Over the last few weeks, my computer has had a problem with web sites with flash games and animation (e.g., Homestar Runner) that causes them to run slower so that the game/cartoon is out of synch with the sound. Also, I’ve noticed the photos I have stored on my hard drive are taking longer to open up.
I’m a relative novice in the area of computers so I’m not sure what my problem is. My brother suggested that I might need a new operating system and/or more memory. However, I wonder if the problem is that I need a new CPU. (I’ve had the present one for four years.) Here’s some relevant information about my computer:
Micro Pro Custom System built in 2000.
AMD K-7 Athlon 700 MHz CPU (CPU-094205+)
PC100 128 MB, 16x64 SDRAM 100 MHz (PC-128-18481+)
IBM 20.5 GB, 7200 RPM ULTRA 66
GeFORCE 4, MX 440 AGP 8X Video Card, 64 MB DDR (This is newly installed. My slowness problem started with my old 32 MB video card and has not ended with my new one.)
New CPU fan
Windows '98 operating system.
I’d appreciate some imput on what the cause of my problems could be. If you need more information, tell me.
Computer hardware doesn’t slow down as it ages. Recommending a new OS or hardware to solve a slowdown problem is just silly. It’s kinda like recommending that someone buy a new car just because their old one has a spark plug misfiring. Yeah the new stuff will go faster, but it is possible to fix the old stuff.
I would suspect that some ad-ware or scum-ware has invaded your system and is hogging CPU cycles. Adaware and Spybot (both free) are usually the recommended cures for such things.
Another possible problem could be that your hard drive is just about full. This is going to result in a more fragmented drive as the OS tries to find space to put stuff in, and may make things go really awry if there isn’t adequate room for the windows swap file.
If all else fails, if you delete the windows directory and re-install windows 98 from scratch, then your system should run as fast and clean as it originally did. You’ll have to re-install your software too, for most things.
If you upgrade to XP, note that XP is a much slower operating system than 98. Your system is fast enough that it probably won’t notice the difference much. You will probably notice that XP works better for things like flash games and such. You may also find that some software and hardware you have doesn’t work under XP. If mostly what you do is play flash games, fiddle with photos, and do internet and email type stuff, XP probably would work a lot better than 98 for you.
And if you want to upgrade to faster hardware, it will be… well… faster (duh). If you do upgrade to faster hardware, you’ll want a newer OS as well. A lot of newer hardware doesn’t have 98 drivers available, and if you put more than 256 MB of ram into the system (or is it 512) win 98 goes to heck in a handbasket (there’s a way around it, but it’s not pretty).
So what I’m saying is there are some advantages to upgrading, but if you just want it to work as fast as it used to, then you can do that without upgrading anything.
ECG pretty much nailed it. Definitely download Ad-Aware and Spy Bot, update them, and run them both as they catch differnent things. Make sure do defragment your drive! You can do this by going to Start -> Programs -> Accesories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter. You may want to just leave this thing running over night depending on how slow it’s going. After that finishes, you should see a marked improvement in performance.
I’ve scanned, defragged, used Ad-Aware 6, and used Spy Bot but I still have a problem with Flash games and animation. If a virus or spyware is causing it, it certainly must have burrowed deep into my system because I can’t get rid of it.
What else can I do? Is there anything else that could be the cause of my problem?
Well, it might not be just spyware, but a glut of programs in general. RIght-click on your My Computer icon, select Properties, and then take a look at Performance (I think that’s what it was called in Win98). Close down any unnecessary programs you have running to free up memory.
If it’s a virus, ad-aware or spybot won’t find it. They only find adware.
Do you have any antivirus software installed? If not, try this, it’s free:
Ironically, though, this will actually slow your system a bit, unless it clobbers a virus that’s taking a lot of CPU. All anti-virus software takes some CPU.
The next step is to see what’s taking a lot of CPU cycles. Do a CTRL-ALT-DELETE to bring up task manager. See what has non-zero numbers in the CPU column.
If Windows 98 is like XP, you can click the CPU column to bring to the top the processes that take the most CPU cycles.
Do you have a ton of stuff running in the system tray (the little toolbar of “ready to launch” programs next to the time in the bottom right of your screen) at any given time? You’d be surprised/horrified how much CPU those eat up. Close all of them down but your antivirus program, and you might see a huge improvement in performance.
This is not necessarily good advice; I have a 600mhz Dell that has been running Win98 for over 4 years without reinstalling, and it is as fast as the day I got it (faster, even; I have it tweaked to a razor’s edge). If you are religious about Disk Clean, Scan Disk, Disk Defrag & Windows Update, plus regular scans with AdAware, Spybot, SpywareBlaster and your antivirus program of choice, there is no reason to have to go through the headache of backing up and reinstalling.
Absolutely agree with you Fear Itself. People seem to be a little quick with the “wipe and start over” advice. There’s often a much less painful solution.
Like Revtim started to say…
Do a Ctrl/alt/del and list for us what you have in the Close Programs dialogue box.
Take it step by step.