Computer slows to 1% speed randomly and at startup - Page 3

  the_tool_man wrote:

A reasonable program for monitoring, is Speedfan. At least, it
is still supported by the author. This will give you some
temperatures, if they're available on the hardware monitor
chip interface. This tool scans the low speed buses off the
Southbridge, looking for monitor chips.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan437.exe

For reviewing basic settings (like, are all the frequencies
correct), try this.

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

To examine the interrupt rate, as well as the processes on your
machine, there is the Sysinternals Process Explorer. Sysinternals
was acquired by Microsoft, which is why the downloads are now
hosted at Microsoft. When unzipped, you use "procexp.exe".

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

You can also use the Control Panels:Administrative tools:Performance
graph in Windows. Right click on the pane, and select "Add Counters". There
is a counter in the "processor" section, for "interrupt total".
When my system is idle, this reads about 130 interrupts/sec.
If I alt-tab out of a game, the video card might be generating
a couple thousand interrupts/sec, even though the game is
not running. Part of the fun with the Performance graph,
is setting the graph scale correctly. The scales never
make any sense. (If you use the counter that keeps track
of disk read/write rate, for example, you can use
HDTune to generate a known bandwidth loading.)

Maybe some of those tools will give you some more ideas.

To test your hard drive, you can use HDTune. Version 2.55
is free. My older 7200 RPM drives manage 60MB/sec near
the beginning of the disk, and 35-40MB/sec near the end
of the disk. If the disk is working properly, the benchmark
result should be a gently declining curve.

http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

    Paul

 

You could try this:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/BootVis.shtml
"BootVis is a performance trace visualization utility that you can use with
Windows XP systems."

It shows you what is being loaded during boot and how long it is taking ...
so you might be able to spot what it is that's causing the delay at boot
time.

For example, bootvis tells me my boot is 'done ' in 75 seconds, but it takes
164 seconds before my computer is ready for use and idle.  Explorer.exe
kicks in at 68.41 seconds. Also my 'driver init' time is 37.19 seconds and
starts at 4 seconds in.

  Update:

I downloaded CPU Stability Test 6.0, which let me do a CPU warming
test.  With the task manager performance tab visible, I can start the
CPU test, and within 15 seconds, watch the scroll rate of the graph
essentially come to a stop.  I have to click on the stop button for
the test and wait about 90 seconds before the computer responds and
the test stops.  The computer cooling fan never speeds up above idle
the whole time.  I have repeated this several times.  I am convinced I
have a thermal management problem with the CPU.  I visually checked
the motherboard for another header for the fan, but there isn't one.
I'm going to try hot-wiring the fan and see what happens.

Regards,
John.

 On Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:03:29 -0700 (PDT), the_tool_man


While it does seem possible there is a thermal problem,
usually a CPU will not heat up enough to crash or
downthrottle within 15 seconds if the only problem is the
fan not spinning up.  In fact, a system can run for 15
seconds with the fan totally stopped in most systems and not
have risen much, perhaps 5 to 10C which on a properly cooled
system would tend to leave it still below the throttling
threshold.

If you have some heatsink grease, I'd pull the heatsink off,
clean off the original thermal interface material (may
require a petroleum solvent if it's the melted waxy type,
and the heatsink may come off much easier if you try to
remove it shortly after turning the system off so the
interface pad is still warm, OR reheat it with a hair dryer
or heat gun set _very_ low.  

Examine both surfaces to be sure there are no
irregularities, then apply only a tiny, less than a grain of
rice sized blob on the center of the CPU then reinstall the
'sink.

CPU-Z will show you the clock speed of the CPU while you are
running the Stability Test or other stress tests.
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

HWMonitor "might" show you accurate temperatures and/or
voltages, or it might misread them, but if you compare the
temps before a stress test and during it, you should see CPU
temp rise significantly either way if it is being reported.
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

    If you think something has to do with heat-fan speed then I believe some
motherboard has option to set the fan-speed (or temperature).  I hardly look
at CMOS setting after the last 486 CPU to know much about newer momboard.