Curse

Clab · Apr 12, 2007, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Recently i have been experiencing extremely bad lag on my system, not just guild wars. Ill try to give a decent description of whats going on, so if you think you may be able to help, i'd really appreciate it =)

EDIT - Here are a couple of pictures, maybe they will help, i dont know.

Picture 1: This one is my Performance with no programs running, just after turning the thing on.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...bwxndo/lag.jpg

Picture 2: This one is when running Guild Wars. Cpu usage just flatlined at 100%. (The GW.exe was using up to 250,000k!!)
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...xndo/laggw.jpg

Picture 3: Not sure if this helps, but i got this odd message a while ago saying disk full. It then shut down guild wars. I restarted it and it was fine. (My hard drive is only about 20% full.)
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...o/Diskfull.jpg

Picture 4: This one is from after the scans. It shows what processes are running when the system has just been started up.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...ssesidlepc.jpg

Picture 5: This one is taken just after picture 4, however this one shows the gw.exe process running.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...srunninggw.jpg

In response to Etta, my laptop *never* gets hot at all, ever after hours of use, because it has a pretty decent fan. I have tried other things like games and movies on it, and the lag still occurs.
Thanks for the responses so far!

END EDIT

Ok, first ill tell you my computer, straight from the sticker on the front.
Its an Acer Aspire 5101AWLMI Laptop with windows xp media edition.
AMD Turion 64, 2.0 GHz, 512KB L2 Cache
ATI Radion Xpress 1100
1GB Ram

I bought this laptop new about 3 months ago, and up untill recently i have had no problems with it. Guild wars has been running completely smooth, and it plays other games such as half life 2 and halo fine. One night i was on guild wars, having no lag issues as normal, and when i went to bed i shut down the system properly as i have always done. The next morning i load up guild wars and all of a sudden its completely laggy, no warning or anything, just all at once its randomly started lagging. It has taken up to 20 seconds to apply insignias and runes, its that bad. Every time a game is opened on it, the cpu usage on task manager jumps right up to 100% even with nothing else running on the system. So far it has been like this for 2 weeks and i am no closer to working out what caused the problem, although shortly before this happened i started to hear a sort of loud "whirring" sound coming from near the fan area is, when the system was starting up. This happened for about a week before it started lagging, and seemed not to affect it. Since it started lagging, this noise has stopped all together.
Im generally pretty careful about what i download, as this was a relatively new laptop not much was on it, and i doubt that was the cause. Not much at all was downloaded, no p2p like limewire etc. Also the c drive is 76% free and the d drive is 99% free, so nothing to do with low memory.
So far i have tried:
Defragging, Resetting internet (wireless - 2meg, but im sure its not this because my brothers pc is fine), Virus scan (no virus), uninstalling and reinstalling guild wars twice. Once using the online client, the second time using the discs. Thats pretty much it. I dont really know much about this stuff. Whatever. I asked in a pc world if they could advise anything, and the woman looked at me as if i was stupid and told me "make sure you arent running any other applications at the same time". Very helpful, thanks. The acer helpline could only reccomend that i send the laptop off to them, which would likely take weeks to come back, bringing with it an empty c drive and a charge to pay.

Well, thats about it. If anyone can think of anything at all i may be missing, please, please tell me, as its ruining my life! Well maybe not that far, but still please tell me =)

juggalol · Apr 13, 2007, 12:29 AM // 00:29

download spybot search and destroy and then scan your computer, get a virus cleaner such as avg or something other then nortons and scan your computer with that. make sure you dont have a bunch of stuff on your desktop like icons and such and dont have a big fancy desktop wallpaper. other then that dont use any p2p programs like utorrent or such.

FallenXIII · Apr 13, 2007, 02:46 AM // 02:46

load up a game, then bring up the task manager go into the processes tab.

what procceses are using alot of CPU ?
also check what processes use up alot of CPU when ur computer is idle.
Image name CPU Mem,usage
it should look something like GW.exe 56 62,000k
*****.*** ** **,***k

to me it sounds like spyware.

Etta · Apr 13, 2007, 08:49 AM // 08:49

GW always use 100% of the cpu, nothing to worry about. Your problem does sound like your laptop picked up a spyware and adware from somewhere. Do what the other said get spybot S&D, and ad removal program, you can them freely from a dvd that came with PC Zone or PC Gamer otherwise just download it.

My second guess is that your laptop could be overheated and damage certain part on the board. Have you try and play other game on it since the problem started?

Clab · Apr 14, 2007, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Ok, i have now downloaded spybot and avg and done a full scan with both. Spybot found about 18 spyware threats on the laptop, which i have now fixed. After this i ran avg and this found no virus threats at all. I then ran a defrag and restarted the laptop and it's still playing up being all laggy, although it has got slightly better. Could anyone reccomend anything else to try that would hopefully sort it out? I put a few pictures of the performance in task manager up, mabye someone has seen something similar.
Thanks for looking!

eggrolls · Apr 15, 2007, 03:54 AM // 03:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clab

I put a few pictures of the performance in task manager up, mabye someone has seen something similar.

about the first picture... is that before or after the spyware and virus scans? if it's after, then there's something still wrong with your computer. take a look at the processes tab and find out which program is taking up a high % of the cpu. also, post a screenshot of all your processes. 62 seems a bit... high. you can probably turn off some of them and make your computer a bit faster.

FallenXIII · Apr 15, 2007, 03:59 AM // 03:59

80% cpu usage on an idle pc :/

What process is taking up this amount of CPU - go into the processes tab and see witch process it is that is using it. it should say it in double figures around 70+

Clab · Apr 19, 2007, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Hey there. Thanks for the responses guys, sorry its taken a while to update with any new screenshots. This is literally the first chance i have had to do it, but i wont get into that. Anyway, ill stick on a few pictures of the processes running. One when the system has just started up, one when guild wars is running. To answer Eggroll's question, the first three pictures are from before the spybot and avg scans, and the fourth and fifth will be from after the scans.
Again, any help will be much appreciated. Thanks for your time!

fowlero · Apr 19, 2007, 07:11 PM // 19:11

pc's really are pains eh, this probably wont be of much use but i had a similar problem where my pc began lagging approx every 5 secs randomly whatever i ran.

turned out somehow my java engine had freaked, uninstalled that and reinstalled it and then everything returned to normal =)

found it to be java by watching the processes list and clicking the "sort by CPU Usage" this then showed the Jw.exe to keep popping up at 52%. just an idea that one of your programs or engines may be doing this, my virus scanner couldnt pick up anything when the problem occured to me also.

probably not too helpful lol but anythings worth a shot, that is unless you've already done this. tbh i didnt read the whole post, sposed to be revising =(

red13xx · Apr 19, 2007, 07:52 PM // 19:52

I would reformat and reinstall windows if all else fails. There is also a restore command that allows you to revert your windows back to a date that it actually was working correctly but it isnt as reliable as norton ghost which images your drive and is a complete backup. If you want to try restore go to start,run, and type restore in the prompt. Then there is an application called rstrui which you click and open. Then it shows a list of dates which you can revert to. If it is a recent problem then you may have a chance to fix it with restoring to a earlier date. YOou cna also undo the restore if you want to pick another date by repeating the process.

Clab · Apr 19, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

I have already tried to use a system restore. There were about five dates available to restore to, but when i actualy tried to go through with the restore, the computer wouldnt let me. I tried this for all five of the dates and it could not restore to any of them.
Im not sure if its anything to do with java, because it doesnt appear to be running on processes.
Thankyou for your suggestions everyone, seems like its completely messed up though. If it doesnt sort of fix the problem on its own soon (like that will happen though) i guess i'll be forced to do a complete reformat and reinstall windows like red13xx suggested. *sigh*