I'm experiencing something weird about every other time I turn on my computer. After it starts up, the mouse movement is choppy (it'll move then stop, move then stop, move then stop), and it takes a really long time to switch windows or access the start menu, etc... A third party program I use says that my CPU is running at 20%, while Windows XP Task Manager says that my CPU is 99% idle, which is kinda weird.
I don't see any abnormal programs running anywhere, nor anything out of the norm assigned to run at startup in msconfig, so unless its well-hidden I don't think its a virus.
And as I said, this doesn't happen every time I turn on the computer, just sometimes. Maybe a software conflict or possibly a hardware issue? But I've never encountered it before so I'm not really sure what it could be, and its hard to find information on something that you're not quite sure how to describe on Google.
It started right after I installed and promptly uninstalled the free version of Nero 9 that was released recently, and also after I ran an error-checking process on one of my non-system hard drive partitions.
ID:181832
 Aug 5 2009, 10:18 am
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Falacy wrote:
Try starting in safe mode and seeing if it happens It doesn't happen every time as is, so I'd have to just restart my computer over and over until maybe it does to find out that way. Could also run msconfig and checking whats in the Startup tab I talked about that in the first post. | |
I don't want it fixed, I want to know what's causing it. Fixing it is easy. I want to know what the problem is if I ever encounter it again.
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Sounds to me like possible graphical problems. You can try turning off graphical acceleration in Windows to see if that helps. Right click on your desktop, go to properties, go to the display tab, click on advanced, then go to the last tab, adjust the slider, check for changes. That is from memory, so the directions might be wrong.
It might also be a HDD issue. Windows is pretty bad about locking up when the HDD is too busy to answer it's requests. Running chkdsk and defrag might help, if you own a copy of spinrite it might be worth giving it an overnight spin on level 4. | |
My first guess:
Windows services: Plug and Play, Windows Image Acquisition. Why? Because I do occasional freelance tech work and you'd be amazed at how often those are the culprits slowing everything down. Usually the first is because of the second, but we'll get to that. Question 1: Does you has a camera? Question 2: Does you has camera software installed? Answer: If you said yes to either of these, try running services.msc and see if disabling the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service has any effect. Question 1: Did that not work? Question 2: Do you not has a camera? Answer: Try disabling the plug and play service, in the same location as listed above. Why? Because. Windows is stupid. The way windows interacts with plug and play devices is stupid. If option 2 solves your problem then you've at least narrowed down your 'what is the cause' search. Obviously be aware that some plug and play devices will cease to function after disabling that service. Specifically things like flash drives (thumb drives, flash stick, stab someone in the eye with this stick, whatever you call them) will not be working for you. If neither of those worked, then here is an option 3 (you may want to do this first, actually) Run services.msc, click HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES!, then disable EVERYTHING that is left. :p You may want to leave on any sound driver related services listed there. And DEFINITELY leave on anything related to your network driver. So maybe not EVERYTHING and more of just MOSTLY everything. | |
I've heard of stuff like this happening with horrible, horrible DRM software such as Starforce. Try looking something up about that.
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Graphics hardly has anything to do with how choppy windows is running. I posted awhile ago about a friend of mine, who wanted XP on his machine.
Well it was like a Pentium 400MHZ system with 32MB of ram and a on-board video card. Windows ran just fine, opening and closing windows and even mouse movement. The biggest problems I had was when I was trying to run applications and browse the internet, then everything got choppy. | |
You are incorrect, graphics can dramatically interfere with the OSs normal functions in a modern OS. Graphics acceleration is often uses all over the place, so if a graphics card is having an issue, Windows may be waiting for it to reply, causing all sorts of issues. If you want a simple example of this, look at Windows XP with fancy things like drop shadows turned on without a proper graphics drivers. Windows becomes downright unusable.
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You are free to, but it doesn't mean you are right. I speak from years of experience as a system administrator for an accounting firm and owner of a side business in repairing computers. To put it bluntly, I fix computers for a living, and not at Best Buy. Although his graphics card may not be his problem, it certainly could be, and is worth testing as part of the troubleshooting process.
Dismissing a valid possibility out of hand will only lead you to trouble in repairing computers, as the computer gods are sick and sadistic and ensure that any possibility you ignore will be your problem. | |
Danial.Beta wrote:
Although his graphics card may not be his problem, it certainly could be, and is worth testing as part of the troubleshooting process. True You are incorrect, graphics can dramatically interfere with the OSs normal functions in a modern OS. Graphics acceleration is often uses all over the place, so if a graphics card is having an issue, Windows may be waiting for it to reply, causing all sorts of issues. If you want a simple example of this, look at Windows XP with fancy things like drop shadows turned on without a proper graphics drivers. Windows becomes downright unusable. True, and there's other reasons why a graphics card could be creating problems that 'appear' to have no relevance to graphics cards. (such as glitchy drivers, glitchy services handling the systems, etc.) Dismissing a valid possibility out of hand will only lead you to trouble in repairing computers, as the computer gods are sick and sadistic and ensure that any possibility you ignore will be your problem. Annoyingly true. | |
Could also run msconfig and checking whats in the Startup tab