Performance Issues- Computers and Laptops

Hello friends!

I tried to minimize the conversational kind of writing unlike my previous posts.

Simple and Direct to the point.

Problem -> Solution

Problem(s)

1.Are your programs responding too slow?

2.Is your windows boot time tooooooo big (5-15 minutes or even more sometimes)?

3.Is your computer hanging at random times?

4.Are you frustrated with frequent Not Responding dialog boxes?

What can be the problem's reason?

OS? huh.... May be :-/      

Virus?.... Might be. :-/

In this security threatening world, the reason can be because of a virus!!! 

ya it makes sense... What if you have the latest anti-virus definitions installed and the performance is still being lagged?

Before you reformat your system (believing that there is some software issue), with my personal experience I suggest you to do the following observations

Observation(s)

Did you?

Observe that the hard disk LED light(read/write) always glowing?

ever heard any strange sounds from your laptop at random times?

ever notice small vibrations in your laptop when ever you switch on or whenever the boot logo appears? 

Did you observe your disk activity time always 100% or above 90%? (use resource monitor from start menu or start>run>resmon)

Then this is an issue to be considered.

The issue is not with your OS or VIRUS. The issue is being caused by a BAD HARD DISK.

To confirm that its being caused by a hard disk. restart your system and enter into the boot diagnostic settings and run a hard disk check.(For HP, press F2 after restarting) if the S.M.A.R.T status of the disk reports some error. You can confirm that the performance lagging is due to hard disk.

ERRORS ON THE HARD DISK MAKES YOUR SYSTEM HANG FREQUENTLY !

There are two kinds of errors 

1.Soft Sectors Errors - can be fixed by checkdisk.(find out how @ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-vista/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors) 

2.Hard sector errors - cannot be fixed; hard disk needs to be replaced. But notice that there are possibilities to still use it; provided you do some time taking work on it.

So how did I make it?

step 1: Divide the whole disk in to a number of partitions say if a 500GB disk, divide it into x(say 6) partitions.(smaller partitions are better and recommended)

step 2: Now make the partition filled with some data.(can be movies or any stuff). make sure the partition is full. Now make a checkdisk as described above.

step 3: If the check disk hangs or takes hours to complete then you can confirm- that partition has bad sectors in it. Cancel the operation(the system generally hangs, so better restart) Now proceed doing the same operations on the rest of the partitions.

The partition that doesn't give any error is an error free partition. You can use it. You can install the OS on one of the error free partitions so that the system runs smoothly.

Those partitions that gave you an error are now set to unallocated space. 

how?

1. Run>compmgmt.msc 

2. In the left pane goto storage>disk management

3. Right click on the partition that has an error and click on delete volume. Proceed with any warnings.

4. Thats it. You are done.

Now combine all those error-free partitions into one so as to make the volume big in size.

To a new bie; it may seem confusing but the set of operations are really easy. Feel free to comment.

The core idea behind this process is to isolate all the bad sector partitions into one and avoid using those partitions.

All the best.

Urs,

Medha Chaitanya- ArCsoFLiFe.