Mom's computer is slowing down?

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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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Here are the specs:

Win98SE
P3-500 CPU, 512MB PC100 SDRAM
standard HS/fan (Coolermaster)
Gigabyte GA-6BXC 440BX MB
ATI Rage Fury 32MB video card
Soundblaster LIVE! Value sound card
Western Digital 20GB HD 5400rpm
ISA ethernet card
300W PS

She says the Internet is a lot slower than last week and stuff takes forever to come up. The applications outside the Internet run really slow. The time on the clock is running down.......the difference between real time and the time shown keep getting larger. She says it shows 7:50pm when it is really around 11pm now! I was thinking a virus, but maybe the MB needs a new battery and it's finally running down after approx. five years of running (3 at my house and 2 at hers). If it is the battery, how do I replace it? Any ideas?

Don't worry, she IS getting a new computer in a couple months. I just built myself a new one and would like to get acquainted with XP first before I build her an XP computer.
 
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InlineFive

Diamond Member
Sep 20, 2003
9,599
2
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First, she probably has Spyware. Google and download AdAware and SpyBot: Search & Destroy.

And as for Windows XP it's very easy. You could just install it and let it rip.

-Por
 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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Everytime I visit (at least once a month), I usually update ad-aware, virusscan, scandisk/defrag, windows update and anything else that is needed. It sounds like it's needed now or maybe her MB battery is dying. Can this MB battery be replaced?

By the way, I'm going over there this Sunday to try and fix it.
 
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Neyd3400

Member
Jul 28, 2003
195
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Yah, I do the same thing whenever I go to my moms place to. She always complains about something. If she didn't download everything in sight. She loves to download all those silly little games off of MSN and Yahoo.


I would give or sell your mom your old computer. Thats what I do with my family. My brother gots my old KT7A-raid (That was a great board) and Duron 800@1050 and GF mx2 and he is more than happy. It's still faster than his Pent 4 Dell Laptop. The only games that he plays is poker and mahjong. I could make a good arguement that 95 percent of people out there don't care about speed as much as smooth performance, hence Dell and Gateway. IMO

Sounds like a upgrade might be a good idea, if you live by a frys they have some great deals on board and processor. Any Athalon XP CPU would be a signifigant jump.
 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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The Win98SE install is only a few months old and plenty of HD space. As far as the upgrade, she will be getting the Asus P4P800 MB (deluxe or non-deluxe, I can't remember which) and probably a P4 2.6GHz processor, etc.

I already have all her bios settings written down somewhere, but I'll double check before removing the battery.

So, you guys think it's definitely the battery. I guess I could always try just clearing CMOS first and see what happens.
 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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Some people at Hardforum seem to think it is NOT the MB battery. So, what does happen when the MB battery starts to go or is gone?
 
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Sideswipe001

Golden Member
May 23, 2003
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It's easy and cheap to replace the battery. It's basically just a watch battery on the motherboard. That should stop it from "losing time".
 
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tallman45

Golden Member
May 27, 2003
1,463
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That system is fine for surfing the net. You just need to do 2 things. 1) get a 7200rpm 80gb drive 2) then get at least Win2K as an OS.

 
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Cheetah8799

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2001
4,508
0
76
Here's what I do in situations like this.

- install AdAware, update it, run it.
- install SpyBot, update it, run it.
- install/update virus scanning software, run it
- defrag the hard drive if needed
- run scandisk, for the hell of it.
- possibly add a little ram if there are open slots, used ram from the fs/ft forum is cheap. ;)
- Look at how many background apps are running. I always remove them from the registry. Things like QuickTime, WinAmp, AOL, Real Player, AIM, MS Messanger, etc. They all run something at startup... There are also some free apps to help you remove them from the registry in case you don't know what to delete manually.
 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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So, does it sound like the MB battery or what? Anyone want to confirm this for me that has seen this problem before? I can't go to her house until Sunday.
 
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Cheetah8799

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2001
4,508
0
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If it was the mobo battery, the bios time would continually get reset, and all your bios settings would be gone. the battery won't cause the system to run slower.
 
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farscape

Senior member
Jan 15, 2002
327
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0
Most likely it's NOT your battery. If it hasn't been changed in the 5 yrs. that you've had the comp, it won't hurt to change it though. Usually, I've found that if it is going, you'd start getting bios checksum errors, because the values set in bios wouldn't hold their settings, and to boot you would have to reenter those values to get the system running again.

Most likely there is a lot of stuff running in the background causing a general slowdown. Run AdAware and Spybot to clear out the trash. Run msconfig and look what is loading during startup and disable the AOLs, WinAmp, RealPlayers, etc. If she wants to run that stuff, she can turn it on when she needs it. It doesn't need to run at startup.

Also, I see that you're running 512 of ram - sometimes 98 has problems juggling that much - lousy memory management.

Check and see the size of the swap file - should be 2.5 times amount of memory - or see if someone disabled it. 98 runs better if your swap file is one big chunk rather than trying contantly resizing itself.



'scape
 
dullard

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
25,957
4,544
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Originally posted by: farscape
Most likely it's NOT your battery. If it hasn't been changed in the 5 yrs. that you've had the comp, it won't hurt to change it though. Usually, I've found that if it is going, you'd start getting bios checksum errors, because the values set in bios wouldn't hold their settings, and to boot you would have to reenter those values to get the system running again.

Most likely there is a lot of stuff running in the background causing a general slowdown. Run AdAware and Spybot to clear out the trash. Run msconfig and look what is loading during startup and disable the AOLs, WinAmp, RealPlayers, etc. If she wants to run that stuff, she can turn it on when she needs it. It doesn't need to run at startup.

Also, I see that you're running 512 of ram - sometimes 98 has problems juggling that much - lousy memory management.

Check and see the size of the swap file - should be 2.5 times amount of memory - or see if someone disabled it. 98 runs better if your swap file is one big chunk rather than trying contantly resizing itself.

'scape
Click to expand...
Just what I was going to post.
 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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I presently have her swap file at 800MB, sounds like I may need to increase it to 512x2.5 >> 1280.

I'm probably going to replace the battery anyway and confirm all bios settings (already written down). A quick virus .dat file update and scan is also in order. And, yes, ad-aware, scandisk, defrag, etc. I've already limited her background apps, so that should be OK. Of course, the virusscan will probably be first on the list if I can even get on the computer by that time. She told me same old troubles today and she will leave it off until I get there.
 
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dwendel

Junior Member
Jan 7, 2001
11
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Don't forget that some background programs/virus/trojans mess with the real time clock causing the lost time issue!

Virus scan off a known clean boot floppy may be needed.

 
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SkaarjMaster

Senior member
Jun 11, 2003
301
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Well, here's what I did today on my Mom's computer:
1. checked BIOS and some RAM timings were set to 1, so I changed them back to the settings they're supposed to be and verified other settings then saved the BIOS.

2. The computer seemed fine at first, so I updated the time (seemed to only be about 10 minutes off before I did this).

3. I deleted all the Temp files and Temp. Internet files directory contents.

4. Download latest Virusscan .dat file and scanned computer; no viruses found.

5. Updated Spybot and Ad-Aware to latest reference files, scanned computer, Spybot found none and Ad-Aware found only identified 10 files. But I deleted all those first, so this is understandable.

6. Checked msconfig and nothing extra that wasn't already needed was running.

7. At this point (about an hour later), I noticed the real-time clock (RTC) had lost about 3-4 minutes and the seconds/minutes lost seemed to be accelerating. I then installed a new CMOS battery, updated the BIOS to the latest version and reset all the BIOS settings to what they are supposed to be again.

8. I ran scandisk, disabled the swapfile (originally set at 800MB for 512MB of RAM), then defragged the computer.

9. I then enabled the swapfile and set it to 1280MB (2.5 times the RAM).

It was at this point that I noticed absolutely no time change in about one hour. Seems the CMOS battery was the problem and it is now fixed!
 
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