Laptop Low On Resources

[zoem]

I tried applying the latest SP 1.6.3 to my Compaq LTE 5300 laptop which i installed a clean install of 98 onto it about 2weeks ago. After a fresh boot i was only left with 33% in system resources. Usually its 94% without the service pack. I'm suspecting this to be something to with with the PC-CARD manager. I currently hav a Xircom RealPort 10/100 16bit in the PCMCIA slot. The only additional program that loads at startup was MSN messenger 6.2. Prior to installing the service pack my laptop contained all updates from windows update.

i have installed this on 2 of my other systems and it works flawlessly. well done. i look forward to your ME service pack release

[Tarun]

If you use Hijack This, I'd like to see your log. If you don't have Hijack This you can download off of my website. Just post your log here and I'll see what's going on with your system.

[Gape]

zoem,

If the reason is your Xircom card, you should revert back to original cbss.vxd file from \Windows\System. Extract cbss.vxd from BASE5.CAB, and copy it into \Windows\System.

[soldier1st]

having 33% resources after installing this sp is weird,my laptop a compaq 1235 had all sorts of crap on it till i took it all off,also using 98lite will allow you to remove lots of useless stuff,also install ie 6 that helps 98 on a laptop,i have around 80-90% free resources after installing that sp and after using 98lite that helps,i also have a 3Com 10/100 PCMCIA Ethernet card thats 32 bit and it works flawlessly and btw there is no sp 1.6.3 only 1.6.2,then again yours only has 80 Ram and mine has 160 ram,also if you got lotsa spyware n stuff that will take some resources away

[zoem]

soldier1st:

i am experienced with using 98lite and havnt particularly noticed of much performance gain in on the systems i have used it on except when using the 95 shell. people can measure the 9 milliseconds of xtra speed gain with all their diagnostic and performance software all they want from using 98lite but that small speed gain aint particularly noticable to the user. i use the latest IE browser on all my systems which of course is IE6 SP1, and SP2 on XP (i dont care for alternatives). 1.6.2 is the version i was reffering to. mine is a Pentium 1 laptop and im guessing yours is a P2 or higher judging by the 32bit cardbus. Mine is obviously non-cardbus so perhaps this could be affecting it? i have no spyware on my system; hidden behind that system properties box is the latest version of ad-aware. im aware its reccommended to use combinations of other spyware programs, but personally i dont see the point.

before some1 notices that i am not CURRENTLY using a resident virus scanner, i would like to comment that im aware of this and that its not a stupid move made by me or anyone if they no what they are doing.

Tarun:

I do have a copy of this program and i will attempt to re-install the SP and run this program, however i had trouble shutting down windows with only 33% in resources. i was unable to load the start menu so if im able to run this program i will post the log.

Gape:

I will try this and post my findings in my next post. im curious to know of where the updated files come from? they dont look to me like they are files u would like in the patches from windows update.

[soldier1st]

well it's a 333 mhz but 66 mhz is taken away so it don't get hot so much,i wonder if adjusting it would be helpful

also more ram does help a bit,i think that non cardbus is why it's taking so much,could you replace with a 32 bit cardbus?mine was 25 bucks used,new is 60 bucks,maybe do that if you think it is what the problem is,well when i use 98lite 4.7 i do notice a bit of an improvement,also using ie iradicator allows removal of old ie and can install new ie without the older ie thus preventing a possible conflict

[Tarun]

When you CTRL + ALT + DELETE, kill the following applications:

Msnmsgr - Microsoft's MSN Messenger. Don't need to have this automatically run at system startup.

Systray - SYSTRAY.EXE - System Tray Services. Provides the Volume Control, PC Card Status, Power Management and other icons that reside in the System Tray (see here). SYSTRAY.EXE may be disabled if none of these services are required. It will launch as and when required if you later enable the icons. If you need these items they're available via Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

Irmon - System Tray access to infra-red devices. Not required unless you use infra-red devices

[zoem]

soldier1st:

my laptop is a non mmx pentium 1. it dus not support 32bit cardbus cards. ie radicator and 98lite DOES work wonders for win me, tho im yet to see wonders in win98se.

Tarun:

attatched is the hijackthis log file. it seems all in order to me, nothing there that shouldnt be.

i couldnt find my copy of hijackthis so i went to ure site to download it, and i couldnt download any files after clicking the buttons. perhaps there is a bug with the HTML code and IE6 SP2.

Gape:

i think that cbss.vxd file u reffered me to is for cardbus, not standard PCMCIA as i could not find a previous version of this file on my system, and the one i extracted did not overite any files. however i rebooted and tried this and no difference.

found something else that was interesting as well. wen i went to system properties to check the resources again 3 times in 10 secs, each time the resources dropped by 15~% from the previous time. i ended up with 17% free!

hijackthis.log

[zoem]

When you CTRL + ALT + DELETE, kill the following applications:

Msnmsgr - Microsoft's MSN Messenger.  Don't need to have this automatically run at system startup.

Systray - SYSTRAY.EXE - System Tray Services. Provides the Volume Control, PC Card Status, Power Management and other icons that reside in the System Tray (see here). SYSTRAY.EXE may be disabled if none of these services are required. It will launch as and when required if you later enable the icons. If you need these items they're available via Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

Irmon - System Tray access to infra-red devices. Not required unless you use infra-red devices

This makes no difference. This experience is bringing back memories of my last encounter with windows me...crashes...low resources in white boxes...lockups....explorer reloads...

[Tarun]

Thanks for the info on my site. Works beautifully on Firefox. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I'll fix that soon.

I've looked at your log.

If you're fond of Google Toolbar, keep using it. Though I HIGHLY recommend you use Firefox. Stops all the bad popups/spyware/adware, etc.

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,ProxyServer =

That is the only entry I see that you can safely remove. The rest are Google toolbar.

Go under Start > Run > type: MsConfig

Under the Startup tab you can safely uncheck the following.

[TaskMonitor] C:\WINDOWS\taskmon.exe

[systemTray] SysTray.Exe

[irMon] IrMon.exe

[CriticalUpdate] C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\wucrtupd.exe -startup

[schedulingAgent] mstask.exe

[MsnMsgr] "C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\MsnMsgr.Exe" /background

MsnMsgr - Msn Messenger can be disabled from Windows startup by going to: Tools > Options > General tab > Unchecking the "Automatically run Messenger when I log on to Windows".

Better to disable and run after Windows boots up.

Systray - SYSTRAY.EXE - System Tray Services. Provides the Volume Control, PC Card Status, Power Management and other icons that reside in the System Tray (see here). SYSTRAY.EXE may be disabled if none of these services are required. It will launch as and when required if you later enable the icons. If you need these items they're available via Start -> Settings -> Control Panel

Only required if you use the items mentioned in the above entry.

Irmon - System Tray access to infra-red devices. Not required unless you use infra-red devices.

Only required if you use infra-red devices.

CriticalUpdate - MS Windows Critical Update Notification. If you want to keep Windows up-to-date, check the Windows Update site.

Not required.

Taskmonitor and SchedulingAgent work with the defrag utility, tracking how often you use an application to determine where it belongs on the drive. These are not needed due to the high speeds of hard drives (generally 7200RPM).

Can safely be removed.

If you uninstall Google Toolbar, it should remove the following entries:

O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Helper - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - c:\program files\google\googletoolbar1.dll

O3 - Toolbar: &Google - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - c:\program files\google\googletoolbar1.dll

O8 - Extra context menu item: &Google Search - res://C:\PROGRAM FILES\GOOGLE\GOOGLETOOLBAR1.DLL/cmsearch.html

O8 - Extra context menu item: Cached Snapshot of Page - res://C:\PROGRAM FILES\GOOGLE\GOOGLETOOLBAR1.DLL/cmcache.html

O8 - Extra context menu item: Similar Pages - res://C:\PROGRAM FILES\GOOGLE\GOOGLETOOLBAR1.DLL/cmsimilar.html

O8 - Extra context menu item: Backward Links - res://C:\PROGRAM FILES\GOOGLE\GOOGLETOOLBAR1.DLL/cmbacklinks.html

O8 - Extra context menu item: Translate into English - res://C:\PROGRAM FILES\GOOGLE\GOOGLETOOLBAR1.DLL/cmtrans.html

Aside from all of that, everything looks to be in perfect working order.

Try to disable the applications mentioned, it's possible one of them may have a memory leak. Also, have you tried to boot up into Safe Mode?

[soldier1st]

yes i do know of memory leaks they can be the cause for the low resources

and i suggest only run the apps you need,when i got my laptop it had 3 ram left from 160 and resources were low,after cleaning out the apps i don't use it spedup a bit

[zoem]

yes i do know of memory leaks they can be the cause for the low resources

and i suggest only run the apps you need,when i got my laptop it had 3 ram left from 160 and resources were low,after cleaning out the apps i don't use it spedup a bit

my laptop was running flawlessly before applying the SP, so i dont see how the current running programs can be effecting it?

ive used firefox before; google toolbar is installed to block popups. i can usually tell when spyware is being downloaded to my computers anyhow. I would prefer to trust a Microsoft product with secure connections when doing my online banking than a release candidate/preview edition of mozilla firefox. although it is a good browser, and many geeks are turning to it, im still sceptical of using it. im aware of IE having hundreds of security holes, as others should be that microsoft and its employees are smart and are most likely aware of them. if they were of a high security risk to the 80% of internet users running IE then they would bring out a critical update.

[soldier1st]

i don't use firefox,i use opera on my laptop,the service pack helped my laptop out

also is it worth using Taskmonitor and SchedulingAgent?

does winalign help in any way for some speed or something?

[Gape]

zoem,

Could you try to delete VPICD.VXD and VMCPD.VXD from \Windows\System\VMM32 ?

[Tarun]

yes i do know of memory leaks they can be the cause for the low resources

and i suggest only run the apps you need,when i got my laptop it had 3 ram left from 160 and resources were low,after cleaning out the apps i don't use it spedup a bit

my laptop was running flawlessly before applying the SP, so i dont see how the current running programs can be effecting it?

ive used firefox before; google toolbar is installed to block popups. i can usually tell when spyware is being downloaded to my computers anyhow. I would prefer to trust a Microsoft product with secure connections when doing my online banking than a release candidate/preview edition of mozilla firefox. although it is a good browser, and many geeks are turning to it, im still sceptical of using it. im aware of IE having hundreds of security holes, as others should be that microsoft and its employees are smart and are most likely aware of them. if they were of a high security risk to the 80% of internet users running IE then they would bring out a critical update.

Firefox is an offical release now and it is much more secure than IE. There is a link on my website to test if your browser supports encryption and such.

i don't use firefox,i use opera on my laptop,the service pack helped my laptop out

also is it worth using Taskmonitor and SchedulingAgent?

does winalign help in any way for some speed or something?

Taskmonitor - The Task Monitor checks the disk-access patterns of programs when they are started and stores this information in log files in the Applog folder. Task Monitor also records the number of times you use a program. The Disk Defragmenter tool uses this information to optimize your hard disk so that programs that you use frequently are loaded faster. Not required.

ScheudlingAgent - MS Scheduling Agent displayed as a box with a stopwatch in the System Tray that is only needed if you have regular scheduled disk defragmenting, ScanDisk, etc. Required if you have regularily scheduled events such as weekly virus scans.

Personally I run these manually and find SchedulingAgent to be useless.

As for WinAlign, does it startup with the PC itself? The only instance I found of it is that of a Dynamic Link Library (DLL)