Dying Laptop & System Restoring

[Tyr]

I have two questions on this fine day.

Firstly, I am using a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop, have had it for about 3 years. It's pretty beat up, but despite that, the only hardware issue I've had was something to do with the HD a year ago, which I just replaced with a new HD. Since, it has been running smoothly.

Until recently. Now, it seems as though when I turn the computer on, it will run fine for about 30 minutes, and then afterwards, it'll just start going extremely slow & stuttering on anything I try to do. On AIM, it looks like I'm typing with one of those bird-figures that dips down, goes up, and dips down again...On FFXI, I run about 0.8 FPS...and I can't open anything that is using flash or .swf, because it simply won't cooperate (like YouTube, or NBA.com).

Lately, I basically use this laptop for two things: 1) Accessing old documents, 2) Playing FFXI on an alternate account. The latter has become extremely important to me whenever I'm on, such that I feel bored when I'm only on one account...

So my first question is: what the hell is going on? Is it just that my RAM had a heart attack? Any way to salvage it without buying new parts, perhaps? I haven't downloaded anything recently, so I don't think it's a virus...but literally, after 30 minutes, it just starts sputtering.


Second question, along the same lines. I've been thinking about a System Restore to about 2 weeks ago, although I don't know how effective, if at all, it would be to solve the problem stated above. The question here is -- can you system restore back, and forward? Like I go back to Apr.14th, but then if I see nothing is different, I come back to today, May 7th?


Thanks in advance for any help.

[Cephius]

Your laptop may just need some cleanup. When you start getting slowdown, open up the task manager and see how much of your RAM and processor is getting used. See if you have programs that you can delete, make sure your hard drive isn't filling up. You can also run ccleaner (www.ccleaner.com) which will go through your computer and delete temporary internet files, old installation packages, and stuff like that that just takes up space. Run some diagonostic tests on your computer to make sure everything is working correctly, then defrag your hard drive. All of these things combined should speed your computer back up.

Also, I don't trust Window's system restore at all. I've used it maybe twice, and its done nothing both times (nothing as in, didnt even restore what it was supposed to) so I wouldn't recommend using it. It's much more effective to get an external drive and use a program like Acronis or Norton to back up your files.

[Tyr]

Your laptop may just need some cleanup. When you start getting slowdown, open up the task manager and see how much of your RAM and processor is getting used.

I'm running at 460-474M / 2441M on Task Manager - I constantly check it and I recall first time I was experiencing this, I weeded out as much of the Memory Usage as I could. In fact, I've taken out most startup-applications as well. The biggest two for me right now are Firefox @ 66M and AIM @ 58M.

See if you have programs that you can delete, make sure your hard drive isn't filling up.

Laptop has 18 GB open space (15 on one partition - main drive, 3GB on document backup partition)

then defrag your hard drive.

Will do, thanks =D As always, Cephius with the save. Here goes.

[Shuemue]

Sounds like it's time to fdisk.

[Tyr]

what's fdisk?

Working defragmenter right now, I can't tell if its the process (nothing running in background) or that my computer passed the 30minute point, but it is going freaking slow.......


EDIT: been stuck @ 7% for about 30mins now...I think the sputtering has kicked in... =\

[Shuemue]

When I say fdisk, I'm referring to the old DOS utility for formatting a HD. I basically mean do a fresh install of windows, the windows setup does it for you now.

[Tyr]

Really? Reinstall Windows?

BTW I ran Disk Frag, stopped @ 7% for a long time (pc started sputtering), and I stopped & reset my laptop.

On reboot, I hit "analyze" instead of defragment, and it said that I didn't need to defragment -- something to that effect.

Is there any way to identify this problem, whether it's hardware or some file?

[Shuemue]

To test your hardware, download and burn this: www.ultimatebootcd.com

Restart with that cd in your drive, then run the hardware diagnostics on there. It's probably not hardware related, most likely to be windows falling over.

[Osede]

On FFXI, I run about 0.8 FPS...and I can't open anything that is using flash or .swf, because it simply won't cooperate (like YouTube, or NBA.com).

For this problem, i can just say that blame the over usage of flash in website. My laptop that has 1gb ram with 1.6ghz p4 processor that bought around 2005, is unable to running FFXI with watching youtube or nicovideo or visit some website that using mass flash application at the same times. Most of the time my FFXI will freeze for 10secs, then it will unable to retrieve connection for the program and eventually disconnect me from FFXI.

[Melena]

torrent the latest version of hirens all in one diagnostic utility and burn the iso to a cd. boot off of the cd. in the troubleshooting option, run the utility called pc doctor, and have it test your hard drive (fixed disk). if that passes, reboot, boot off of cd again, go to the troubleshooting option, select ram testing tools this time, and run memtest86 for an hour and see if anything fails.

[Cephius]

If all your diagnostics pass and all else fails it's probably your best bet to just go ahead and format your computer. Make sure you back up your stuff (don't forget your macros, i think its the USER folder in the FFXI directory though I'm not sure anymore), and it'll help if you download drivers beforehand (like network, video card ect for your laptop) so you can update quickly once you reinstall.

[Tyr]

I downloaded hirens, burned the .iso file onto a cd (~98MB), pop the CD into my laptop, but it doesn't boot it up on restart. It simply goes through to Windows XP. Any way that I can manually access it?


EDIT: Got it to work, but now I don't know which menu to hit -- I don't see the particular tools, but I guess some digging around will help

torrent the latest version of hirens all in one diagnostic utility and burn the iso to a cd. boot off of the cd. in the troubleshooting option, run the utility called pc doctor, and have it test your hard drive (fixed disk). if that passes, reboot, boot off of cd again, go to the troubleshooting option, select ram testing tools this time, and run memtest86 for an hour and see if anything fails.

Ok, I think I got it (I went to Recovery Tools I think, PC Doctor 2004, clicked "5" to start PC Doctor, Diagnostics --> Fixed Disks, and I don't know what this stuff means, but I am guessing it's it):

Controller: Passed
Hi-Low Seek - Passed
Funnel Seek - Passed
Track to Track -Passed
Others are taking a while, will update.

[Tyr]

Ok, so I ran the PC Doctor from Hirens, and here are the results:


Controller: Passed
Hi-Low Seek - Passed
Funnel Seek - Passed
Track to Track Seek - Passed
Random Seek - Passed
Linear Verify - Failed
Random Verify - Passed
SMART Status Check - Passed
Smart Self-Test Short - Passed
Smart Self-Test Long - Failed

Reading results from work, my laptop's at home. Once I get home I'll do the memory test.

[Shuemue]

Sounds like your HD is on the way out.

[Tyr]

A new harddrive is the fix?

Damn...this harddrive isn't even a year old, I don't think...