Really Really Slow dv5000 - Power Management Issue?

My HP dv5140us has been really slow for the last few days. It takes forever to boot up and open programs, and freezes every few seconds when I play Flash videos.

In my task manager no processes are over 60,000k and CPU usage drops to 0% when nothing is open.

I feel like I might have done something stupid like put on some power management mode accidentally that handicaps the CPU. I'm pretty sure that I didn't download spyware or install anything that caused this.

Any ideas for how to go about fixing this?

The computer has always been pretty slow when on battery power, and now it seems like it's acting like that even when on external power. This makes me thing that there is some setting I need to change or something.

So far I've tried switching the 2 memory sticks (I think I'll try this again), virus scans, a bunch of spyware scans, and some other random stuff.

BTW, I use XP Media Center Edition, and have 2GB of RAM. Also, recently my power adapter got screwed up and wouldn't be recognized by the computer, so I got a universal adapter and use that instead. Is it possible that I have some power setting on the adapter wrong and that is causing this?

 

That sounds pretty weird. Do you know what your current Power Management settings are? Run HDTune which can be found here: http://www.hdtune.com/ and post your results. Something tells me your hard drive might be failing. I'm not sure, but that's what I think because, besides the flash video thing, the other stuff involves the HD (boot up, open programs, sluggish performance). This is especially the case if scans have shown nothing, CPU usage isn't high, and your task manager isn't showing high mem usage. So I'd DEFINITELY back up all your important files in case your HD is to blame.

 

In the bottom right corner of your desktop, in the system tray. You should see the battery icon. point to it and left click. What power setting are you on. there should be three power settings. Balanced - Power Saver - High Performance.

Too many people make the mistake and forget to put it on high performance. You stated that you used it on battery power. As soon as you use battery the system automatically goes to power saver and when you go back to external power sometimes it doesn't revert back to balanced or high performance. leaving you on power saver and wondering why everything is so slow. Just check it out. Post back.

 

jin07: I'll check that program out now. BTW, I have 18GB of free space on a 120GB HD.

Yitzter: I don't have those options when I left click. Instead, I have Home/Office Desk, Portable/Laptop, Presentation, Always On, Minimal Power Management, Max Battery, Intervideo DVD.

I usually have it on Home/Office Desk but still have the problem in the other modes. Perhaps "Balanced - Power Saver - High Performance" modes are in Vista? I use XP.

 

Have you ever defragged your computer? If you haven't, then that would explain alot. Your computer could be severely fragmented. If you need a good defrag program, get JKDefrag. Once you get JKDefrag, run it in Safe Mode so it can really clean up your computer.

 

I just ran an error scan in HD Tune and came up clean. The health screen also showed no errors.

 

I haven't defragged recently and I'll give that a shot. However, I'm not optimistic because I don't think needing a defrag would explain how this popped up all of a sudden.

 

Yeah I was thinking if you recently used up alot of HD space or never defragged, but it's worth a shot. I'm still sticking to the HD failing thing, though I'm not positive.

 

I'm going to defrag overnight.

By the way, in addition to the Flash videos problem I've also been skipping while playing songs in iTunes and one of last few times I booted up my desktop background disappeared and I got that "Active Desktop Recovery" message thing in its place. I don't think I've ever had that error on XP before, it's something I remember from my Windows 98 days. Very weird.

Anyways, thanks for your ideas so far. G'night.

 

Well it's been a bunch of hours since I started the defrag and it's only at 21%. I really suspect that there is something wrong with my processor or memory or something is handicapping them or using them up. Still not sure what the hell is going on.

 

Its probably just time to back everything up and do a format and fresh install of Windows.

 

Yeah, what a pain in the ass. I guess I'll try that this weekend.

 

I am working on a friends dv5000 laptop and am having simular problem but all the problems you are describing are what she is having and I checked her RAM memory and it shows only 256mb of RAM. Not knowing her system I told her she needed more RAM. When I went to install the new 1gb chip I discovered she had two 512mb chips installed already. I replaced one of them with the 1gb and powered on into system setup. In setup it shows 1.5gb of memory. After powering up into windows XP SP2 it only shows 256mb of memory. I took out the 512 chip and left only the 1gb in and powered up and again it only shows 256mb of memory. I flashed to the new BIOS (f.54) to see if that might solve th problem, but it still only shows 256mb of memory. Does anyone know why this might be?