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geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: Voixdelion on Sat, 30 April 2011, 05:58:58

Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Sat, 30 April 2011, 05:58:58: no malware showing up on scans but seeming to have a lot of drag in web page loading lately and lots of userenv errors in my log plus now a corruption in the system error log... possible culprits/fixes? running xp pro sp3...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: audioave10 on Sat, 30 April 2011, 07:47:25: Sometimes what works best for me is to copy/paste the exact error log into Google which usually takes you directly into technical forums where MS developers and engineers reside.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 30 April 2011, 09:47:24: I find web browsing to be more sluggish on my Intel Core2Duo laptop at work running Vista / Firefox 4 / 1 gigabit than on my EeeBox (Intel Atom 330) running Ubuntu Linux / Firefox 3.6 / 30 megabit at home. It is not the CPU or the network, so it has to be the OS and/or the browser version.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: EverythingIBM on Sat, 30 April 2011, 12:53:43: Quote from: ripster;339491
For security purposes it's time to buy a copy of Win7.

Windows is the least secure platform due to it garnering the largest user base.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: quadibloc on Sat, 30 April 2011, 16:05:29: Quote from: ripster;339597
When you absolutely, postively need to be secure...

I won't embed this video, but merely give a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU4KIxsLJI

for a window into an alternate universe...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sat, 30 April 2011, 16:35:07: OS2 is still usable.

Its kid ecomstation (http://www.ecomstation.com/) is very usable.

Ecomstation is for OS2 what unicomp is for M series keyboards.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 30 April 2011, 16:49:07: Quote from: ripster;339597
Show Image
(http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/IBM%20OS2%20Warp%204/os24_1stscreen.gif)

I once received a free CD with a legal, official copy of OS/2 Warp. The files on it had first to be copied to dozens of diskettes, and then installed from those diskettes. I'm not kidding.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sat, 30 April 2011, 16:52:39: Quote from: Findecanor;339675
I once received a free CD with a legal, official copy of OS/2 Warp. The files on it had first to be copied to dozens of diskettes, and then installed from those diskettes. I'm not kidding.

Also Xp can be booted from diskettes (6 of them).

Btw is not mandatory yo install OS2 from diskettes you need just a virtual floppy to extract theyr images and a script SW to rebuild the bootable iso. There are dozens of guides online to do this.

You can also download a premade ISO image.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: EverythingIBM on Sat, 30 April 2011, 19:44:10: Quote from: Voixdelion;339448
no malware showing up on scans but seeming to have a lot of drag in web page loading lately and lots of userenv errors in my log plus now a corruption in the system error log... possible culprits/fixes? running xp pro sp3...

When it gets to that point, it's best to save your important files on an isolated hard drive, reinstall windows XP, and be done with it. You've probably used that format for awhile, and it's always good to reinstall every couple of years.

Quote from: The Solutor;339676
Also Xp can be booted from diskettes (6 of them).

Btw is not mandatory yo install OS2 from diskettes you need just a virtual floppy to extract theyr images and a script SW to rebuild the bootable iso. There are dozens of guides online to do this.

You can also download a premade ISO image.

Findecanor's point was that OS/2 Warp was made inefficiently as he's convinced apple was the precursor to everything.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sat, 30 April 2011, 19:57:10: Quote
Findecanor's point was that OS/2 Warp was made inefficiently as he's convinced apple was the precursor to everything.

Maybe he just don't remember that also win95 was not bootable.

Really os2 was a way better OS than both win95 and macos.

OS2 lost the battle but this has nothing to do with the efficiency. Windows won mainly because piracy was not just tolerated but used as a marketing technique.

Just like VHS that won because of porn.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: audioave10 on Sat, 30 April 2011, 23:08:41: VHS won because nobody could afford Sony's license price for the Betamax (and porn).

You guys aren't helping Voixdelion much.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Sat, 30 April 2011, 23:54:46: Quote from: audioave10;339746
VHS won because nobody could afford Sony's license price for the Betamax (and porn).

You guys aren't helping Voixdelion much.

This made me totally crack up...

... which is invariably always helpful.

Ergo, I must disagree. =)
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: EverythingIBM on Sun, 01 May 2011, 04:18:41: Quote from: Voixdelion;339752
This made me totally crack up...

... which is invariably always helpful.

Ergo, I must disagree. =)

WE R TOTALLY HELPING U!!!
Sea lions love to help, especially for group photos:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3078/2497211922_3563b0ba33.jpg)

Or if you're ripster...
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10865&stc=1&d=1276093314)
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 01 May 2011, 05:04:58: I'd just reinstall Windows. Solves all Windows related issues.

Quote from: EverythingIBM;339592
Windows is the least secure platform due to it garnering the largest user base.

Windows is insecure because it's badly designed. Simple as that.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sun, 01 May 2011, 05:52:34: Quote from: Voixdelion;339752
This made me totally crack up...

... which is invariably always helpful.

Ergo, I must disagree. =)

BTW

launch msconfig and disable all the sw from boot, hide ms services and uncheck all remaining.

from the internet control panel disable all the explore plugins and see what happen.

Check if the HDD controller not downgraded to PIO mode (this one only if you have PATA HDDs).

if nothing of the above helps, do a chckdsk /r on the xp partition/disk and then do an in place upgrade to restore corrupted files/settings.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sun, 01 May 2011, 05:57:54: Quote from: ch_123;339786

Windows is insecure because it's badly designed. Simple as that.

The main xp problem is explorer. And the default account as administrator.

Get rid of this two and XP is as secure as linux.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 01 May 2011, 06:27:29: I'm not sure how you're meant to use Windows without Explorer. Then again, if you can't use Windows, you can't break it, so you're probably right.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sun, 01 May 2011, 06:35:00: My XP is still the same since beta 1, I always used opera and I never had a single malware.

And the same apples to all my customer that learner to stay away from explorer.

If you mean windows explorer you can also get rid of it, if you prefer.

Nothing will prevent you from use XP as OS and KDE as shell.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 01 May 2011, 07:46:05: The problems with Windows run much deeper than just Internet Explorer. Primary problem is that loads of things are deliberately broken to maintain backwards compatibility. Look at UAC, plenty of hacks to disable it have been documented since the Windows Vista days, but MS has stated that they aren't going to fix these issues because it may break older software. According to them, it's there to encourage programmers to write better code. So, by MS' own admission, their security features are just gimmicks.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 01 May 2011, 08:03:16: On MS's PC vs Mac (not sure what the difference is) site, one of the main points they had was "Many PC laptops have VGA ports". I think the other one was that you could connect your PC to your Xbox.

Talk about whales on beaches...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: The Solutor on Sun, 01 May 2011, 11:22:30: Quote from: ch_123;339817
The problems with Windows run much deeper than just Internet Explorer. Primary problem is that loads of things are deliberately broken to maintain backwards compatibility. Look at UAC, plenty of hacks to disable it have been documented since the Windows Vista days, but MS has stated that they aren't going to fix these issues because it may break older software. According to them, it's there to encourage programmers to write better code. So, by MS' own admission, their security features are just gimmicks.

We all know what the windows problems are.

But the fact is that any major treats since xp was due to a bug not to a lack of security feature, and bugs are present in any OS.

The only machine I ever encountered that was completerly controlled by an external person was a linux machine.

It had a rootkit installed remotely trough an hole in the ftp service.

Hole already closed by red hat by its updater. Updater that was disabled on that machine.

Really, speaking as if this was the year 1999 means nothing, as means nothing speaking about more or less secure OS.

What makes the difference is the OS diffusion, the quickness on the updates and last but not least who seat in front of the keyboard and monitor.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 01 May 2011, 11:39:31: User stupidity is a constant across all operating systems, and everything has bugs, but the underlying quality of the OS design and what/who the OS is being targeted at plays a substantial role.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: DaemonRaccoon on Sun, 01 May 2011, 12:29:22: Quote from: ripster;339886
My experience is Linux users are no more stupid but significantly more stubborn. I guess you have to be to get everything to work.

Damn straight! Though I'd describe myself as tenacious, getting any current Linux distribution up and running is pretty easy these days. I use Gentoo; compile and optimize everything!

As for Voixdelion's problem; I wonder if it might be hardware related, possibly bad RAM or an aging hard drive.

EDIT: I realize that wouldn't explain it if the sluggishness only occurs while browsing the web.
Voixdelion, do you only notice it while browsing?
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: godly_music on Sun, 01 May 2011, 18:28:08: Don't discount that you're being hijacked even though your scans don't show anything. Unless you're very confident in the software you run to detect that. But those errors seem to be connected to network services, and unless these services got changed legitimately in any way, that would be a hint.

I'd try erasing your whole network profile and start with re-installing your network card etc., unless you can backtrack. If that doesn't work, I'd start looking at the ISP. And if you can discount that, well..
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: instantkamera on Sun, 01 May 2011, 18:49:00: sorry if this was mentioned somewhere in the midst of all the on-topic posts re: OS/2, but have you tried:

1) a different browser

2) looking at cpu/mem usage

3) monitoring your bandwidth, testing to make sure numbers (speed AND latency) are at the expected level

?
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Mon, 02 May 2011, 10:26:08: bandwith check is telling...well for once it looks like the problem is actually with the isp and not me. gotta try and get tech support at att to tell me why my elite connection is dl'ing at 1.5 instead of 3.0+ and where the fook my email account has gone. might be a long day...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: ch_123 on Mon, 02 May 2011, 10:39:32: Is it DSL or Cable?
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Mon, 02 May 2011, 17:23:18: dsl- I pay for the highest tier possible without u-verse tv bundles which is 3.1 minimum to 6.0 Mbs (and subject to the new caps at 150gb of monthly usage) Last night even after a modem reboot the highest I got was 1.9Mbs./.. today of course, when I am about to call the tech line, its back up to 5.15. According to att support forums I was not alone in the mud last night but I was too tired to call to deal with it then. gonna have to keep an eye on att from now on...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Mon, 02 May 2011, 17:27:32: actually no, but I had put that project on the shelf for a minute to deal with other things. I did get her a GB of RAM and installed that for her and things were much improved considering she was using about 400 mbs and only had 256 installed...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Mon, 02 May 2011, 17:28:12: Quote from: ripster;339818
I wonder if Voix ever got her mom's Apple VGA to work?

actually no, but I had put that project on the shelf for a minute to deal with other things. I did get her a GB of RAM and installed that for her and things were much improved considering she was using about 400 mbs and only had 256 installed...
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: Voixdelion on Mon, 02 May 2011, 18:52:16: Tell me about it - I mean, just look around here. People have Lego fetishes and the like...Scary! Oh...wait... um...Nevermind.
Title: weird computer sluggishness online?
Post by: BucklingSpring on Tue, 03 May 2011, 08:30:34: Quote from: Voixdelion;339448
no malware showing up on scans but seeming to have a lot of drag in web page loading lately and lots of userenv errors in my log plus now a corruption in the system error log... possible culprits/fixes? running xp pro sp3...

Do you still have the issue? If yes, here's a couple of utilities to help you figuring out what is going on.
MS Process Explorer by By Mark Russinovich (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653)
Autorun by the same guy - tells you what is loading a bootup (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902)

Process Hacker - Similar to Process Explorer (http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/)

CurrPort - Realtime what is using TCPIP (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html)

You can also boot your machine with BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) to "remove" your Windows installation from the equation and see if you still experience the problem.

Let me know if you need further assistance.