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Stephen Potts · Guest

I posted this before, and received some responses, but I still have not been
able to resolve this problem.

Having a problem where my CPU maxes out quit frequently when it never used
to. It does it especially with games (games that have requirements of like
PII 300, where I have a P4 1.7Ghz), but also with programs like
GoogleWebAccelerator, Limewire, certain websites requiring Macromedia.
When it maxes out, my system almost locks up, slowing to a crawl.
I recently reformatted my computer from scratch, removed all startup
programs except Microsoft ones through
MSCONFIG, have no viruses (as per Norton), have no spyware (as per AdAware).
I did a benchmark test on my CPU which showed no errors, disabled Disk
Indexing, and downloaded
and installed Intel Application Accelerator. I have no idea why it would
hover around 90% with these programs when they really shouldn't be hogging
all those resources and it never happened before. Running XP Pro SP2. Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I know that "slowness" of a computer is a common, difficult to diagnose
problem, however, I think that there is something very wrong with my
computer. Don't know if this will help, but the fan on the PC is much
louder than it was before.

Thanks

neil · Guest

Perhaps the fact the fan is noisy (if you mean the processor fan) it needs
replacing. I think you need to post the spec of your PC to get the best
help, including the motherboard make & model.
After you installed windows xp without anything else was it slow then.??
Have you checked the bios settings, is it overclocked, what about resetting
the bios to default. Have you installed the motherboard drivers.
Just some things to think about.

Neil

Ryan · Guest

If the CPU fan is louder than usual, I would replace it and see if that is
the problem.

Richard Urban · Guest

Loud fan = a. Bad bearing = slow fan = overheating CPU = CPU speed step down
to save CPU

OR

Loud fan = b. Over heating CPU = Fan speeds up to try to cool = CPU speed
step down to save CPU

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Dixonian69 · Guest

You didn't say how much ram?
Have yuo done basics ie chkdsk and defrag??
--
Dennis S.
I''m from Illinois. I hope I helped you. Good Luck.

Stephen Potts · Guest

When I reinstalled the OS, I used the Compaq set-up CD, so I assume that
that would have installed the appropriate drivers. I contacted Compaq, but
they just said to remove programs from Startup using MSCONFIG (not very
helpful).

Stephen

neil · Guest

You perhaps have a Compaq set-up disk with motherboard drivers.??
Neil

Stephen Potts · Guest

Hi, thank you for all of the information, please see below for answers to
the questions (and my further questions).

Compaq Presario 5340CA, 512MB RAM (though I don't think that the RAM is the
problem as it never uses all of it)

I do not know what kind of motherboard I have, nor do I know how to
determine this (if someone could tell me, that would be great).

I am using the latest ROMpaq as provided on the Compaq website (it appears
to be a Compaq BIOS). My processor is not over-clocked and registers
correctly as 1700 Mhz. I have not made any changes to the BIOS (other than
NumLock at BootUp). I don't know if there are any other drivers available
for the motherboard as I don't know what kind it is.

Yes, it was still slow when I reinstalled XP with nothing else.

How do I determine which fan is making more noise? The fan that I hear
cycles between loud and soft, or slow and fast, whichever you prefer. Can
both fans do this? If it is the fan, would it cause the kind of problems
that I have mentioned?

I really didn't understand Richard Urban's advice or diagnosis of the
problem.

Yes, I have done the basic chkdsk and defrag.

That's about it, hopefully the above information will be useful. I do
appreciate all of your help.

Thanks

jezzer256 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:15 pm Post subject:

Hi

First off, to determine what fan is making the noise why not take the side of your case off and boot up and see if you can hear which one is making a racket. I did this recently and found I had a messed up GPU fan.

Some interesting tools you might want to try out:

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php - this tool should tell you how fast the different fans in your system are going, and what temperature your hardware is at (i.e. your chipset, CPU and maybe Graphics Card if it has a temperature sensor on it?)

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php - CPU-Z should tell you your motherboard vendor and model, as well as lots and lots of other interesting information about your PC. This is as long as your chipset is supported which I expect it will be. Try it out and see.

I hope some of this helps, I'm not an expert!

Cheers

Jezzer
_________________
When it comes to PCs no one can handle them quite like I can... No one can snap power cables with their little finger and crash computers whilst asleep! Grr!

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