Ask the IT Network Engineer

[Jaymz]

Similar thread to the Ask the copper one in the pub section.

About me:

My job title at work is Senior Network Engineer, and in laymans terms i am an IT geek!

I have been working with computers since high school, and 6 years here at my current job, so have quite a bit of knowledge with most computer problems.

I also have extensive experience with windows servers.

Most computer problems take a bit of troubleshooting, so creating a thread so we can work on it in there would be a good idea.

But things like "is this laptop good", "how can i speed up my PC", "what is a good free Antivirus program" can be answered nice and easy here and can benefit other users who might stumble on this thread.

[ClairBear]

Good idea Jaymz.

My computer is being odd still. Haven't done anything since we last spoke (didn't need BIOS upgrade as I was correct, it is the latest ver) however the BSOD's have stopped, haven't seen one since 12th, and it stays up most of the time. Occassionaly though the HDD light comes on solid and the entire system freezes then reboots (no BSOD) and instead of restarting (HDD light still solid) I get the "insert boot disk" on a black screen. I have to power it down for about 20 seconds then power back up.

Just thought I would give you an update.

[Jaymz]

Thanks Clair,

Interesting how the BSOD have appeared to stop, but worrying that the random reboots are still there. I recently (today actually) got my hands on three identical computers all with failed Power supplies in them (power surge) and one of them exhibited the same issues (reboot with no errors). I initially thought hard drive, but replacing that made no difference. Replaced RAM, CPU, CD Drive still the same errors. Upon closer inspection of the board i found that some of the capacitors were bulging and leaking! Bingo, that was the issue.

Both good and bad capacitors are shown here in this pic:


Have a look on your board next time you have the case open and see if any are bulging or leaking, as that could be your problem.

[ClairBear]

Will do Jaymz. I also read online that sometimes the thermal paste could have dried out, so will need to check that out when I open the case to check the capacitors.

Love computers!!

[Jaymz]

When thermal paste dries out, it normally causes over temperature conditions on the CPU, this will result in throttling of the CPU speeds and eventually a system shutdown. Though normally the system will stay shut down rather than rebooting. and MSI motherboards are good at reporting CPU overtemp conditions. still worth a check though! Good luck!

[Jonno]

good work mate saving your fellow JCers alot of $$$ :P

i have a small question

will deliting a old user and their files speed up the computer?

it lags a fair bit

[Jaymz]

Hey Jonnoo! Normally deleting old user files (or any files on your computer for that matter) will not cause a huge increase of performance unless the computer's hard drives are nearly full.

A few good tools to try run to narrow down the problem are Task manager and Performance monitor. To start these:

Task Manager:
Right click on a blank area on your task bar (bar along the bottom of the screen) and select Task Manager

Performance Monitor:
Windows XP:
Click Start > Run > type in PERFMON > click OK
Windows Vista/7
Click Start > type in search field: PERFMON > press enter

In task manager, look in the Performance tab and see how high the line graph is, if it is constantly above 50% with nothing open then that will be what is slowing it down. Going back to the Processes tab, you can sort by CPU. Googling the Image Name will yeild results as to what the process is and if it should be working that hard.

In Performance monitor, note also how high the bar graphs are. The line that represents Avg. Disk Queue length is the one you will be interested in. that represents if something is reading and writing to the hard drive. Finding out what is doing that is harder though and beyond what i can suggest here (more a case by case approach)

Other than that, running disk defragmenters, check disks and running other free AV scans (Free ESET Online Antivirus Scanner) are good to make sure there isnt anything else wrong with your pc.

hope this helps!

[Jonno]

sweet cheers man i just delited the user and restarted. i actually already did see a bit of speed up.. eg not lagging when moving the mouse etc.

thanks mate

i opend the 2 things u stated above, they both started high but then dropped loww after that, so im guessing all is ok thanks

[GothicKidd]

Got a problem. Owned this computer for 2 years now.. Used to run great,was running it with no fan for a bit and killed the motherboard. Had that replaced with a new graphics card + PSU.
I often reformat my computer and freshly re-install Vista. I recently done this and a couple months on Ive barelly downloaded anything.. and it's running really slow.
There's 261GB free of 347GB.
I normally have 2 monitors on.. normally disabling one I don't use. Also tried using 2 HDD's was running okay than slowed down so I removed that again..
Tried Disk cleanup, Defrag, ccleaner, and virus scanned it with 2 different programs with no luck
So what can I do? or am I due for a upgrade?

[ClairBear]

MSI motherboards are good at reporting CPU overtemp conditions.

Check the temp via the tray icon quite often. Generally hovers between 30 and 32 degress even when she starts to play up a bit.

[FstStig]

freshly re-install Vista.

There's your problem right there . Should Upgrade to Windows 7 and see if it makes any difference.

On a side note, I'm considering upgrading to Windows 8 Developer preview to see how well it runs. Was rather impressed with performance when I was shown a Demo at a Computer shop.

[GothicKidd]

There's your problem right there . Should Upgrade to Windows 7 and see if it makes any difference.

On a side note, I'm considering upgrading to Windows 8 Developer preview to see how well it runs. Was rather impressed with performance when I was shown a Demo at a Computer shop.

haha, it's all I good. I've got a burnt-like copy of XP and it was just as slow when I reformated with XP..
I wanted to upgrade to Win7 but dont know if it'll be worth it..

[Jaymz]

Got a problem. Owned this computer for 2 years now.. Used to run great,was running it with no fan for a bit and killed the motherboard. Had that replaced with a new graphics card + PSU.
I often reformat my computer and freshly re-install Vista. I recently done this and a couple months on Ive barelly downloaded anything.. and it's running really slow.
There's 261GB free of 347GB.
I normally have 2 monitors on.. normally disabling one I don't use. Also tried using 2 HDD's was running okay than slowed down so I removed that again..
Tried Disk cleanup, Defrag, ccleaner, and virus scanned it with 2 different programs with no luck
So what can I do? or am I due for a upgrade?

Check out the info i gave to Jonnoo, open up task manager and perfmon and see what they are saying about the speed of the system.

A few things to note with Windows Vista:
It was a dog when it first came out, but they fixed A LOT of issues with service pack 1 and service pack 2. and by a lot i mean an absolute ###k load!

To download Service pack 1:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330)

To download service pack 2:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone (KB948465)

These are big downloads, so if you are re-installing windows a lot, you should burn a copy of the file to CD or USB drive to save your bandwidth later.

What antivirus are you running?

[Jaymz]

Check the temp via the tray icon quite often. Generally hovers between 30 and 32 degress even when she starts to play up a bit.

That is a fairly normal temp range. I wouldn't worry about checking the thermal paste. once you "break the seal" so to speak you are supposed to re-apply the paste from scratch otherwise the optimal thermal conduction won't be reached.

[ucwepn]

I was stuck in my old xp ways for years and was very skeptical about win 7 but it is like night and day definately do it.

[GothicKidd]

Check out the info i gave to Jonnoo, open up task manager and perfmon and see what they are saying about the speed of the system.

A few things to note with Windows Vista:
It was a dog when it first came out, but they fixed A LOT of issues with service pack 1 and service pack 2. and by a lot i mean an absolute ###k load!

To download Service pack 1:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone (KB936330)

To download service pack 2:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone (KB948465)

These are big downloads, so if you are re-installing windows a lot, you should burn a copy of the file to CD or USB drive to save your bandwidth later.

What antivirus are you running?

Hmm, the CPU averages 10%..
Mmm, well Ive had no real dramas with Vista tbh.. Just seems to slow down as the age goes along...
I look at my system properties and it said I have Service pack 2. I recently did heaps of updates.. 200 if I recall correctly.. and didn't help a bit.
Mmm.

I don't use one.. find it just slows it down even more..

[Jaymz]

Hmm, the CPU averages 10%..
Mmm, well Ive had no real dramas with Vista tbh.. Just seems to slow down as the age goes along...
I look at my system properties and it said I have Service pack 2. I recently did heaps of updates.. 200 if I recall correctly.. and didn't help a bit.
Mmm.

I don't use one.. find it just slows it down even more..

That is good you have the latest updates, they can fix a lot of problems and they make your system more secure.

Are you able to list down you hardware specs? CPU type, motherboard, graphics card. I will see what speeds they are capable of and see if there are any bottle necks.

AV shouldnt cause your system to slow down that much, but just to be safe i would recommend running an online scan just to make sure there isn't anything that has made it onto your pc somehow. USB drives are a big spreader of an autorun virus these days, and there are even scripts that will run via ads on safe websites that can infect your pc.

go to Free ESET Online Antivirus Scanner and run their scanner when you get time.

[FstStig]

Hmm, the CPU averages 10%..
Mmm, well Ive had no real dramas with Vista tbh.. Just seems to slow down as the age goes along...
I look at my system properties and it said I have Service pack 2. I recently did heaps of updates.. 200 if I recall correctly.. and didn't help a bit.
Mmm.

I don't use one.. find it just slows it down even more..

How much RAM are you running buddy?

[GothicKidd]

That is good you have the latest updates, they can fix a lot of problems and they make your system more secure.

Are you able to list down you hardware specs? CPU type, motherboard, graphics card. I will see what speeds they are capable of and see if there are any bottle necks.

AV shouldnt cause your system to slow down that much, but just to be safe i would recommend running an online scan just to make sure there isn't anything that has made it onto your pc somehow. USB drives are a big spreader of an autorun virus these days, and there are even scripts that will run via ads on safe websites that can infect your pc.

go to Free ESET Online Antivirus Scanner and run their scanner when you get time.

Ah just a tad.

CPU.. I have a Intel 2.2ghz Duo Core, Motherboard is Gigabyte G31M-ES2L, Graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Ive done 2 online scans. with no infections..

Scanned it with no Infections.

How much RAM are you running buddy?

Only 2GB

[FstStig]

Vista needs at least 1gig to run, so it should be able to cruise along with 2gig. Maybe knocking it up to 3 or 4 might be an idea. Even then Vista is still a massive usage hog, where I have found Windows 7 not to be. I also found the Sidebar to be a usage hog and to slow things up in Vista.

[GothicKidd]

Vista needs at least 1gig to run, so it should be able to cruise along with 2gig. Maybe knocking it up to 3 or 4 might be an idea. Even then Vista is still a massive usage hog, where I have found Windows 7 not to be. I also found the Sidebar to be a usage hog and to slow things up in Vista.

Yeah, defiantly found that out. Computer store sold us computer 512mb RAM with Vista kindly installed man did it slow down.. Took like 5 minutes to load my documents.. Installed XP and it was ALOT better. The computers perfomance rating is 4.8 only because of the RAM.. It's lacking behind
Yeah I might upgrade to Win7.. Ive disabled the sidebar... Got the theme as '98 to try to stop as much lag as possible..

[FstStig]

Yeah I would look at upgrading to Windows 7. It should be cruising along happily with 2 Gig of RAM and that nice looking graphics card If you are still getting really slow performance with Windows 7, I would suggest maybe looking into another Hard Drive. As the years go on, hard drivers start to get dead sectors which can really slow down your computers performance.

[MikeCuzzy]

In reality Vista needs a solid 4GB to run. Windows 7 is a little less of a hog, I've found 2GB can pull it off, but 4GB would bring a much more smooth user experience.

Depending on what kind of maintenance you do to your OS. Can I suggest a fresh install of Vista itself? I ran Vista on a rig similar to yours with no problems, it's possible your registry and HDD are a bit all over the place. Start with a Registry Mechanic, then a defrag. After that, if it's still iffy, a fresh install - just make sure you back up your docos.

[wraith]

Do not tell people to start messing with the registry. The amount of problems I face on a daily basis because somebody's friend told them to get a registry cleaner is ridiculous. Vista is the fail of the operating system world. Either stick with Windows XP or move onto Windows 7.

[ClairBear]

Vista is the fail of the operating system world. Either stick with Windows XP or move onto Windows 7.

Agreed as per the following