Hi, my laptop is exhibiting strange faults over the past couple of days, and I've just learnt that a friend's having exactly the same problem.

They're both completely different laptops (different makes & models, different broadband ISP's, his is XP home and mine is MCE). Both have 512Mb ram and are fully updated with all the latest windows and AVG antivirus updates.

Most noticeably the fault starts with the 'windows startup sound' being 'jerky', then on getting into windows, performance is similar, with the mouse moving jerkily and windows taking ages to open.

Neither of us has any shared programs and both of us have tried all the "usual" fixes including running a couple of up-to-date virus scans which find nothing untoward.

Has anyone else had a similar experience recently?

My best guess is that there may be a new virus out there that may have caused these faults, since there is no other common demominator I can see with our 2 machines. Or is this just a big coincidence.

Any assistance very gratefully received. Many thanks.

In my experience these are symptons of heavy fragmentation and general windoze cludge.
When was the last time you did some serious maintenance on your system, including, but not limited to, defrag, patching, junk file removal, registry clean, malware and virus scanning?

May just be a case of your system needing a really good clean out.

Thanks for your super-speedy reply! Both machines have been defragmenting all day (we thought the same! ) and took ages to complete, but no improvement! It was the last thing I could think of before this cry for help. :o

Remove junk and clean registry BEFORE defrag.
Removal of junk files is easy with CCleaner a free app that does exactly what you neeed.

Defrag is an inbuilt function in XP.
Open My Computer > Right click C: > Tools Tab and it's there.

I'm slightly concerned that it's taken all day.
Try defrag in safe mode as it will run faster.

Also worth a look is an excellent program called Diskeeper.
They do a full feature trialware version that is available HERE
This does a much better job than the inbuilt almost from M$.

To make sure everything is running fine run both anti virus and anti spyware apps in normal AND safe modes. (make sure that they are updated first ! ;)) (AVG is good and free AV)
(A couple of good removal tools are Spybot and Adaware)

ALso an on line virus and spyware scanner is Trend Housecall

Just a note; actively running two AV's on one machine can cause problems.
So if you are thinking about it make sure your current one is disabled first.
Same thing applies to online scanners as well.

Removal of junk files is easy with CCleaner a free app that does exactly what you neeed.

Hi mate. I recently caught a virus, and after I cleaned all traces of it and sorted out my whole system, I found I had this problem too!

!! I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION!! - aftr 2 hours searching! :mad:

the cause...
After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Port driver (Atapi.sys) receives a cumulative total of six time-out or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) errors, the driver reduces the communications speed (the transfer mode) from the highest Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver continues to receive time-out or CRC errors, the driver eventually reduces the transfer mode to the slowest mode (PIO mode).

( to sumerise, the drive data transfer rate has been decreased! So evrytime it needs to load data quickly, e.g. logging in, or starting an app, it stutters I/O devices, including mouse and sound! )

is this right for you?
1. go to device manager --- (right click mycomputer, and click properties, hardware, devicemanager)
2. expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS
3. doubleclick the controller for your HDD, will be PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL for most people.

In the advanced settings tab, if the CURRENT TRANSFER MODE is "PIO Mode", than THIS IS DEFFINATELY THE PROBLEM!

As there are different modes of DMA, this may still be your problem, so trying this fix is worth a try.


THE FIX!!!
In the driver tab of the same window, click uninstall, and uninstall the driver. Then restart your computer. Upon restarting, windows will reinstall the driver, and reset the count, therefore giving you a high DMA mode! Which will be perfect!


thanx?
If this doesn't work, email me on >Removed<, as I only registered on this forum to help you out, and doubt ill ever come here again, therefore, won't read a reply to the post.

If it worked, you could always email and say thanks :)

@hsncool

I love you my dear friend... :D (in a heterosexual way of course :) )

I also faced the same problem and had been searching for the answer
For last couple of days. I was getting search results referring a spybot scan
Or hijack this-n-that stuffs until I came here and BINGO!

Your ans was so to-the-point and explanatory.

One thing I'm still wondering, how did YOU find the ans to this
Brain aching issue?

Anyway, thanks a lot buddy.

I hope more people see this thread! Worked like a charm for me as well.

Finally someone with the wisdom and kindness to help others! Thanks Msncool!
Been troubling myself with this problem for weeks, finally browsing YouTube is smooth again. H5! :D