With Computers Nothing Goes Smoothly

I could feel it as the mouse pointer began to lag behind the mouse. Then audio came out as if a 78 rpm record was playing at 33 rpm (old reference–I know).

pc-box-wires.jpgThe new PC fired up the first time! Windows 7, thought not a painless install, also went in pretty easily. Of course, being the consummate pessimist I waited for the other shoe to drop.

5 – 4 – 3 – 2- 1 Bingo! The computer to begin to crawl.

The mouse pointer began to lag behind the mouse. There’s an interesting connect here because you feel something you’re really not feeling! Then audio came out as if a 78 rpm record was playing at 33 rpm (old reference–I know).

When something like this happens Google is your friend. If you can enter the right terms you’ll find someone else who’s felt your pain and, hopefully, found the solution.

I could find nothing!

The problem doesn’t come on at boot. It waits before happening.

busy-box-computer.jpgThe voltages and temperatures seemed fine. The CPU was running OK. My power supply is very beefy with more than enough power to run this machine (and a small town). It was all very puzzling.

Maybe it was a problem with Windows 7? I reformatted the hard drive and loaded Windows XP SP3. Time consuming, but painless. I’ve installed and re-installed this OS dozens of times.

Things started fine but withing a few minutes I realized I’d pissed away my time. The machine was crawling.

I think (but still am not sure) the problem is an internal card reader bought for under $10 on eBay.

Once I get this problem stabilized and eliminated I can begin to optimize the BIOS and get this thing screaming. I did run a short benchmark and the results were stunningly fast.

A few more days–I hope.

3 thoughts on “With Computers Nothing Goes Smoothly”

  1. Driver problem?

    Something running in the background?

    Did you run MSCONFIG and disable everything under the Startup tab? From there you can use a process of elimination to figure out what the problem is.

  2. I second Jim and your diagnosis. Besides an intermittent short in the card reader, it could be AV software you installed as well. Compare the processes you have running in Task Manager with another system (XP or 7) to see differences. You probably haven’t added much software yet, though. I like to build out with another machine on a KVM for comparisons like this – get a Rosewill at Newegg – they’re cheap and reliable.

  3. AV software–you jest! I am a non-believer.

    Used the machine all evening with the reader out and it ran fine. This problem is not CPU stress and is not seen in the task manager graphs.

    I suspect this is a bad ground or other non-digi electronic problem that might be killing the power supply.

    I will wait the weekend and then order a different reader–probably your recommendation (which I’d already eyed).

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