Truly awful slowdown

Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:59 pm by mknote

I need to tell a story in order to get to the point. My computer's internet stopped working around May 18th, so on June 15th, I took my computer over to a friend of mine who actually understands computers. It turns out that both of my harddrives were too corrupt (one of them didn't register as a hard drive, and couldn't even be defragged). So he wiped both of them and reinstalled Windows onto it. It is important to realize that no hardware has been changed.

I plop in Freelancer today, and I won't say its as slow as a snail, because that would be a grave insult... to the snail. It took one and a half minutes for all of the selections on the main menu (New Game, Load Game, etc.) to slide from the side of the screen into position. Actually, it may have been closer to two minutes. My mouse would only move every fifteen to twenty seconds. I didn't even think about going ingame, because I knew it would be worse.

I suspected it was DirectX. While waiting on my theory to be proven, I played a 1999 game called Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Or at least, I tried, because it acted the exact same way! I tested SimCity 4; same thing. Every single one of my games is so slow as to be unplayable. Outside of gameplay, the computer runs smoothly (there was a brief point in which it took a good five seconds for a light double-click would allow me to rename, but that's passed). No hardware was changed, and it worked fine before, so it can't be that. DirectX is installed properly, and is at an advanced enough version, so that's out. I'm going crazy here, because I have nothing else that can run these games and I'm flat dead broke. No games, no mods... the only good thing is that the internet works.

Help me. I know nothing about my system, other than that it runs Windows 2000, has 512 Mb RAM, and has a decent video card. Everything I can think of checks out. What is wrong?

MK

Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:32 pm by Question Asker2044

Sounds like a CPU issue. Have you overclocked it?
Recheck every driver for everything on your computer.
You said your internet stopped working, did anything weird happen before it stopped? Slow downs, etc.
I am just throwing ideas out here.

Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:22 pm by mknote

I'll answer your questions in order:

1. I had to look up overclocking, as I'd never heard of it. While I assure you that I didn't do that (I don't even know how), it is possible my friend did... but he'd probably tell me.

2. How do I check drivers?

3. Was there a slowdown before my internet finally kicked the bucket? In game, there was no difference, but outside of the game, especially after my dad put in the new Ethernet card, the slowdown was enormous. As my friend said, though, that was caused by ridiculous data corruption (both the internet and the slowdown). Heh, it was the exact opposite of my current problem.

MK

Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:55 pm by Hahukum Konn

Windows 2000 lacks a native firewall and is vulnerable to the (amazingly, still percolating) worms that can hit a box within a few moments of being powered up and placed on a direct connection to a cable or DSL modem. Your friend should check for the Blaster or Sasser worms, among others.

When fresh-installing Win2K, Installing Service Pack 4 (from a CD!) and using Autopatcher 2000 (from a CD or USB stick) to get you up to the latest updates is the best way to lock-down a Win2K box (that, and disabling some services).

If you're behind even an el-cheapo router (never mind one that does stateful packet inspection) then a lot of this doesn't apply.

Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:41 pm by 5i1 2

It does sound like you have an Virius to me too. Do have your friend to look at it. (I've also heard of an Virius that will survive an format though it is unlikly you have it.) (I say virius because it might not be on worm, maybe something else.)
Also try scanning your computer for Spyware.

Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:07 am by Rankor

It sounds like a bug has zapped your cpu clock.

Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:17 pm by mknote

I talked to my friend about 15 minutes ago, and he thinks that it's either the video card itself or its driver. He suggested getting an earlier driver for my card before going out and getting a new card, so that's what I'm doing. Just to keep you guys informed.

MK

Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:39 pm by Hahukum Konn

A quick check to see if your computer's going wonky -

Hit ctrl-alt-del, click the Performance tab and see if your CPU Utilization is nailed at 100% just after you finish booting into Windows. It should NEVER be like that unless you're running Folding@Home or something in the background.

Thu Jun 21, 2007 3:08 pm by mknote

Success! He was right; downgrading the video driver fixed the problem. Thanks for the help guys!

MK

Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:52 pm by Rankor

I'm glad I was wrong.

Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:14 pm by H.Q. Victor

As a sub-note to this, not all NEW drivers help, some truly cause a lot of problems. My lappy recently had a new driver for it, and screwed it all up. Blank screen and all. I did a system restore back to before the download and its back to normal now.

Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:17 pm by 5i1 2

Yeah Drivers can be picky. But it's not their fault that some of the newer cards have features older ones don't. And if the new drivers look for feature that isn't there on the old card, problems happen. Thats why it's always good to make SURE that the drivers will support the card. (It's almost always in the documentaion of the drivers on the website.)

On an side note some programs hate it when you install new drivers over old without removeing the old COMPLETELY. (This includes FL, i've expernced it myself before.)(It's very annoying.)

Important Message

You are browsing the archived Lancers Reactor forums. You cannot register or login.
The content may be outdated and links may not be functional.

To get the latest in Freelancer news, mods, modding and downloads, go to
The-Starport