Comp slowing WAY down

[ILC]

Can some of you all help me with why my comp is slowing down so much lately? It seems like something is continually using my processor, and takes alot longer then before to start apps, etc......what can I do to find out whats actually running on my comp? All I can see is jstm y drivers software. I Ctrl Alt Del everything that I could and its still slow? Please help.

Amd Athlon 500
64mb of PC100 (I know, I know, about to put another stick of 128 in there)

Thanks

ILC

[rxblak]

Is it just app startup slowness or is it bogged down all the time even once the application is loaded? (i.e. cpu vs. disk problem)

I always blow away MS findfast that seems to crop up in the start menu from time to time. Also make sure TSADBOT is not found anywhere in your registry. It's some kind of ad-virus that PKzip for Windows installs.

If you start it up in safe-mode is it still hosed?

What version of what OS?

-RMB

[qball]

What condition is you HD(s). Do you have plenty of empty disk space for windows to use virtual memeory. Have you cleaned up tmp files and you internet cache? Have you cleaned your drive and then defragged properly (safe mode with no swp file)?

Have you checked you memory? Just because you have 2 32 meg sticks, doesn't mean one isn't working (if just one, stick, it should be ok).

Of course have you virus checked?!!!

How big is your registry and did you clean that out also?

[deep_sky]

Also how old is your windows install? Despite all the reg cleaning, hd defragging and other clean-up measures, I have found windows to just get slower as time goes on. So every once in awhile I am forced to do a fresh reinstall of windows and all is fast again. Dont know why this is, but it seems to hold true for me.

[kirk6677]

i agree with deep_sky on the reinstalling issue.
a good way to trouble shoot the software to see if that is the problem is to go to start, run, msconfig,go to the startup tab and uncheck everything exept systrayand save and reboot if everything is ok then check a nother one and reboot if everything is still good the doit agian and so on untill you find the bad software runing in the background, ctrl,alt,del does not get everything out of the picture but this will.

[ILC]

Thanks guys, hmmm my computer starting running good the next day. Who knows what I did. Anyways, what are reasons my defrag wont work? Oh yea Win98 SE. Thanks again!

ILC

[hahn]

I would try the next time it does it to reboot, if this work then I would guess that there is a thread in a program that is not releasing its space back to win9x

[qball]

Your defrag won't work because...

There are many posts on how to run defrag in safe mode with no swap file.

If that fails, I can only relate that I have a partition created by NT (FAT16, folks), that defrags chokes on. I blame NT, but really don't care as new box in future soon..

[brandon184]

I would think it may be an hd issue.. Try and free up a little space and do a defrag.

I may also consider upping your memory a tiny bit.