PC running sluggish...getting tired of it

[006]

Asmus,

Honestly, I never realized that James and Andy were so generous with helpful production tips until I went on Google in desperation last year to look for "Andy Sneap recording tips." They don't have to help us out at all... this is a great bonus that they share with us, and it's so bizzarre, when I see guys ilke you who don't even appreciate it.

I think the forum is a lot of fun and I've learned a lot because of it, it's a really positive thing, most here have really cool insights, it's too bad that you feel the need to spread random negativity for no apparent reason. Don't be a hater!

^^^^ What he said..plus lets not forget the fact that this kind of thing is very disruptive for people like me who need help with something, and can get it...but only between unnecessary bickering caused by inconsiderate individuals *cough*.

So far I have a lot of things to check out and change according to you guys, so I will try them and then post when I have the results of everything.

.:SpaceCorpse:. - When I try to run everest.exe, it doesn't work. I put all the files into a folder and made a shortcut to everest.exe on the desktop, and when I try to run it, I get the little hourglass thing for about 3 seconds, and then it goes away and nothing pops up. Any thoughts?

Thanks so far for all the help guys, I really do appreciate it. Keep the ideas coming though.

~006

 

[Andy Sneap]

anyway, I know nothing about pc's, hows that?

 

[guitarguru777]

Dude ... thats a virus on your PC ... See if there anre any other programs that dont start when you try and run them...

Ive had that fucker before and its a BITCH ... If your running XP, SP2 Take care of that little fucker... even though i hate SP2 its gotten me out of a few jams.

Da Fukn Guru

 

[006]

It can't be a virus, the computer has been formatted 8 times since I disconnected it from the net THREE MONTHS AGO. Coincidentally I think thats the 8th time I've said that.

~006

 

[006]

Woops, you were referring to the everest program...yeah I have a feeling...but he says it works on his so...who knows. I'm going to format and fresh install XP again soon anyway...first I'm going to try the memory thing.

~006

 

[EtherForBreakfast]

006 - I did not realize this box has never been connected to the net. If your OS is clean and you have done fresh loads and you still have these problems, you obviously have a hardware issue, possibly thermal in nature.

Are all of your fans running, is your PSU running full, CPU fan fine, plenty of airflow, etc? The specs on your machine are above and beyond the call of duty - that box is a dream DAW rig.

You need to start pinpointing what the culprit could be. Don't rule out a bad cpu, ram, hdd etc etc... Do a CTRL ALT DEL go to task manager and Processes. Look at the very bottom for System Idle Process, it should be somewhere between 95-99. Look at ALL of the processes running and see if anything is hogging CPU. If not, then you have a hardware issue. Is your drive running in DMA? Have you gone into BIOS and set everything to default? It may be a BIOS setting.

 

[Nostalgiaplatz]

One thing I noticed in my PC - P4 1.7ghz / 256 de ram - running XP/SP2, was that it had a few latency problems if had my network card "enabled" (and thusly firewall). When I disable the network card, the firewall goes off and everything works well. No more metronome out of sync. Oh, I configured previously my machine according to MusicXP site as well.

 

[James Murphy]

James, I've disagreed with you, but Ive never said anything negative about you as a person - and if you read my posts carefully you'll see that I'm not having a problem with you. I DO respect you and the advice you've given - I've benefitted from it as well as others have.

i understand that, but it's immaterial to the issue at hand.

I just think, that other guys on this forum has given great advice too, like Brett, Kazrog, Hopkins something, and they never get the praise you get (occasionally they do)

occasionally? perhaps you should consider that this may be directly proportionate to the amount of advice they give vs. the amount of advice they ask for... did you ever consider that? i give lot's of advice.. often directly over IM, to each of those forum members you mentioned as well as to many other members of this forum.. did you not condsider that at all? it's certainly a more reasonable response to stop and think about that rather than to blast innocent forum posters. and did you ever wonder why i seem to give more advice than i ask for? well.. i'm a working engineer, i went through a lot of the learning stages that many of the rest of the members here are going through now a long time ago. on the occasions that i do need advice or help, i ask my peers... other working professional engineers. you seem to want to paint the fact that people ask me for advice, or heed/praise (i do not require the "praise", btw) my advice more so than the advice of a 20-something amatuer (i mean this in the literal sense of the word and NOT as a put-down) as a bad thing.... to that i can only respond with disbelief ... is this not the whole reason for this forum?... to get advice from a pro?? granted, i am not Andy, but up until now i have been under the impression that the members here appreciated having more than one mind to pick.

I feel that it has something to do with your status as a celebrity....and I really hate that...

this is just dumb... i can't even respond to this nonsense... honestly, it sounds like a personal perceptual problem. the fact is that to people on these forums i am considered a celebrity... too bad man, i can't change it and if you think that this perception of me causes the members here to blindly take and praise my advice then you are not only just plain wrong, you are also disrespecting their intelligence... from every post i have read, the thanks and/or "praise" i have received for my advice has been results based... NOT simply because i gave it. show these guys a little more respect than that.

i don't have to come here and post advice, or anything else... i do it because it's fun... usually.

 

[J the TyranT]

You are all suck, and suck at music, and suck at computers, and suck at style and suck at everything else too, so, shut up all you sucking suckass suckaz

J

 

[Nostalgiaplatz]

That was pretty random....guesses someone forgot to logoff on a public computer or something or drank to much lol

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

You are all suck, and suck at music, and suck at computers, and suck at style and suck at everything else too, so, shut up all you sucking suckass suckaz

J

Can we round that down to SUCK AT LIFE?

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

AND BACK TO THE TOPIC GUYS...

Ok, for the last time...there is no possible way that I can get spyware on the PC, it's not connected to the internet, nor does it have any way of being connected, the network card is not in the case anymore, and there is nothing remotely close to any kind of connection to the web in conjunction with my PC. I'm using my laptop right now on this forum.

I defrag about once a week at least, and format about once a month. Graphics are always set to minimum, thats just a standard procedure . And I still need to check the bios. The Everest thing that Space Corpse posted doesn't run on my PC...not sure what thats about but now I'm pretty sure there could be some spyware NOW. Anyway, checking bios.

~006

You format ONCE A MONTH?

Jesus ahha, i could never be bothered. i remember reading somewhere that a certain file cluster size is extra beneficial to computer recording, maybe you should look it up and set it to that next time you format.

This is quite puzzling tho, tried reinstalling the plugin and library for DFH2?

I mean, i have a much lesser computer hardware-wise and i can load DFHS in like less than a minute.

edit: Oh and i assume you have all your vsts in the same folder? I had mine spread between two for a while and that made stuff slow right down.

 

[Razorjack]

I had this problem on my laptop, the memory was just worn out (it seriously does happen, especially when working with huge files). I replaced the memory and it went away.

I've just found a permanent fix though, a new Mac laptop!! (But I'm preaching to the converted so I'll shut up now)

Edit: Actually, another idea is to get a new hard-drive to run your programs from. I find that 8mb cache doesn't cut it anymore and running DFH2 from my external 300gb firewire Maxtor drive (7200rpm w/16mb cache) I can load it in around 30 seconds. My laptop is a P4 2.8ghz with 1gb Ram.

 

[metalkingdom]

It can't be a virus, the computer has been formatted 8 times since I disconnected it from the net THREE MONTHS AGO. Coincidentally I think thats the 8th time I've said that.

~006

Did you do a "low-level" format? I mean the format that takes several hours to do, and writes nothing but "0's" on the drive. If you had a boot sector virus, a regular format won't wipe it clean.

Go to www.activescan.com and do the 'free online virus scan'. You're gonna have to break down and connect the fucking thing if you want it fixed, dude.

Why do assholes have to get on here and HATE on Jame Smurphy (sorry, I couldn't help it )? The dude is a fucking legend for pete's sake! Besides that, he's a smart cat who states his point(s) very well. We're glad to have him here, and I'm saying that as a 35 year old with LOTS of experience under my belt. Even if you don't agree with what he has to say, you have to, at least, hear him out since there's always some degree of logic behind his statements.

 

[neverpurify]

Youre best bet is to wipe your drive clean and reinstall windows and only the programs that you need. For some reason those Dells run slow when they are loaded up at the factory. I have 3 family members that have Dells with the same CPU etc that I have and my computer (homebrew) runs so much faster.

Give it a shot. I am 95% sure it will make a huge difference.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Did you do a "low-level" format? I mean the format that takes several hours to do, and writes nothing but "0's" on the drive. If you had a boot sector virus, a regular format won't wipe it clean.

Go to www.activescan.com and do the 'free online virus scan'. You're gonna have to break down and connect the fucking thing if you want it fixed, dude.

Why do assholes have to get on here and HATE on Jame Smurphy (sorry, I couldn't help it )? The dude is a fucking legend for pete's sake! Besides that, he's a smart cat who states his point(s) very well. We're glad to have him here, and I'm saying that as a 35 year old with LOTS of experience under my belt. Even if you don't agree with what he has to say, you have to, at least, hear him out since there's always some degree of logic behind his statements.

Hows that jackson doing?

 

[metalkingdom]

Hows that jackson doing?

It's f'in killer! I wish that I would've played Jackson from the beginning. It just fits right. I'm recording a new tune with it now, and will post a link when it's done.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Awesome stuff.

 

[J the TyranT]

That was pretty random....guesses someone forgot to logoff on a public computer or something or drank to much lol

Wrong... just fucking around trying to make light of the situation. Back to the topic at hand, and that sort of thing.

 

[SpaceCorpse]

.:SpaceCorpse:. - When I try to run everest.exe, it doesn't work. I put all the files into a folder and made a shortcut to everest.exe on the desktop, and when I try to run it, I get the little hourglass thing for about 3 seconds, and then it goes away and nothing pops up. Any thoughts?

~006

I guess you got the ZIP package? Try getting the self-installing EXE package instead maybe. If that doesn't work I don't know.

Anyway, here's some more stuff:

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php
If you are looking for a tool that can change your computer's fan speeds, that can read your hard disk temperature and S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) status, that can read temperatures, voltages and fan speeds and much more, then you came to the right place. SpeedFan works fine with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, 2003 and Windows XP. And this is absolutely for free

If you can't get SpeedFan to work properly, maybe this will work:

http://www.disk-utility.com/s.m.a.r.t.-hdd-utility.html Active SMART utilizes the S.M.A.R.T technology to track the status of the computer hard disks. Its main goal is timely detecting and anticipating any problems, occurring with the disk, before the danger of the data loss appears.

Also, run Memtest, and some online virus scanner like www.antivirus.com (free online scan) as someone said earlier... And windows update, install service pack 2 if you haven't. Get the latest drivers for the motherboard, video card, etc...

This one comes handy sometimes too:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.

And you could post all the processes running by going to Start - Run... - cmd, tasklist, and copy all the processes running and post it here... This doesn't work with XP Home edition though, only Pro.

Ok, that's enough typing
Good luck.