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choppy pointer, stuttering sound...any comp experts?

Levex

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ok,my computer is fairly old. i got it in '99, it has 500mhz, 128ram and 16mb voodoo3. First year i ran the win98se that came installed with the comp with no major problems,then switched to XP which ran crappy due to only having 128ram. then i installed win2k which ran almost as good as 98se.

now i just clean reinstalled win98se again(not from the disks i got with my pc), because i lost my win2k cd and soon will need a good running system.

heres the problem...right now windows 98 se is running slower and more sluggish than win2k,previous 98 i had,and even XP!! my mouse has choppy movements, sound in my winamp breaks up and stutters even when i extract a small zip file, and its just slow all around. this is very weird to me because i ran win98se before and remember it performing great without any glitches, but now after using xp and 2k its horrible.

heres what i tried so far:

installed new video drivers (mouse pointer was even slow with the default 256 color driver that win98se gives you)

installed new audio drivers

cleaned up start-up in msconfig

changed all my video card settings for "performance"


Heres the odd part: as i'm typing this, my system resources are 90% free and yet i still see that my mouse pointer doesnt quite catch up with the movement. And since i just reinstalled today after formatting and it was sluggish from the beginning, i doubt its a virus.

does anyone have ANY ideas what the hell is wrong with my pc...maybe some bulky ms program or service that needs disabling or a bad version if win98se(but i'd think it would not install if it was corrupted)

thanks in advance.
 

Abbott

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First of all 128MB is just too little RAM. Quadruple it (512MB), at least...that way you won't need virtual memory (pagefile). My Opteron 148 runs very nicely with 2GB RAM and no virtual memory.

Have you tried using an anti-spyware program? It could be all the "scumware" (spyware, adware, etc.).

I don't care if you don't think that it's a virus, scan anyway 'cause it's possible. I know that some viruses can survive a reboot (assuming the computer stays on and the BIOS doesn't clear the RAM right away). Plus, it's possible that the boot floppy you used has a virus on it (unless it's a boot CD, then you just plain better hope there are no viruses).

Plus, is there any particular reason why you have to use Win98SE? If you want to stick with Microsoft, I'd stick with the NT-based OSes (WinNT, Win2kPro, WinXP) because they are more stable.

Here's another idea. Are you sure the mouse is clean? I've seen many a dirty mouse and they all worked better after cleaning the gunk out (just pick it with your fingernail or pick it with a pen). If the mouse is optical then make sure the infrared eye is clean and you aren't using it on glass, transparent, or even possibly translucent surfaces, since the infrared eye reads the surface and detects movements.

Also, are you sure that you're computer is actually slow? It could just seem slow compared to the bigger and better computers of today (Opterons, Xeons, Athlon 64s, and P4 and the like).

J/K but seriously you should Quadruple the RAM (512MB), turn off the virtual memory, and follow some of the ideas I had.

Talk to you soon!

Ben
 

Levex

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When win98 first came out most comps still had 64 ram, so 128 should be way more than enough. The problem is not that i dont have enough RAM, but that system resources are 80%- 90% free and while there is a demand, the computer just doesnt want to use any more,which causes this slowdown. i tried disabling virtual memory, and it helped a bit, but still was very much noticable.

is there any way to force this piece of crap to use more ram...?
 

Abbott

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Oh ya that's right...even the P2 I bought in '98 had only 64MB RAM, but I think I upgraded it to like 256MB not too much later.

There is another idea that I can think of. Is your computer proprietary (i.e. a disposable PC, using non-standard parts)? If so then you might want to use the version of Windows that came with the PC, because of the funky modifications (weird hardware, etc.)

I know that sometimes there are modifications because I actually have this 486 laptop (and ALL laptops are proprietary) which came with Win95. I had to reinstall the OS eventually. After that I couldn't get into the floppy drive in the GUI, but I could in the DOS prompt (without Windows, not a command prompt window).

This bewilders me because Win98 should work faster than Win2k because it's a lighter weight OS (in terms of space and code).

If you ever find that Win2k CD, and you keep having these problems, then just use that. The NT-based OSes are more stable, and a P3 (or is it a K6-3 you have?) 500MHz is more than enough (Win2k req.'s a P133).

Also, I have this old Pentium Pro machine that I used to have Win98 on. But when I switched it to a server (max out RAM, install Win2k Server, add second NIC), I found it worked about as well performance-wise (despite the server OS). But then again, any single CPU Pentium Pro is going to be slow these days.

Plus, I've heard that Win98 is quite RAM inefficient so the NT-based OSes would use more RAM better. This might allow for a performance boost. My Pentium Pro machine has 512MB so I suppose Win2k server would use that better than Win98. I've never personally used Win98 much so I wouldn't really know (I typically stick with the workstation OSes, like WinNT4 Workstation, Win2kPro, and WinXPPro)

Hope this helps,

Ben
 
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