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Slow boot, slow running, distorted sound


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9 replies to this topic

#1 Chinwabee

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Posted 05 August 2010 - 10:08 PM

I was working with someone in the Malware forum, as I thought that may be my problem but he redirected me to this forum and told me to start a new topic as he didn't see any malware in any scans.

My problems are this; When you turn it on and you get past the screen that says "F2" for setup or whatever they say and you get the microsoft xp logo screen with the 3 blue squares that go thru the loading bar (like Knight rider), those 3 squares "lag" so to say as they go thru choppy not fluid like they should (so its easy to know you've got a problem just there. But also once the screen finally comes up to choose your screen name....you click on your name and it takes like 10 seconds for your icon to move down showing that it was selected. Next it takes windows around 6-7 minutes to boot up and be ready to run any programs. It used to be more like 10 mins but I stripped down my startup programs down to nearly none so that helped improve it a little. My normal time was about 30-45 seconds WITH all my programs starting on startup. Once the desktop is finally up and ready to go it takes programs a few seconds to react after double clicking. Internet explorer takes about 1-2 mins to load the homepage, after that it honestly isnt too bad, meaning that its just opening and loading the homepage that takes a while (most of the time). Another issue is I cant really play music or watch movies as the sound is very distorted like metallic sounding almost. It seems like the processer is overworked or something because the words in music will be slower and movies will be choppy. It also takes winrar 2-3 hours to unpack an archive when normal times were less than 10 mins for 4gb.

My problems started right after I had installed tvu player one night. I watched what I was trying to watch, unistalled it, rebooted and then it was slow boot followed by all of these problems. Now I cant say for certain that tvu player that caused my problems but its highly coincidental that my problems started right after that. Any help would be wonderful as I am trying not to do a system restore back to factory condition.

Here is a link to my topic in the malware forum as the guy helping me told me to.
http://forums.whatth...howtopic=113722

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#2 paws

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 01:17 PM

Hi, Sorry to hear of the problems with your machine. 1 Your logs indicate that peer to peer file sharing applications, utorrent etc., have been used on this computer. They are a major source of problems and it is strongly recommended that you uninstall them completely. 2 Use a System Restore Point made prior to the problem starting and see if this improves things (reboot when you have finished it) If no improvement then reboot into safe mode and see if the machine is any quicker. 3 Report back on each of the above with your findings/comments and we will take it from there. Regards paws
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#3 Chinwabee

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Posted 06 August 2010 - 04:41 PM

I would have done a system restore but I had no restore points prior to that for some reason and thats why I had been "dealing" with it and trying to find some way to fix these issues. Now, I understand your point of the peer to peer software...I do...as that is always the first thing everyone blames. However, i've been using utorrent for years on all 4 of my computers with only 1 previous problem as i'm always very careful of what I download and I scan everything heavily since that previous problem. Yes, I could easily uninstall utorrent but I know without a doubt that it would make no difference. In my post I stated EXACTLY when my problems started and what I believed was the cause of them. I was kind of just hoping that one of you guys, being the full of expertise could read a log somewhere and find what is perhaps running in the background right from the second I push the power button or something...I dont know. Maybe i'm hoping for too much and a system restore is inevitable, but I figured i'd try you guys first. Actually sitting here typing this I remeber now that I had the same sound issue maybe 8 months back with the sound being distorted in the same way it is now. I tried everything and researched all over the net reading about people who had the same issues but the few fixes that were offered didn't work for me so I ended up restoring to factory and it was fixed. That particular issue happened after my cpu froze up one day and I did a hard shutdown and on restart there it was, but that issue was ONLY strictly sound related, video was fine and cpu performance was normal. I will uninstall utorrent as you said since I asked for your help and try to reboot and see what happens but unfortunately I dont have any restore points to revert to other that complete wipeout back to factory. Its just a little acer aspire one laptop and I might just throw it somewhere. Ok I just unistalled utorrent and rebooted and no change.

Edited by Chinwabee, 06 August 2010 - 05:03 PM.


#4 paws

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Posted 07 August 2010 - 04:01 AM

Hi OK, Well done on uninstalling the P2P it could be that elements of it are still running as a server, but before we check further how did it go when you booted into safe mode? any improvement? Regards paws
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#5 Chinwabee

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Posted 07 August 2010 - 08:51 PM

To be honest with you I never started windows in safe mode on this cpu so I couldnt say whether it is normal or not. I can say it is a little faster than regular startup but when I ran it with and without networking it took both ways the same amount of time. I had a bunch of lines displaying drivers sit on the screen for about15 seconds when I hit enter to start safe mode, followed by a black screen for about 10 seconds and then the icon screen to pick a user name. When I choose the administrator it still takes the icon a few seconds to center itself on the screen like they do, its still not instant like it should be when you choose a user. Once it does finally start the load up of the desktop in safe mode it seems like a pretty normal speed but of course it isnt loading alot of stuff either.

Edited by Chinwabee, 07 August 2010 - 08:52 PM.


#6 paws

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Posted 08 August 2010 - 02:53 AM

Hi Ok, If you machine runs and loads things a lot quicker in safe mode than it does in normal mode, then this is a helpful diagnostic.... As you rightly say in safe mode only a minimum set of drivers is used whereas in normal mode everything is loaded. If it does run considerably quicker in safe mode then we can deduce that something that is running in normal mode, but not in safe mode is responsible for the slowness If you run msconfig (in normal mode) and "disable all" from startup ( disconnect your Internet cable first) this will only load a minimum....you can then check/tick each of the disabled items in startup one at a time and reboot each time. Keep doing this until you find the culprit. Regards paws
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#7 Chinwabee

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Posted 08 August 2010 - 03:30 AM

Ok that sounds like a plan. In one of my earlier posts I had stated that I stripped down my startup processes to nearly none but I never just flat out unchecked them all but i'll fool with it. At the point my cpu is in right now its very much tolerable from waiting about 10 mins to start working to just around 3 mins, but this is with my reduced startup programs which is obviously not how I always had it and it was fast at one point with everything starting up...but I will definitely give your method a shot cuz thats just good basic troubleshooting. Why didnt I think of that? Also, I found a fix for my sound issue earlier tonight. It sucks cuz like I said I had the exact same audio problem about 8 months ago and searched everywhere and got no fix that would work so I did system restore to factory. Anyway I will post the info I read so that other people who read this looking for help with the same issue can get it word for word. Click on START, then RUN and type in devmgmt.msc (or you can just right click on my computer, hardware, device manager) and hit enter, under IDE Ata/Atapi Controllers double click on Primary IDE Channel. Check under the Advanced Settings tab, check and see if the Current Transfer rate is set for PIO or DMA. If it is PIO only change it to DMA if available (Basically you want DMA in the current transfer rate box...if its not there unistall primary IDE, reboot, and let it reinstall properly. It will auto install dont panic) . If you are not able to change it then right click on the Primary IDE Channel and select Uninstall, then reboot your computer. It will reinstall it with the proper DMA mode setting. And for those that need a "why" to everything in life..... Slow boot ups can be caused by a lot of different factors, but when you toss in the distorted audio it seems to always be the PIO (Programmed input/output) fallback mode. What happens is that when Windows has a certain number of read errors from your hard drive it begins to assume that your drive cannot handle DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode. It then steps the Transfer mode down through the different DMA Modes until it finally gets to PIO Mode. If you uninstall and reinstall the Primary IDE Channel it resets to DMA and also resets the counter.

Edited by Chinwabee, 08 August 2010 - 11:47 AM.


#8 Ztruker

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Posted 08 August 2010 - 12:56 PM

There is also a VBS (Visual Basic Script) that will force DMA mode. See here: DMA reverts to PIO

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#9 appleoddity

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Posted 08 August 2010 - 01:14 PM

Click on START, then RUN and type in devmgmt.msc (or you can just right click on my computer, hardware, device manager) and hit enter, under IDE Ata/Atapi Controllers double click on Primary IDE Channel. Check under the Advanced Settings tab, check and see if the Current Transfer rate is set for PIO or DMA. If it is PIO only change it to DMA if available (Basically you want DMA in the current transfer rate box...if its not there unistall primary IDE, reboot, and let it reinstall properly. It will auto install dont panic) . If you are not able to change it then right click on the Primary IDE Channel and select Uninstall, then reboot your computer. It will reinstall it with the proper DMA mode setting.


This is typical of what will happen, especially on laptops, due to bad sectors on the hard drive. This is also why your system was starting so slow, and responding so slow. Switching back to DMA mode should have improved your computer's performance about 10 fold.

Next, you need to run CHKDSK /R on the hard drive to verify the integrity of the drive.

Please click start -> run -> type CMD and press ENTER. At the command prompt, type CHKDSK /R and press ENTER. Choose 'Y' to schedule a scan at the next restart. Then, reboot your computer. Be patient while chkdsk runs. Look out for messags about windows replacing bad clusters at steps 4 and 5. This will be your bad sectors being locked out. If there are many messages like this, your hard drive is probably failing.

Its also the same reason why it happened 8 months ago, and now happened again. And that reinforces the idea it is probably bad sectors or a failing hard drive.

Edited by appleoddity, 08 August 2010 - 01:18 PM.

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#10 Chinwabee

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Posted 08 August 2010 - 06:00 PM

I ran check scan to check my hard drive but I wasnt in the room paying attention to the screen. I dont know if it displayed any messages during steps 4 or 5 like you mentioned but is there any way to view a log of that scan? Also, my cpu has seemingly returned to normal pretty much ever since that I did the fix for the IDE controller last night. It definitely runs way faster again and boots up smoothly and I havent seen any real delay in reaction from the cpu when I click an icon to run something its pretty instant again. I havent experimented with loading individual startup programs at all to find the bad guy cuz I just figured screw it I'll start what I want when I want to use it aside from my anti-virus. The real test of performance came for me today when I went to extract a file using winrar which had been taking up to 3 hours to do a 4.5 gb file. Back to 6 minutes or less...right where she belongs. I definitely intend to buy another bigger external hard drive to back up data from all my cpu's in case my hard drive is taking a dump. So is my cpu good to go or is there anything else that you would suggest be done to my machine? I certainly appreciate all the help and knowledge you've provided me with to this point. I also have an off topic question for you. One of my desktop cpu's was wiped clean by a windows update months ago and I've just left it off since then so that none of my data gets overwritten cuz I know just because it's been deleted it isnt gone. I've ran a program to recover the files, I think it is called recovermyfiles (but not really sure) anyway everytime I run the program it will go for about 3 days and then just lock up the computer when its almost done. That particular cpu has 4gb of ram and a 5 or 600gb hard drive. I didnt think ram should necessarily be a problem but I was wondering if you may know of any good program that may be of use to me. I know this is off topic for this but i'm just trying to ask you if you have any personal suggestions. Thanks

Edited by Chinwabee, 09 August 2010 - 02:45 AM.

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