XP slows down when PC is left on over night. 7

[offmyrocker]

XP slows down when the PC is left on over night....it becomes so slow that its nearly impossible to do anything on it. Should this be the case? Have to restart the PC so it can be used, and even getting it to restart is a difficult task!

 

[kippy13]

It shouldnt deteriorate that badly, have u SP1 on the machine? When u say u leave it on, do u mean u stay logged in or u leave it switched on at the login prompt?
However its always a good idea to shut down the machine over night.

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[offmyrocker]

Its a user on the network that stays logged in and forgets to shutdown the pc! SP1 is installed and I've just updates all the critical updates. He's been told many times to shutdown, but just forgets....is there a way of auto shutting down that machine or auto log off?
...Even so, should it still slow down that much?

 

[kippy13]

Hi,
It shouldnt slow down that much. Check to see if power management is enabled on the nic, if it is disable it, check the power management settings in general.
Also defrag the H/D, I have seen this being an issue in similiar cases before.
However at the end of the day the user should be shutting down or at the very least logging off.

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[bcastner]

offmyrocker,

You raise several points, let me address the second one first.

"Can I schedule a shutdown?"

There are many Third-Party utilities to do this. In XP you can use Task Scheduler and the native XP shutdown.exe utility.

You use Control Panel to create a new Scheduled Task for the dates of the week and the time of day in which the task should run.

Create a simple .CMD file, say Workstation_off.cmd with notepad that contains one line:

shutdown -f -s

Use this simple one line .CMD file as the target of the Scheduled Task.

Now your second point: machine slows down overnight.

. Check to see if any P2P applications such as Kazaa, eMule or similar are being run. As a fairly good guess they are not turning the machine off overnight because they are downloading.

. What you are describing is an issue called a "memory leak" and while not uncommon it is for office applications fairly rare. It is fairly common with P2P applications; eMule in its current .30x series, has had four revisions to handle memory leaks.

. Peronally, my principle workstation, on a Network, with two VPN connections as well, has not been turned off other than the East-Coast power grid failure in November, 2003 in close to 14 months. It is not slow.


.

 

[kippy13]

Great tips bcastner.
What does the file extension cmd signify?

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[SYAR2003]

Found this explanation :
Difference between .bat and .cmd files. There doesn't appear to be any difference until you use a shortcut to launch the program, then .bat files get COMMAND.COM as their command processor, and so are running in an environment similar to DOS 5 with no NT extensions, but if the extension is .cmd, then the shortcut launches the program with CMD.EXE and all the NT extensions are present and functional.

syar

 

[kippy13]

Very good, and extremely useful to know.
Thanks for that.

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[offmyrocker]

Excellent bcastner, your a legend! Setup that .cmd file on the network and I'm gonna use it for other machines.

Kippy13...did a dfrag as it was in need of one, cheers.

The user dosen't use kazzer, winmx or any of those as the pc dosen't have access to the proxy server....

I'm still a little concerned as to whats causing this...maybe it was just in need of a dfrag, but I've seen something similar happening on a laptop on the network(also using XP) and that machine wasn't even left on over night....

Sorry guys, I'm such a pain!

 

[kippy13]

Just wondering are u using Novell on the network or any other software?
There are huge strings here dedicated to XP speed and performance issues on a network in varying types of configurations.

"Sometimes I do not know but I try hard"- R.F. Haughty 1923

 

[bcastner]

I have know way of knowing what applications you are running. If you search very hard with Google, including "Groups" you can find this MS Hotfix that may make a difference:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=815411

To all: if you Google ms Q815411 you might be surprised by the original MS title for this hotfix. Have fun.

 

[offmyrocker]

Don't use Novell...

Not sure about using that patch from that article, and besides, can't find the patch

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=815411

Would I have to contact Micro. for that?

Other things come to mind....
Use "Reflection" for remote access & printing from a 3rd party sytem in another company...would this type of software be similar to kaaza, eMule etc.

Also use "Tight VNC" but only for internal purposes...

 

[colinharris]

Have you checked your system temperatures ? Some motherboards have an option to slow down the cpu when the cpu gets hot. It could be a cooling issue.

 

[bcastner]

offmyrocker,

I know nothing about reflection. MS is very unlikely to give you that particular patch; it can be found with some aggressive use of Google.

2. Please do make this small regedit:

Open the registry editor.

Go to

HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion
/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Export this key (in order to back it up) and then delete the key called

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF} (Task Scheduler).

Close the registry.

Be sure to check your 'Binding Order' in Network Connections > Advanced.

 

[rossogr]

I have the same problem, if I leave the pc for a couple of hours unattended it becomes very slow, which it shouldn't as there is plenty of memory, hard disk space and cpu power. I do run a lot of things so I hope it's a memory leak, I am searching to see which is the guilty party. No virus or spyware progs in my system. The problem is only solved with rebooting. I didn't have it from the start so this tends to convince me it's a memory leak problem. Any other suggestions, ideas are very welcome.
Thanks

 

[richyd]

check to see if you have loads of processes in the backgroup. Run spyware programs and check for worm viruses.

Also run an app called, easy clean. goes through the registery and gets rid of invalid entries. after I ran it, my pc shuts down a lot quicker.

 

[offmyrocker]

Something I have noticed lately....when i go into "my music" folder my pc slows down completely...nearly crashes...I end up have to restart it cause its so slow!

 

[richyd]

run a check disk in the command prompt
c:>chkdsk c: /f

to see if theres any coruptions

 

[shirleyowl]

HI everyone, I wonder if you can help me I want to defrag my system but I have forgotten the command. I typed in c:defrag but nothing happens. I am sure it is something like that but it has been a while since I did one so I am probably missing a character or something else is wrong.
Also I tried typing the chkdsk command that 'richyd' suggested but that didn't work either.
I am running winxp home on a 2.6 emachine with 512 RAM and 80gb HD which is about 80% full as my husband is editing our holiday video.
TIA
Shirley

iMac OSX 10.2.8 17"Flat panel 80gb,800mhz,256 Ram, Superdrive.

 

[bcastner]

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_defrag.htm