I hope this is the right forum spot for this topic. If not i'm sorry. First timer

Anyway, I have an old Dell Dimension 4500S desktop I bought from Dell when I got married. That was in 2002. The PC hasn't been thru [bleep] and back, but I think it's just old. My main issue is that it takes a long time to do anything on it. Boot, shutdown, run programs, surf the internet, etc.

I'm pretty much a tech guy so I can understand the majority of the lingo and how things work. I've tinkered around in it, running Spybot:Search and Destroy, Norton Antivirus and Eusing's registry cleaner.

I check the Page file usage and it is at a solid 200 MB at rest. Just booted up and has sat there doing nothing for a half hour and it's at 200 MB.

I think it just may need more RAM but it's never been like this. Should I try a reformat? Should I just shoot the thing and be done with it? Any insight is appreciated.

Hello rknight718...

Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Click the "Hardware" tab and then the "Device Manager" button. Expand (click +) IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

Right click on the Primary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

Right click on the Secondary IDE channel, choose "Properties", then click the "Advanced Settings" tab. List the Current Transfer Mode for each device shown for this channel.

wannabe1

Primary IDE:

Device 0--Ultra DMA Mode 5

Device 1--Not Applicable


Secondary IDE:

Device 0--Ultra DMA Mode 2

Device 1--Not Applicable

Those look good...

Click Start, then Run, type eventvwr.msc and click "Ok". In Event Viewer (left pane), click on "System". In the right pane, are there any errors listed under the "Type" column? If so, what are they? (You need only list a few of the most recent ones...or post a screen shot of the Event Viewer window.)

Just a side note cuz I forgot to mention it in my first post. I am running this forum under another computer, a laptop. I'm "sneaker-netting" all this info so I can't really post screenshots.

Another note, when I tried to access the viewer via Start--Run, it gave me an error and wanted to send an error report. I tried this twice. I then went under Start--Programs--Admin Tools and got it to work from there.

The only error was a DHCP error when the IP address was denied by the DHCP server. This was 2 days ago and I think was caused by the fact that we had a power glitch and I had to reboot the modem and server before all the computers could access the wireless network again.

That's the only error for a solid week.

Ok...nothing there that relates or at least is obvious.

Let's try a diagnostic startup. Click Start, then Run, type msconfig and click "Ok". In the Configuration Utility, tick the radio button next to "Diagnostic Startup" (General tab), click "Apply", then "Ok". Reboot the machine and see if it starts and runs faster.

That definitely made it boot faster and windows/programs open faster but now the wireless adapter I have connected to it cannot detect the network.

That's because we've disabled all but essential drivers and services.

We may be looking at an infection, but let's see if we can narrow this down a little.

In the Configuration Utility, click on the "Services" tab. Tick the box at the bottom to "Hide All Microsoft Services". Are all of the items that remain not selected?

Click on the "Startup" tab. What's listed there? Are they selected to start?

After "Hide all Microsoft Services" only 2 remain and they are NOT checked.
lxcr_device--stopped
WUSB54AG--stopped


Under Startup:

winlogon-checked
ctfmon-not checked
ezprint-not checked
fm3032-not checked
winlogon-not checked
hkcmd-not checked
igfxtray-not checked
KHALMNPR-not checked (this shows up twice, in all caps like shown here, and relates to something called KHALMNPR.EXE)
lxcrmon-not checked
InvokeSvc3-not checked
qttask-not checked
jusched-not checked
Adope Reader Speed Launch-not checked
Logitech SetPoint-not checked

You should be able to enable the two items listed under the Services tab. The first is for a Lexmark printer (I assume you have one installed) and the other is for your wireless network device. Select them to start and reboot to verify that they are not causing the problem.

If you are still booting faster after those are enabled, go to the Startup tab and enable one item (I usually atart at the bottom of the list) and reboot. Do this, one item at a time, until you encounter the slow boot problem...the last item you enabled prior to the problem recurring will be the bad guy.

Let me know how you fare with this.

Thank you. I currently do not have that Lexmark printer anymore. I guess I forgot to clean up/uninstall completly. I did notice my Page File usage is much lower. Would this attribute to on the the start-up programs as well? I will attempt to find the troublesome file and let you know. You have my thanks.

Leave the Lexmark service disabled then....that may be a part of the problem.

Do you use a Logitech bluetooth mouse? That's what KHALMNPR relates to in most cases.

It is a Logitech LX3 Optical USB mouse. I don't believe it's Bluetooth. I don't see the Bluetooth symbol anywhere anyway.

BTW, so far so good. It's still booting faster than before.

After researching the startups, All of the following belong to Lexmark and can be left disabled.

• ezprint
• fm3032
• lxcrmon

KHALMNPR is up to the user...you can probably disable it, too.

Thank you. I finished going thru all the start up processes and I think I found the culprit. Both the Logical Disk Manager and Logical Disk Manager Administrative service caused major slowdown and sent the PC usage into 100% and it stayed there for about 10 minutes. I've also left the lexmark stuff disabled as well as themes since I don't care how pretty Windows looks.

The only problem now is the PC is taking too long to obtain an IP address from the wireless network after booting up. It seems to hang on "renewing IP address". It did this before with all the slowdown too, so I think this is an un-related issue. Thoughts?