Help me find out what is wrong with my computer

Status
Not open for further replies.
G

GuiRitter

Geek Trainee
Hi all.

It's been happening for some while now, and I'm pretty sure it's hardware related. I've already tested with Windows and Linux, but I have some current tasks which have to be done on Windows. So I Googled "hardware forum" and here I am. It happens randomly and disappears randomly.

- The main thing is speed. Tasks take years to start, run and finish, including that DMI pool data thing at boot.
- CPU activity remains very low. Sometimes Interrupts take most of the processing (overall processing still low).
- In the first times HD remained working at all times (LED fully on).
- It hits Windows harder. I have more freedom if I'm using Linux.
- In Windows, it bluescreens seldomly, talking about some win-something.dll. On the next boot, a Microsoft page reports "Stop (blue screen) error caused by a device or driver".
- Today the IDE primary channel went back to PIO three times, and I had to uninstall/reinstall it.
- A few times after installing Windows I installed the mobo driver and, if I selected to install a Storage component, Windows would bluescreen very often.
- Sometimes comes from moving the computer case.
- Ubuntu works normally except for operations involving HD I/O. Some processes hang along the latter.
- Once Ubuntu stopped working in the middle of a "normal" session, reporting, "blablabla i/o error, dev sda, sector blablabla". I disconnected the optical drive and it came back to normal.
- Once in Windows the mouse froze before a bluescreen, that Microsoft page appeared again, and it went from normal to slowed down again, the mouse freezing for a few seconds every minute, with one freeze lasting more than two minutes.

What is not:
- The CPU is not overheating, though it overheated a lot in the past.
- Memtest86+ found nothing.
- I take extreme and intensive care about viruses.
- Sometimes it gets slightly faster after Avast finishes updating.

Specs:
Mobo: ECS C51GM-M V1.0 HT2000
Chipset: nVidia GeForce 6100
Southbridge: nVidia nForce 410/430 MCP
Old

CPU: AMD Sempron 3000+ (Manila)
Old

RAM: Two Kingston 1 MB DDR2 modules
Not too old.

GPU: nVidia GeForce GT 220
Brand new.

HD: Samsung HD502HI 500 GB SATA
New.
Two NTFS partitions, one with Windows XP SP3 x86
One ext3 partition with Ubuntu 10.10
One linux-swap partition

Optical Disk Drive: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50 SATA
Not too old.

Current Status: Slow.

I'll keep this first post updated to maintain a summary.

Thanks in advance.
 
The problem seems to be that Windows keeps switching you from DMA mode to PIO mode. There are many users who have this issue and have remedied it by uninstalling the IDE Channel in Device Manager. When you reboot, Windows will set the mode back to DMA. Uninstall the Channels only begin used (ie, Primary or Secondary)... If you're lucky, Windows won't revert the drive back to PIO as users indicated that this can happen. You can try replacing the IDE cable if it does.
 
Well, as I said it switched to PIO three times, which means I uninstalled it three times already. About the cable, I'm not sure I use this cable, as my hard drive and DVD drive use SATA. But the controller interferes with performance nonetheless.

Now I guess it is all normal again, but as I said before, this whole slow down thing comes and goes. I still want to know what's wrong.
 
Hm, This site will help you more than i can. As always, i advise you install the latest motherboard drivers if you haven't already. Here you'll find the latest motherboard driver for your nforce 410/430. Notice it lists an update to your IDE controller. Otherwise i'm out of solutions :oops: but do check the first link i posted up as well.
 
The first link seems very useful, although the problems stopped now. If they come back I'll check that link again. About the driver, I have the very same driver you sent me, because it downloaded with an appended (1) at the end of the file name and I found out I already had the file.

Good thing about your post is that I remembered something, and that I'm keeping a summary up there.
A few times after installing Windows I installed the mobo driver and, if I selected to install a Storage component, Windows would bluescreen very often. Why would that be?

Anyway, although the problems stopped, I will bring this thread back if the problems also come back. Thanks for all the help xD
 

What do you mean? The Storage driver component thing? I don't know. The mobo driver installation process listed three components for me to choose: Ethernet, SMBus and Storage, but didn't gave explanation on each so I don't know if it's RAID related.
Anyway, I don't use RAID.
 
Ok, understood. Sorry for linking you the "latest" drivers lol, as they aren't the latest. Which O/S do you have and what architecture? (64-bit/32-bit).
Whichever one, here are the latest drivers for your board: 32-bit XP, 64-bit XP, 32-bit Vista/7, 64-bit Vista/7.

Download one from the links above and install them. Hopefully, nVidia has created a solution the crashes ;)
 
I have the 32-bit XP, and it seems that this link is actually more recent than the one I'm using. When the problem comes back I'll install it and see if it makes some difference.

Thanks again!
 
Came back again. This time it's ten times more annoying because I started working now and I can only use the computer on weekends. And I remembered that this is also caused by moving the computer case in a certain way. Most likely it started again because my mother cleaned my room instead of me, who take care to leave the case in it's place (yeah the case sits on the floor, and there's no way to change that) .

I'm posting this from Ubuntu which seems to be almost not being affected by this, although that operations involving HD access are as slow as everything else on Windows. Also, specific operations hang along the slow ones, like now when I clicked to open a partition, Chrome opened a tab in real time, opened Google in real time but opened Translation Tools right after the partition opened.

Edit: good news for me! I guess I sort of found out the source of the problem. While using Ubuntu, it suddenly stopped working. By that I mean stopped doing stuff, like I tried to open a program, the "Starting Program" appeared where programs appear, but when that dissapeared the program didn't started. Then I tried to access the terminal by shortcut, which glitched the desktop. Then I entered text mode terminal by pressing Ctrl+F1, and it refused to log me in, saying every time: "blablabla i/o error, dev sda, sector blablabla" (sda is the HD). On the next boot, after "Detecting IDE drives", he didn't detected my optical drive, so I disconnected it and rebooted. To my surprise, it went back to normal instantly. The drive used to work normally, so it's either it or something on the mobo responsible for it.

De-edit: Slowed down again several hours after using Windows, in the middle of an installation process. HD is in Ultra DMA mode and everything else is as described before.
 
Try some process of elimination...
Go into the BIOS and reset the settings to safe configuration or default.
Remove all your expansion cards except your video card.
Try one stick of memory at a time swapping and test them in different slots.
Run a diagnostic software on your hard drive preferably one from the manufacturer.
Remove connection to your optical drive. Just use your hard drive only.
Change out your IDE cable.

My guess is bad memory, wrong cpu settings in bios, bad hdd.
 
violetblueskies said:
Try some process of elimination...
Go into the BIOS and reset the settings to safe configuration or default.
Click to expand...
Already is.

violetblueskies said:
Remove all your expansion cards except your video card.
Click to expand...

That's the only expansion card other than the ethernet card which is crucial for the internet (speed is normal by the way).

violetblueskies said:
Try one stick of memory at a time swapping and test them in different slots.
Click to expand...
No way! I once tried to clean the sticks and it took a day to make it work with ONE stick! Some weeks to make the other stick work!

violetblueskies said:
Run a diagnostic software on your hard drive preferably one from the manufacturer.
Click to expand...
This I never heard of. Might try, but as said before the HD is new.

violetblueskies said:
Remove connection to your optical drive. Just use your hard drive only.
Click to expand...
Already doing.

violetblueskies said:
Change out your IDE cable.
Click to expand...
It's a SATA, but I might try changing it.

By the way, Windows came back to normal this sunday. I used it for a whole day. Then after taking a shower I tried to watch a video, and it took a long time to open the player. Then the mouse froze and it bluescreened. Said something about KERNEL_SOMETHING_STACK_SOMETHING_ETC, it was too fast. On the next boot it was slow again and worst, the mouse kept freezing for some seconds from minute to minute. One freeze lasted more than two minutes. Before this Chrome opened revealing that Microsoft error report page saying it bluescreed due to "device error or driver". Posting this from Ubuntu now and he seems unaware of the PC's condition, except that accesses to the HD take time and fill all of the System Monitor app with "I/O wait" or something. At least I was able of doing my homework on the Windows-only software (Wine couldn't make it).
 
okay so lets see...

what make/model motherboard do you have?
how long have you had the motherboard?
if its an aftermarket motherboard, do you still have warranty on it?
if your not sure about warranty, just provide your motherboard's serial number and we can check.

one idea that came to mind is to install windows on a usb hdd as the boot drive eliminating the use of the sata bus.
you would need to have the option in your bios to boot off a usb device to do this.
when doing so i would disable the sata controller in your bios.
if you have ide ports enable those and get your hands on an ide optical drive just for testing.
im thinking you would need to boot off the optical drive first and then make it install windows files onto the usb device then go from there.

about the memory swapping... if your having problems just swapping out memory then there's got to be some serious issues with your motherboard.
people swap and remove memory --all the time-- and don't have issues.
perhaps as you said your pc is touch sensitive and might be responding to any shock, there might be some sensitive areas on your motherboard.
this might be an illusion to you as you are probably exhausted from dealing with this, but there is a chance that you might be right.
if all else fails... motherboard, as they say haha. you might consider the warranty approach if you still have one.
time it takes to ship off the motherboard and get one back might be 1-2 weeks.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top