HELP! what's wrong w/ my computer???

stevexyz

Senior member
Sep 20, 2001
405
5
91
hi all, i need some advice here, plz help!

my computer: Prostar 5694 notebook, P4 2.4GHz, 512MB DDR, ATI Mobility Radeon 7500, 40GB harddrive, with 4 partitions, and still plenty of free space in each partition. Win98/Win2k Pro dual boot.

i have had my laptop w/ this setup for about half a year now. a strange problem has occurred about a week ago: every time after a continuous heavy load program (like prime95 or 3D game quake3, counter strike, etc) for more than 10-20 min. or so, my computer suddenly becomes very slow. like when i'm playing CS, the movement suddenly becomes very jerky, the counter measure drops from about 60-70fps to less then 10fps. or like during the prime95 torture test, the time to finish one line test suddently increase from about 20 sec. to about 2 min. my computer keeps running slow even after i quit these programs. i run the SiSoft Sandra benchmarks (CPU, CPU Multi-Media, and Memory), the scores after the heavy load drop to less than a quarter of the scores before the load. i have to restart my computer in order to make my computer to run fast again.

i've never had this problem before, i have not installed any new software/hardware recently. don't know why this problem happened so suddenly. it happened under both Win98 and Win2k, i've tried reinstalling both OS, but still coudnt solve the problem. so i'm suspecting it's a hardware problem, maybe something wrong w/ my cpu or memory? is it a memory leak or something?
 

Harabecw

Senior member
Apr 28, 2003
605
0
0
MMM...check to see if the P4 fan failed or something. could be that its getting too hot and the P4 is throttling down itself.
 

stevexyz

Senior member
Sep 20, 2001
405
5
91
i cant check the cpu fan cuz i dun wana open up my laptop to void the warranty, but i could see the three fans on the case still work well.

i dun think overheating cause the problem tho, cuz after i quit the heavy load program and let my laptop sit there for a long time w/o shutting down the system, even after the extra thermal control fan shuts itself down automatically (which means the laptop is cool enough), but the system still runs very slow. the only way to make the computer run at the original speed is to restart the system.

any other idea of what might go wrong? thx!
 

Bleep

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,972
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0
I would try some memory management software. There is a lot of them for free on the net. A search on Google will find several.

Bleep
 

stevexyz

Senior member
Sep 20, 2001
405
5
91
Originally posted by: Bleep
I would try some memory management software. There is a lot of them for free on the net. A search on Google will find several.

Bleep

thx for ur suggestion, do u think it's the software problem? i have tried different os, even fresh installing the os, still cant solve the problem. and i didnt have this problem before... any idea? thx!
 

bjc112

Lifer
Dec 23, 2000
11,460
0
76
Originally posted by: Bleep
I would try some memory management software. There is a lot of them for free on the net. A search on Google will find several.

Bleep

I doubt it is memory considering you have 512 and are only running 98/2k...

I am going to take a vote for the p4 throttling down.

Put a house fan next to your lap top on high and run one of those games to see if its temp..

Or whenever it does that (slows down) REboot and immediatley enter the BIOS and check temps.

:D
 

stevexyz

Senior member
Sep 20, 2001
405
5
91
but my laptop doesnt show temp in the BIOS tho...

one question: the P4 throttling down function happens at high temp, rite? but will cpu keep throttling down itself even after it cools down later? if that's true, then maybe the P4 throttling is indeed the causing the problem here:(
 

Cogman

Lifer
Sep 19, 2000
10,286
147
106
I would have to go with a heat problem. Restarting would give it less load and more time to cool down where as just letting it sit there still has programs running keeping the cpu hot. Also, not to be rude, but try not to use AOL talk so much. Examples are using world like, i, plz, dun, cuz, ur. I dont know, something about people using shortcuts to much just makes me think. day jsut 8nt samrt peple.
 

stevexyz

Senior member
Sep 20, 2001
405
5
91
yeah, you guys are right about the overheating. summer is coming, it's getting hot now. and dust has been building up for months but i've never cleaned it before.

i just did the clean up on the heatsink and fans. now i also have a house fan blowing on the laptop too. my laptop has been running prime95 for more than 30 min. now, there's no sign of slow down. that's a great news for me! i'll let it run for 12 hours and see how it goes, thx:D