep going round and round on the Acronis Software as it wants to erase the entire External hard drive (I have 2 of them) and I prefer to have a file that can be stored.

Any solutions?

Thank you

Elliot

mgo · #30 Post by **mgo** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:12 am

elazarus wrote:Thank you for your kind words.

There appears to be some MAJOR differences in Image software. as they want to erase the destination drive. I keep going round and round on the Acronis Software as it wants to erase the entire External hard drive (I have 2 of them) and I prefer to have a file that can be stored.

Any solutions?

Thank you

Elliot

Perhaps we could start with some basic questions and answers here, and work from there.

Are you using Acronis Drive Image? Which version? It it installed on your machine, or are you running it from a bootable CD disk?

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