After formatting, PC REALLY, REALLY slow

[Suze]

I recently formatted my PC, loaded Windows 98SE and now the pc is so slow that it is virtually unuasable. If I click on START, for instance, it takes about 30 seconds for the PC to act on the click. I have to assume it is a hardware problem. The PC is about 5 ½ years old.
Any suggestions would be a great help. :rolleyes:

[viperman224]

5 and 1/2 years old sounds like it could be a pentium 2 possibly a pentium 3. I have no experience with AMD so if its AMD i'm not sure what it would be. But depending on much RAM (random access memory) and hard drive space you have I'd go out and buy a copy of XP and install it. XP would run nicely on a Pentium 3. the oldest machine I have put XP on is a Pentium 2 333mhz with 128 megs of ram. It runs great and fast. Its much more stable then 98. Format the drive again, repartion it, and re-install windows. let me know how you make out.

[MAD_DOG]

Not the AMD it's the operating system so buggy so old your trying to run news things on it. Dude spend $500 on a new PC or upgrade your OS to WinNT/2000 or XP. Seriously it is time.

[shahidhotline]

I recently formatted my PC, loaded Windows 98SE and now the pc is so slow that it is virtually unuasable. If I click on START, for instance, it takes about 30 seconds for the PC to act on the click. I have to assume it is a hardware problem. The PC is about 5 ½ years old. Any suggestions would be

[MAD_DOG]

Jeez you might be right I don't know what to tell you let me the people say what they think I all ready gave you my two cents.

[Catweazle]

If your system is now slower than it was before it's quite possible you've neglected to load the device drivers it needs.

[bobchang]

How much memory and how much disk space is in the system? C'mon, guys... 98SE is not that buggy :rolleyes:

[Suze]

How much memory and how much disk space is in the system? C'mon, guys... 98SE is not that buggy :rolleyes:

I will get back to you on exact size etc. The PC is not mine but a friends and I forget all the fine details, but I know it has 128mb Ram and PLENTY of free space on the hard drive. I also know it is a Pentium ll. I did extactly the same thing to laptop of my own without the slightest problem. Someone else mentions that I may not have loaded all the drivers and yes, when I could eventually get into the device manager, it did show that there was stuff needed loading, but I was thinking it was modem, scanner drivers etc. I did not pay much heed to them as I intended sorting them once I managed to get the system running at a usable speed.

[Catweazle]

Suze, the drivers I was particularly referring to are your motherboard chipset drivers, which show up as 'System Devices' in Device Manager.

If your motherboard has a chipset which was released after Windows 98, your Windows installation may be using older, generic drivers to enable the various internal components to communicate with each other, rather than the manufacturer provided ones which are designed to enable that to happen more efficiently. If this is the case, your system performance could be hampered significantly.

If the system you refer to is a 'Name Brand' one such as a Dell, Gateway, Compaq etc, then you need to search the manufacturers website download area for the drivers for your particular model.

If the system is a 'White box' style, assembled locally, then you need to identify the make and model of the motherboard, and obtain the necessary drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website.

[bobchang]

Suze,

128MB is plenty for 98SE, and if there's more than 100MB worth of free space, then it ain't slowing due to a lack of hard drive space. Doesn't sould like you missed too much in terms of device drivers, either. So my questions: what else got installed besides 98SE? Was the speed okay immediately after 98SE was successfully installed, or did it slow down dramatically after something else was installed? How's the hard drive partitioned?

Bob

I will get back to you on exact size etc. The PC is not mine but a friends and I forget all the fine details, but I know it has 128mb Ram and PLENTY of free space on the hard drive. I also know it is a Pentium ll. I did extactly the same thing to laptop of my own without the slightest problem. Someone else mentions that I may not have loaded all the drivers and yes, when I could eventually get into the device manager, it did show that there was stuff needed loading, but I was thinking it was modem, scanner drivers etc. I did not pay much heed to them as I intended sorting them once I managed to get the system running at a usable speed.

[Suze]

Thanks for the input. I will check on the driver situation. As for what else was loaded after windows, then the answer is nothing at all. Windows was loading fine and at a normal speed, but when it reached the stage that windows was setting up control panel etc it slowed right down. In the end it took a couple of hours to load in Windows completely. As for partitioning, this is an area I am not familiar with and am unable to offer you anything on that. Any advice in that area ?

[bobchang]

Okay, so you've got a virgin installation of Windows 98. Good... that narrows things down further... The reason why I asked about partitioning is to make sure that you hard drive wasn't broken down into smaller chunks before you got your hands onto it. I mean, if it was set up to allocate 5% space on C: and 95% space on other partitions, then you might have thought you recovered all of its space by reformatting it while in fact all you did was free up the 5% on C: - leaving it no room to operate. Just to make sure, open up My Computer and right click on Local Disk C: and choose properties and make sure that it ain't full, or close to being full. I suspect that you have around an 8- to a 10GB hard drive...

I would also boot the system in safe mode just to see - hold down the F8 key before your system tells you "starting Windows 98..." - that oughta trigger the Win98 boot menu where you can select safe mode. Safe mode is like loading Windows without any drivers (video, audio, modem, etc.), so it should be buck naked, light on its feet, and load fairly quickly. Check to see if it is responsive under safe mode. If it's good, then restart and let it boot normally and see what happens.

Is there a brand and a model # on this thing? That should've been the 1st thing to ask...

[Suze]

Yeah, sorry I did not mention brands and models ...der ! It is not a brand name, it was put together by a company. I will do the safe mode thing (usually do that when defragging, so am familiar with it). You are roughly right about the size of space on the hard drive. From what you tell me about partitioning, I would say NO it wasn't but will do as you suggest and get back to you.

[Catweazle]

Download and install Belarc Advisor:

http://www.belarc.com/download

The report it gives will most likely indicate the make and model of your motherboard, and perhaps other components as well.

[Suze]

Ok here is some info. I re booted in Safe Mode and the PC ran sweet as a nut, perfect speed etc. Then I re booted in normal mode and gota fatal exception error, if it means anything to you it quoted: 0167: BFF86EBD

After few more attempts to reboot and more fatal errors, it eventually rebooted but was back to a snails pace again.

The properties for the hard drive area s follows:
Type: Local Drive
File System: FAT 32
Used Space: 219MB
Free Space: 9.29 MB
Capacity 9.51 MB

I also ran the Download recommended by Catweazle and got this Info:

Operating System System ModelWindows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222) Viglen Limited Processor a Main Circuit Board b450 megahertz Intel Pentium II
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Viglen Limited Vig69M
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 4.51 PG 06/16/98Drives Memory Modules c,d10.21 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
9.98 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

None detected 128 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot '0' has 128 MB
Slot '1' is Empty
Slot '2' is Empty Local Drive Volumes c: (on drive N)10.21 GB9.98 GB free Network Drives Users PrintersNo details available None detected Controllers DisplayNone detected None detectedBus Adapters MultimediaNone detected None detectedCommunications Other DevicesNone detected None detectedVirus Protection No AntiVirus details available Installed Microsoft Hotfixes document.write( '[Back to Top]' ) [Back to Top] No hotfixes are installed

Click here to see all available Microsoft security hotfixes for this computer.

Software Licenses document.write( '[Back to Top]' ) [Back to Top] Microsoft - Windows 98 SE12804-OEM-0045041-11000 eSoftware Versions document.write( '[Back to Top]' ) [Back to Top] Belarc, Inc. - BelManage Client Version 6.1
Eastman Software, Inc., A Kodak Business - Imaging for Windows® Version 1.01.1311
Microsoft Corporation - DirectShow Version 6.01.05.0130
Microsoft Corporation - Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5.00.2614.3500
Microsoft Corporation - Windows Telephony Version 4.10.2000

Microsoft Corporation - Windows® NetMeeting® Version 3.0
Microsoft imgstart Version 1, 0, 0, 1
Microsoft Windows Scripting Host Version 5.0.531.7
Microsoft

Any suggestions? :-|

[Catweazle]

That's an Intel i450 chipset motherboard in the system you mention. The manufacturer no longer lists any drivers available for download, but Intel's website should have motherboard chipset drivers available for download which would be suitable to use.

Before giving a link however, does anyone here know if Windows 98 contains native support for the chipset?

(By the way, i hope you don't mind but I edited your report to remove the entry for your Windows 98 Product CD key. You shouldn't really be showing it publically, and I'm sure you weren't aware that it was there.)

[Suze]

Thanks for that. After I send it I only then started to think it was too much info.

[bobchang]

Good ...

Is there a modem card and/or a network card installed in the system? I've seen this happen before when I was setting up a Hitachi Mx laptop (which had bios-configurable COM1, COM2, plus a built in modem) for a user who was installing a pcmcia modem/ethernet card and I remembered that it took a bit of fiddling... Okay, it was more than a bit of fiddling. This could be one of 'em portable resource conflict issues that can be worked thru manually. So the next question is: if there is a modem and/or a network card installed, then are the drivers loaded and the cards recognized by Windows? They should be, and if so, can you disable 'em first and see if the system will run normally (Ctrl Panel - System - Device Mgr - Modem - Disable in profile)?

[Suze]

Sorry I take so long to get back to you with info, but I have to go over to my freinds house and check this stuff out myself as she is not very computer literate.

OK, I know this much. There is an internal modem and there is an external cable modem, which woiuld show up under network adaptors in Device Manager, (obviously the internal shows up under Modem).

I know there were no problems showing in Device Manager under Modem, but as I did not load anything else, the external Modem will probably be showing in the Other Devices which were showing a ? against.

Will get back to you.............soon

[viperman224]

add more ram and ditch 98. lol. I am not a windows 98 fan. I have had to many problems with it. If you switch to 2000 or XP they find almost all your drivers XP should or will find all and you need not go searchng for them.

[bobchang]

:idea: Gee... why not go buy a whole new computer that comes with XP installed? All ya need is a nod from uncle Visa.

add more ram and ditch 98. lol. I am not a windows 98 fan. I have had to many problems with it. If you switch to 2000 or XP they find almost all your drivers XP should or will find all and you need not go searchng for them.

[Suze]

Problem sorted. I unplugged the printer, scanner etc. Re-booted and everything was running perfectly. Re connected one at time and the scanner came up as the culprit. It is old and unwanted so that is being ditched. As for all the advice about buying a new PC and Windows XP, well this is the old PC and wanted for use somewhere else in the home. The new, all singing, all dancing PC with whistles and bells is the main PC. Thankis so much for all your help though. Much appreciated.

[bobchang]

Well well well, a nice ending is always good to hear. BTW, my "new computer" satire was really directed at Mr. Get-Rid-of-Windows-98, not you...

[Catweazle]

Good to hear it's all working well, and thanks for letting us know how the problem was solved. It's always good to hear that, particularly when it turns out to be something unexpected or out of the ordinary, as this has.

I'll mark your question as 'solved'.

[Suze]

Well well well, a nice ending is always good to hear. BTW, my "new computer" satire was really directed at Mr. Get-Rid-of-Windows-98, not you...

I understood that Bobchang, my humour is based on sarcasm! For the record I agree, Windows 98 has never proved a problem in the past and it turns out it didn't now either. :cheesy:

[vrabie]

The biggest problem can be how you actually browse internet. If your computer is slow in generaly when you load and browse webpages then you may need to find a better way to browse internet.

Use firefox of chrome and block javascripts. You will remove ads and other unnecesaryy scripts and dramatically improve the speed of your pc.