Here is one that has been really driving me crazy.

It's a video editing machine. P3B-F mb, 733P3, SB live, Geforce, 512 pc133 ram. WIn98SE

HD setup: 4 drives: primary 10gb, Secondary Maxtor 80gb, plus 2 27gb in a promise fasttrak66 card 2+0 raid.

When it runs it runs well.

THE PROBLEM: pretty simple really: with no rhyme or reason the system slows to a crawl. Mouse will barely move, menus open slowly. Sometimes worse than others. Almost seems to surge- hd sounds like this.

WHAT I HAVE ALREADY DONE:
1) Replaced graphics card. Flashed Bios. Replaced and moved RAM dims. No change.
2) complete nuke and pave and installed dual boot setup w/win2k. Seemed to work at first. but problem came back. Doesn't care which OS. PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME ABOUT OS TWEAKS---I AM 99.95% SURE THIS IS A HARDWARE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3) Replaced 300watt PS with new 350watt PS, again seemed to work at first then back to square one.
4)tested primary ibm HD- tests ok

What i'm thinking about:
replace primary HD
replace mb and or processor

any thoughts?

PS Please do not respond with thoughts on virtual memory or OS stuff....win 2k and 98 have same issues, not related to what apps are running. Happens with 90% resources free on desktop with no apps sometimes.

Is this machine part of a network?

Is it on the same circuit as something like a copier?

what kind of cooling setup does it have? Are all the fans working correctly?


Any pattern to it, like it does it right after finishing an editting session, or it always does it at 3:30pm?

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

A failing hard drive can cause your problem.

uh! oh! uhoh7!

You have run "System Monitor" to study what is actually going on inside the beast, haven't you?

Lift the hood and look inside. [Metaphorically of course]

It could be all sorts of things causing this but here are a couple:
[I wouldn't mind betting it is NOT a hardware problem. First check the software and configuration.]

1. My son's PC slowed to an absolute crawl because:
His Hard Drive was absoutely full to the brim and he was attempting to fill it some more by converting MP3 files to Wave files. [or some such thing]
2. Are there any processor intensive operations being carried out in the background.
e.g. "Find-Fast Indexer" [control panel]or "Maintenance Wizard" [accessories>system tools].
3. I once restored a backup and did not first re-format the Hard Drive.
So what's rong with that?
Well at the time I understood why not and I've forgotten some of the detail but:
If you restore on top of an existing Hard Drive "Image" you can get "double images". It adds new data if it does not already exist and leaves existing data alone. That means that if you dragged and dropped something [like a folder setup] to a new location you end up with two identical copies in different locations.
You get some really nasty effects like multiple copies of programs running and things grind to a halt and even your cursor only moves for short busts then freezes again for say 10 or 20 seconds then works for half a second etc.
I had to do some serious work in "msconfig.exe" [start>run] to sort things out. If this is your problem you'll probably find many multiple copies of programs in the "Startup" tab for example.
In this situation, if you have a suitable backup, the best solution is to reformat and restore, or else Reformat and reinstall to rebuild your software.

Originally posted by mjc:
Is this machine part of a network?

Is it on the same circuit as something like a copier?

what kind of cooling setup does it have? Are all the fans working correctly?


Any pattern to it, like it does it right after finishing an editting session, or it always does it at 3:30pm?

Have you checked your memory mods or had them tested? How much are you running? Just a thought.