win 98 se windows explorer locking up and/or agonizingly slow

[mouseinmypocket]

I don't know what is wrong. I have been downloading games from shockwave.com for tryout but nothing more. Any suggestions will be gladly received!!!! Thanks.

My pc is an athalon 1.2 Gig with an 80 gig harddrive, 256 meg ram.

 

[TekTippy4U]

In my humble opinion.....there's all kinds of stuff runnin around in there from shockwave.....
and....
When was the last time you Defragmented the Hard drive.....?
Does it only happen in Windows Exp.....or other programs like IE....?

Oh and if you do a defrag.....Reboot and Always run Scandisk first.......
Make sure you're power management and screen saver aren't going to interfere with how ever long it may take
It could be 1 hour or more.....or a lot less......

 

[vop]

You can go to

http://www.pcpitstop.com

and access the following link to determine the extent of any fragmentation:

View the test results>disk [link]. My current results are:

Data fragmentation 3% (15% or more is unacceptible)
File fragmentation 1% ( 5% or more is unacceptible)


If you do find extensive fragmentation, the Windows defrag often cannot be relied upon to do a good repair and cleanup job especially if the disk is near full. You could still be left with extensive 'data' fragmentation yet to be resolved.

In a recent case, a 1.2G system (30GB HDD) was found to horribly fragmented and very sluggish. After a 'defrag' it was still 40% 'data' fragmented but working much better. But, any remaining excessive fragmentation can still adversely impact your drive's optimal performance and longevity. Furthermore, it is not a good idea to unnecessarily or suboptimally defrag when the need is just not there, or that the results of that process continue to be suboptimal. Fragmented 'data' can be a significant hastening contributor of recurring fragmentatation. Updates to data files can be re-writtten to other areas of the disk which then creates and aggrevates the very conditions that lead to (quicker) fragmentation.

We used Diskeeper Lite (freeware)to get the 'data' fragmentation levels down to around 1%:

http://www.webattack.com/get/dkeeperlite.shtml

 

[wmccall]

More and more, I see this guy of thing from adware and spyware. It use to be a privacy/annoy problem with this type of software, but so many companies are using this type of software that they tend to accumlate their effects and bring even top of the line PCs to their knees. I work on a similar system to yours last night. It seemed like the mouse was sticky and slow. It was an optical mouse. Try a spyware removal tool. I use Adware v 6.0 and it works great. I've brought almost dead pcs back to usefullness with this alone.

It can be found at download.com

 

[TekTippy4U]

[vop]
I agree the windows defrag is not a powerful tool...as i've learned that the utilities give with the windows OS are scaled down/minimal versions of the real stuff.....
Not too sure about win2k/NT/XP......
Even something like Norton Sys Util's is much much better(I think the windows9x versions are spin-offs of nortons)...

TT4U

 

[livesfreely]

Try adaware like wmcall says. Also, check if it runs fine in the safe mode. Go to Device Manager and see if all seems well. Try restoring the system if all else fails. In some cases this problem could also be caused by a faulty hardware. Are your cpu fans working? Do you get any other error messages? Swap the RAM stick to see it it is working fine.