Need help with a slow Compaq

[a]

I have friend with a Compaq which he is trying to resurrect.
He says it is 300MHz with 3 133M SDRAMs and a 20G HDD
with 90% unused.

He says it will boot up fine and run a while, but then will bog down
horribly. For example, he said he can type several words before they
begin to slowly display, a letter at a time. One such time he had
clicked on a link in an email and was filling in a form to get an
article download from a newspaper site. He gave up.

He uses Eudora and it takes forever to send emails.
His Eudora's task bar shows the emailing sending to completion and
checked it as sent in the out log. Then a Symantec window opens to
show the same thing. Symantec may announce that it was not sent and
give a spurious reason. Or it may just go blank, especially if I have
touched the keyboard. Leaves him with no way of knowing whether his
outgoing email actually went or not. So he turns machinet off.

His phone modem is connecting at various speeds around 45K.

Does anyone have any advice for him besided tossing the thing?

Thanks

 

[Ken]

I have friend with a Compaq which he is trying to resurrect.
He says it is 300MHz with 3 133M SDRAMs and a 20G HDD
with 90% unused.

He says it will boot up fine and run a while, but then will bog down
horribly. For example, he said he can type several words before they
begin to slowly display, a letter at a time. One such time he had
clicked on a link in an email and was filling in a form to get an
article download from a newspaper site. He gave up.

He uses Eudora and it takes forever to send emails.
His Eudora's task bar shows the emailing sending to completion and
checked it as sent in the out log. Then a Symantec window opens to
show the same thing. Symantec may announce that it was not sent and
give a spurious reason. Or it may just go blank, especially if I have
touched the keyboard. Leaves him with no way of knowing whether his
outgoing email actually went or not. So he turns machinet off.

His phone modem is connecting at various speeds around 45K.

Does anyone have any advice for him besided tossing the thing?

Thanks

Just the usual, there is probably something running in the background
that is slowing the computer down, or your HD is badly fragmented.
First run Defrag. You might next run Msconfig from the START, RUN menu
and see what is running in the background. Then try to disable some of
them, such as the Anti virus program and see if that helps. Also before
disabling the AV program, scan for Ad ware or viruses on the computer.
There is no reason your computer should run slowly unless your operating
system is beyond your hardware. I am assuming you are using Win 98 and
not XP???

If all these fail, I would wonder about the reliability of the hard
drive. Sometimes a HD having difficulty reading data will take a long
time running programs due to repetitive tries.

I am sure more suggestions will come.

 

[a]

Just the usual, there is probably something running in the background
that is slowing the computer down, or your HD is badly fragmented.
First run Defrag. You might next run Msconfig from the START, RUN menu
and see what is running in the background. Then try to disable some of
them, such as the Anti virus program and see if that helps. Also before
disabling the AV program, scan for Ad ware or viruses on the computer.
There is no reason your computer should run slowly unless your operating
system is beyond your hardware. I am assuming you are using Win 98 and
not XP???

If all these fail, I would wonder about the reliability of the hard
drive. Sometimes a HD having difficulty reading data will take a long
time running programs due to repetitive tries.

I am sure more suggestions will come.

Hope so.

Yes he is using W98SE.

Defrag should not be needed since the HD is 95% empty. I'll pass your
post on to him anyway

Thanks

 

[Grinder]

Hope so.

Yes he is using W98SE.

Defrag should not be needed since the HD is 95% empty. I'll pass your
post on to him anyway

Since there is hardly anything on the system (5% of 20 Gb = 1 Gb = 2
CD-Rs,) it might be worth it to just scrape and reinstall. If the
system is bogged out because of adware and other parasites, the quickest
solution is to just start over.

 

[kony]

I have friend with a Compaq which he is trying to resurrect.
He says it is 300MHz with 3 133M SDRAMs and a 20G HDD
with 90% unused.

He says it will boot up fine and run a while, but then will bog down
horribly. For example, he said he can type several words before they
begin to slowly display, a letter at a time. One such time he had
clicked on a link in an email and was filling in a form to get an
article download from a newspaper site. He gave up.

Beware that a number of nasty spyware programs traversing
the 'net are key loggers. One might do as you report,
including during email sessions. Scan system thoroughly
with adaware, spybot search & destroy, spyware blaster, an
up-to-date antivirus program and make note of things loading
at boot time and running in the background.

He uses Eudora and it takes forever to send emails.
His Eudora's task bar shows the emailing sending to completion and
checked it as sent in the out log. Then a Symantec window opens to
show the same thing. Symantec may announce that it was not sent and
give a spurious reason. Or it may just go blank, especially if I have
touched the keyboard. Leaves him with no way of knowing whether his
outgoing email actually went or not. So he turns machinet off.

His phone modem is connecting at various speeds around 45K.

Does anyone have any advice for him besided tossing the thing?

Well, "symantec" is bad software to install in the first
place, loads of extra overhead. He could uninstall it all
and go from there, or backup data and do a clean OS install,
whichever seems more appropriate.

It could be a hardware failure but it's doubtful,
sluggishness during light use periods like typing usually
aren't hardware related... then again if it's ALWAYS
sluggish you might look at hard drive, check it for errors
and check cabling/jumpers, and make sure that if it's hooked
up to a network that networking is in order.

Perhaps a better question is what happened just prior to the
onset of this? I know, if we knew that it'd be solved
already but it's another thing to focus on, ask about.