intermittent slowness computer question

General Questions
#1

Hi people, monkeypants is back, and what grander fashion in which to rearrive than with a computer question?

Seriously though, the computer help I have seen others get on the SDMB has completely overwhelmed the help I have experienced elsewhere in both quantity, quality, response time, and strings-attachedness.

Anyway, here we go. For over a year now my computer has had periods of intermittent slowness. They occur roughly every ten minutes, and for one minute or so the Internet will not work. That is how I discovered the problem - we got Road Runner cable modem service at home and every ten minutes or so the computer would freeze up. You can move the mouse and click stuff, and the little E will spin, and the lights on the cable modem will continue to flash, but nothing new will happen. I screamed at the Road Runer people a lot, and eventually gave up. I have just recently realized that it is not just an Internet problem. I happened to try to open a new folder in the Windows Explorer during one of the “periods”, and it waited until the period was over, at which point the folder opened, and my Internet pages also came up, etc. What the hell could be causing this? I recently ran Adaware and removed some crap (death to Gator and Bonzi Buddy) but that hasn’t solved the problem. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Monkeypants

#2

It’s difficult to answer computer questions of this nature, mostly because the fault can lie anywhere between here and pluto.

Also because we need more info on the setup, e.g. PC Windows OS version, hardware config etc.

Your first step could be to boot into safe mode and see whether any such activity occurs at said intervals. If not, you’ve already narrowed it down to a software/driver/application conflict issue.

#3

MP, I would start by taking everything you can out of the startup folder, that is, everything not related to your Roadrunner modem. Then turn off as many of the other applications that load and sit next to your clock as you can (i.e. real player). See if that helps.

#4

as xash said - this could be anything

but, given the symptoms you report, here is something quick and simple to consider

if you can hear the hard disk working away during the “freeze”, then you need to ask the questions
(1)when did you last defrag your hard drive
(2)how much free space have you got

Win98 (MyComputer/right-click hard drive/select properties for space available/select Tools for info on defrag)

you may also consider checking the settings for your browser History Folder (how many days do you keep the information?), and if you clear the history does the problem go away for a while?

#5

Look out for an MS app called Find Fast in your start up folder. Get rid of it.