Slowing with time?

**NxB** · 03-20-2009, 08:06 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Hard drive could be heating up. What are the temps like? A 20gb is pretty old. Memory leak in your apps is possible but not likely. You also have 128mb of ram.

**stevo1210** · 03-20-2009, 08:58 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Temps are warm I suppose. Cpu is about 40-55c on idle. At peak, about 82c, but by then the fan kicks in to cool it to around 60c.

**dood** · 03-20-2009, 09:02 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

I would use i8kfangui to keep the processor temp lower. Dell seems to like to get the processor good and toasty before running the fan much. I prefer to keep things cooler to prevent problems.

**gdement** · 03-20-2009, 09:07 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Might be a memory problem. Just check the task manager and see what it's doing when it gets slow.

**370forlife** · 03-20-2009, 01:32 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

Would a intel this old slow itself down to reduce heat, or was that with the p4 and up?

**momaka** · 03-20-2009, 07:55 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

Originally posted by stevo1210

Temps are warm I suppose. Cpu is about 40-55c on idle. At peak, about 82c, but by then the fan kicks in to cool it to around 60c.

That's really hot, even for a laptop. 65C should be the highest temperature at most.
Did you relube the fan as well after cleaning it? Even if that doesn't help the slowdown problem, it's a nice thing to do anyways.
When your computer gets slow, does your HD read/write a lot (pagefile activity)? If so, then it's ram issue, which could be normal especially with your ammount of ram.

Originally posted by 370forlife

Would a intel this old slow itself down to reduce heat, or was that with the p4 and up?

I believe you're looking for this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgOmMAasqto&fmt=18
Yes, PIIIs and up have overheat protection. Socket 462 AMDs don't

.

**gdement** · 03-20-2009, 11:01 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

P3 doesn't slow down, it just locks. But the mobiles do have speedstep so maybe the BIOS could use that to keep it cool.

Max temperature on mobile processors is higher than desktop chips, but I don't know the spec on this particular chip.
My mobile athlon is rated for 100C, it runs at 65C all the time.

**Scenic** · 03-21-2009, 08:02 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

my PIII 600 in my laptop sometimes reaches 80°C and more..

not a problem on those...
mobile PIIIs are usually fine up to 100°C (http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentiu...6B700256).html)

however.. some laptops use the speedstep function if it gets hotter than ~ 60°C
a HP laptop i've had for repair clocked down to half the CPU speed (800MHz -> 400MHz) and lowered the VCore if the CPU temp went above 60°C (allthough the cpu is rated up to 100°C)

**stevo1210** · 03-21-2009, 09:12 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Originally posted by momaka

That's really hot, even for a laptop. 65C should be the highest temperature at most.
Did you relube the fan as well after cleaning it? Even if that doesn't help the slowdown problem, it's a nice thing to do anyways.

Yeah, when I removed the fan, I relubed the fan as well. The fan is a Sunon one.... and it is very quiet considering the age of the laptop.

Originally posted by momaka

When your computer gets slow, does your HD read/write a lot (pagefile activity)? If so, then it's ram issue, which could be normal especially with your ammount of ram.

Yes! .... any solutions to fix that issue? RAM for this laptop costs a goldmine.... I asked a store and they wanted $45 for 128MB of RAM.

That's exactly what it does. HDD won't shut up and keeps loading regardless. After a few minutes it may decide to stay idle and not load, but once an app is started again, it will load like crazy. When I first turn the laptop on and use it (when it's fast) I don't hear as much HDD seeking and loading.

Thanks.

**stevo1210** · 03-21-2009, 09:15 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Originally posted by Scenic

however.. some laptops use the speedstep function if it gets hotter than ~ 60°C
a HP laptop i've had for repair clocked down to half the CPU speed (800MHz -> 400MHz) and lowered the VCore if the CPU temp went above 60°C (allthough the cpu is rated up to 100°C)

Does that mean I'd be better off switching the Intel Speedstep stuff off in the BIOS? ....because I currently have it enabled.

**NxB** · 03-21-2009, 10:49 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

So the hard drive doesn't get hot and tests good? $45 for pc133? Ebay? People throw pc133 away.

**DrGr33n** · 03-21-2009, 01:03 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

If you haven't already, (I'm not 100% sure on Win 2000) but you should be able to execute these from the Run command. 1/ cleanmgr.exe to delete old files. 2/ dfrgui.exe to defragment your hdd. There's also a 70KB program that will defragment your pagefile on reboot from (technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx). 3/ msconfig.exe to disable un-needed programs from starting up with Windows. Also if you use Firefox to browse with, some badly written add-ons can cause memory leaks.

Cheers ;-)

**Scenic** · 03-21-2009, 01:21 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

Originally posted by stevo1210

Does that mean I'd be better off switching the Intel Speedstep stuff off in the BIOS? ....because I currently have it enabled.

on that HP Laptop, turning speedstep off didn't work.
was sort of hard coded into the bios (temp above 60°C -> slow down). disabling speedstep didn't stop this.

you could use CPU-Z to check the actual CPU speed in realtime.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

just let it run in the background and if the laptop starts to slow down, check the CPU speed.. if it clocks down and doesn't speed up to the nominal value (700MHz) at all when doing something, it's maybe the same thing as in the HP laptop i described.. :/

**momaka** · 03-21-2009, 05:34 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

DrGr33n - There's a free program called CCleaner, and it does many of the things you mentioned above, but it's much easier and much faster to use. I use it all of the time to clean up temp files, temp internet files, etc. (that is, everytime before I shut down the computer).
You can also disable unnecessary startup processes with this program, and it's safe (i.e. you can't disable important processes for windows).

Originally posted by stevo1210

Yes! .... any solutions to fix that issue?
...
That's exactly what it does. HDD won't shut up and keeps loading regardless.

There's not much you can really do about that, besides buying more ram.
Maybe try to disable startup processes you don't need (above program I mentioned does that). Also, if you have installed a flashy GUI, that can take up some ram. Lastly, if you have a big pagefile, make it smaller and see if that helps (I know that seems counter-intuitive, but from what I've noticed, Windows - at least XP - tends to favor using big pagefiles over ram for some odd reason).
By the way, what antivirus and firewall are you using? If you have Norton or some other memory hog, discard it in favour of something lighter and better.

**zandrax** · 03-22-2009, 05:16 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

@ Stevo:
I agree with most diagnosys here: check ram usage first, the Task Manager's Performance page is a good starting point. Total commit charge is the whole ram used by programs and system cache and shouldn't be greather than Physical memory (if it is, Windows is swapping). Peak memory usage may be higher than ram available and occasionally swap, this is normal; normal usage shouldn't swap and if it is, then add some memory.

The Inspiron 4000 has a 440BX chipset which can address all 32-64-128 MB PC100-PC133 sticks and only the expensive, low density 256 MB ones: anything else would be partly recognized by bios if not detected at all. Get a 128 MB sodimm, you can find it on ebay for $15 or less; low density 256 MB ones are more expensive, usually priced at 20-25 euro ($25-35).

If ram isn't the culprit, then check cpu frequency with cpuz: overheating may trigger Speedstep and slow down the processor as in Scenic's notebook. In this case, clean the heatsink thoroughly and don't exceed with thermal compund (put only a rice grain on the cpu and spread it: too thermal paste is just as bad as too little).

Zandrax

**stevo1210** · 03-23-2009, 03:43 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Is this what I need?

Apparently it's a PC100 4 chip doubles sided So-Dimm SDRAM, but I'm not very sure.

**gdement** · 03-23-2009, 04:52 AM

Re: Slowing with time?

Yeah, that uses 8Mx16 ram chips, it'll work fine.

But I have doubts about the stability of generic memory. I'd look for something with a good brand name.

Any 128MB PC100 with 8 chips on it should be fine. Unless I'm overlooking something, then any module like that would have to be either 8Mx16 or 16Mx8, and both those configurations are supported on 440BX.

**dood** · 03-23-2009, 12:16 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

Originally posted by stevo1210

Is this what I need?

Apparently it's a PC100 4 chip doubles sided So-Dimm SDRAM, but I'm not very sure.

I've got a 256mb chip I could send ya. Pretty sure it'll work in those.

**dood** · 03-23-2009, 12:19 PM

Re: Slowing with time?

Hell, I've got two I could send. Crucial claims the max in these is 512mb.

Running memtest on them in a Latitude c600 now (same 440bx chipset, with a 700mhz PIII)

Slowing with time?

Slowing with time?

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