Extreme Desktop slowdown

Go to Start | run and type  sfc.exe /scannow

Also see here:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q222/4/71.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q222/1/93.ASP

shekerra:       When I enter the various commands the same message appears : "Cannot find the file 'sfc.exe/scannow'(or one of its components). Make sure the path and filename are corrrect and that all required libraries are available." Suggestions?

Go to My Computer  |  tools  | folder options  |view  and tick 'show hidden files and folders.
Now through My Computer browse to c:winnt\system32 folder
and go to start  |  run   and type   command
(a Dos window should open)
Now type   sfc.exe /scannow

There is a space between sfc.exe  and /scannow

shekerra- Ran /scannow, but no luck. Thank you for the suggestion.

Hmmm well you can always go back to the last good configuration by rebooting and press F8
Just a few more questions -
How long have you had this problem?
When was the last time that you ran scandisk/defrag?
When you check task manager what does your performance look like?  Any tasks taking up a lot of Memory/CPU?
On My Computer | properties  | advanced | performance options - do you have application or background services checked?

Also see here:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q259/0/25.ASP

Also try this. Go to the task bar and right click on an empty on it and then select "Task Manager". Now go the menu bar and click on "Options" if there is not a check mark next to "Always on Top" then click on it. Now select the "Processes" tab and then click on the column labeled "CPU" which will sort the list according to which processes are using the most CPU cycles. Now proceed to do what you are having problems with and watch the task manager. See which processes rotate to the top of list and not the percentage. If is mainly just one process other than "System Idle" that is rotating to the top then that process may be what is causing the problem.


The Crazy One

This
Go to the task bar and right click on an empty on it

and this
rotate to the top of list and not the percentage.

Should read
Go to the task bar and right click on an empty space on it

and
rotate to the top of list and note the percentage.  

Sorry for the delay. This problem has occured for approx. 6 weeks. I run DisKeeper daily (scheduled). Application services is checked. In running the Task Manager it is noted that the 3 following applications rotate to the top of the list when I right click on the desktop: 1) Explorer.exe 2) Spoolsv.exe and 3)csrss.exe. If there is meaning to this, let me know. I'm in the dark.

Csrss: client/server run-time subsystem and is an essential subsystem that must be running at all times.

spoolsv.exe: - printing - The spooler service is responsible for managing spooled print/fax jobs

With diskkeeper how often do you defrag? I am wondering if diskkeeper might have a possible problem with defragging certain files. Also check the permissions on the fragmented files.
Perhaps copy the ones that absolutely will not defrag to a backup (another drive or ext.) and delete - then run defrag.

shekerra- Defrag 2-3x/week. Uninstalled DisKeeper and ran Defrag from Win2000. Problem persists. Permissions n/a as all three partitions are FAT32. Might it be best to convert to NTFS? I do have Partition Magic 6.0

Hold on Cactusdr - let me pull Dew_Associates in on this question.

Hi Cactus!

How big are those partitions, and what make hard drive?

Dennis

Maxtor Diamond 40gig, Quantum Fireball 20gig. Each partition is 20gig.

Did you do an Internet Explorer repair yet?  If not go to control panel  |  add/remove programs - select internet explorer and click on remove - then click on 'repair'
You should also do windows update and get all of the criticals and things like VM installed as well.

Hmmm, cactus, how old is that machine, especially the bios for the motherboard? There's been many similar issues involving large HD above 32G lately.

dew: HP 8650C.....approx 2 1/2 yo. Updated the BIOS for every machine in the house and my office, except this one.     shekerra: have not, but will, try the IE repair.

Hmm, okay, that may be part of the problem. If it's 2 or more years old, it precedes the release of Win2k as well as the ATA66-100 drives.

Update the bios, and then do a repair of the HAL and see of you can reinstall SP2.

And depending on the number of applications u run u may need to run a memory utility to free RAM as windows dosent magage it greatly and all menus that u load such as that right click must first be loaded into ram you may also have a paging problem which may be causing that you can check and moniter these using the peroformance moniter

Frazell, I'm not sure where you are coming from, memory utilities should not be loaded in Windows 2000 as they cannot directly access memory. That may work in Windows 95, but certainly not in Windows 98/98SE or Windows 2000.

Hummm seems your not right i use MemMAX to free ram on my Windows 2000 Pro machine daily ;). 2000 with all its stability isnt the perfect memory manager :(. Below is a link to MemMAX you can test it it DOES work w/ 2000.

MemMAX
http://t-rod.rsn.hk-r.se/tiberius/index.php3?page=memmax

Frazell, I was trying too be kind. I couldn't care less what MemMax tells you, you cannot, I repeat cannot, access memory directly in Windows 2000 through any, I repeat *any* application. Now, if MemMax is killing applications, that's another subject. Please don't tell me something that I've known since the beginning of NT. I would suggest that maybe you might want to spend a few days reading about NT, including 2000, and memory access issues on Microsoft's Developer Network.

Well do me a favor and tell me why it recovers memory?

Better yet (since im so "Wrong") why dont u download a copy of MemMax from the above link. Then install it, open it, and check the Max box. Open the Task Manager hit performance notice your free RAM etc. Hit optimize in MemMAX. When its done notice the free ram no app killing. then again your the wise guy so we all expect a wise explanation.

Frazell, I'm not about to argue with you, if you want to continue in this manner, post a Q in the customer service Q and I'll address you there. I was trying to be kind and point you in the right direction and allow you to do your own research. Anyone who has ever worked with NT in any depth knows that no applications are permitted by the NT kernel to access hardware directly. BTW, MemMax is a multithreaded application that forces applications to dump to disk, eg; if there is application content in physical memory, it is dumped to the swapfile.

I wont argue w/ you man use the app and you will see it frees swap to ;). God what is it with you type test before u speak n stop talkin out ur *(&.

Frazell -
Please post a 0 point Q at CS to further discuss this issue (as Dew requested.) This Q is to assist Cactusdr in resolving technical problems.

Thank you,
>Bev

Where were we?  dew: BIOS updated, reinstalled sp2. NO luck with resolution of the problem. Still slow on the desktop. More?

Okay, let me clarify something with you. You say you right click to open the desktop. Are you referring to clicking on the desktop itself to change settings? I need you to be very specific in what you are doing so that I can understand which files may be involved.

Sorry for being non-specific. Yes....right clicking on the desktop to change settings, properties, etc.

Okay, let's take a look at the video card. What is it? How old is it? Is there Windows 2000 support? And are you using the latest driver set?

No installed PCI card. Utilize the Intel i810 chipset. Drivers were updated 2 months ago. Driver version 5.13.1.2772 for the 82810 Graphics Controller.

dew:   As per your instructions, removed the drivers. Reinstalled the same driver but the outcome was still the same. Downloaded and installed the latest drivers from Intel. The latest release is only 1 week old. The problem persists. Ideas?

dew:   As per your instructions, removed the drivers. Reinstalled the same driver but the outcome was still the same. Downloaded and installed the latest drivers from Intel. The latest release is only 1 week old. The problem persists. Ideas?

Looking through this entire thread again, I have an idea of what may be the problem, but it's just a guess at this point. I suspect that maybe that 533 and its limited cache may play a part in this.

Open your system manager and discontinue all services that are running and then discontinue any apps that are started during the boot process. Essentially a clean start, and then try it.

dew- The problem is solved. I uninstalled the drivers as you suggested and reinstalled the updated version. That didn't work but I recalled that the problem of slowdown on the desktop occured AFTER I installed the version 6.3.1. I uninstalled the version 6.4 that I downloaded today and went back an installed version 6.0. BINGO! You were right in the ballpark about the video device driver as the source problem. I just needed the older driver for everything to work properly........with one exception.  After I installed the version 6.4 today whenever I reboot I get the following fault window. "Windows - Unable to Load Device Driver       X     \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\TSISTRM.SYS device driver could not be loaded. Error Status was 0xc0000034.   When I click on OK I get another Window  igfxtray.exe - Entry Point Not Found.    X    The procedure entry point IsDisplayDeviceActive could not be located in the dynamic link library hccutils.dll.
This is then followed by      hkcmd.exe - Entry Point Not Found     X  The procedure entry point ISDisplayDeviceActive could not be located in the dynamic link library hccutils.dll. Maybe I should have stayed with the sluggish Desktop. Advice?

dew- The problem is solved. I uninstalled the drivers as you suggested and reinstalled the updated version. That didn't work but I recalled that the problem of slowdown on the desktop occured AFTER I installed the version 6.3.1. I uninstalled the version 6.4 that I downloaded today and went back an installed version 6.0. BINGO! You were right in the ballpark about the video device driver as the source problem. I just needed the older driver for everything to work properly........with one exception.  After I installed the version 6.4 today whenever I reboot I get the following fault window. "Windows - Unable to Load Device Driver       X     \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\TSISTRM.SYS device driver could not be loaded. Error Status was 0xc0000034.   When I click on OK I get another Window  igfxtray.exe - Entry Point Not Found.    X    The procedure entry point IsDisplayDeviceActive could not be located in the dynamic link library hccutils.dll.
This is then followed by      hkcmd.exe - Entry Point Not Found     X  The procedure entry point ISDisplayDeviceActive could not be located in the dynamic link library hccutils.dll. Maybe I should have stayed with the sluggish Desktop. Advice?

It sounds as though the original video software was not uninstalled correctly or the uninstaller hasn't removed everything.

What software is loading for that video card other than drivers?

We have a couple of options here, but I need this first.

Concise, deductive reasoning as to the solution of the problem.

dew- Uninstalled via the Device Manager>Display Adapters>Intel 82810 Graphics controller>Driver>Uninstall. After removal of the adapter used the Intel executable driver downloaded from their site. Did this without using the New Hardware Found Wizard.

Okay, but what was the result? and how is the system responding to it?

Nice work Dennis. :>)

Thanks Crazy

Nice work Dennis.

;o)

dew_ Everything appears to work properly with respect to video except the warining windows about the device driver not loading, etc. By the way things are now working properly you would never know that there was some other type of problem. I'm confused. Should I uninstall/reinstall the older version of the driver again?

dew_ Everything appears to work properly with respect to video except the warining windows about the device driver not loading, etc. By the way things are now working properly you would never know that there was some other type of problem. I'm confused. Should I uninstall/reinstall the older version of the driver again?