My NT box at work, need some suggestions

[damunzy]

I am running NT 4.0 at work, yeah I know, run Linux or something like that, well I can't. I am stuck with NT 4.0 until the higher ups say otherwise. My question/problem is that the computer will "hang" for a few seconds. The system is a pretty decent IBM. It has a 1.6G processor, 256 Megs of RDRAM, and I don't believe a 3D card (I can't play games on it anyways, so it doesn't mater much), and a 60 Gig HDD so you can see by it's stats that it ain't no slouch. The problem is my computer at home runs circles around it (Duron 750, Abit 7T7A-RAID mobo, 512Meg SDRAM, 48 Gigs worth of HDD running at ATA33 and 66).

I think the problem comes in b/c of NT 4.0 (duh) and McAfee Anti-virus (duh again). Unfortunaely I cannot disable either of them (lol, disbale NT!!) even though I have local admin rights (scary). Is there a way that I can kill McAfee, this is what my co-workers say cause the problems.

these are the programs that I am running:
# of | Program running

(1) | Outlook 2000 128 bit encription
(1) | Remedy 4.05.02
(1) | Winamp 2.79
(5-7) | I.E 5.5 SP2 128 bit encription

I have set Winamp to high priority (through winamp's prefs) and that has helped with the system hanging for those few seconds but it effects everyting everything else now goes slower (makes sense, but at least my music doesn't stutter every minute or two for 5-15 seconds...it only happens about every 10 minutes now). Even without winamp running the computer still has these programs.

 

[GenghisK]

I also have regular "freezings" at regular period and though i'm using Win2k and 1.2Ghz TB. Never understood why. It regularly freezes my computer, for a 10th of second. But that's still annoying. A clue?

 

[ainwood]

It may be slowing down because windows is set to scan the HD every few minutes when it is "not busy" to cache data. I can't remember the details, but I read something like tis in some geek magazine.

I suggest that you do a search at .groups.google.com - that's quite a good source for things like this

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Well, I am running NT4 at work, on a Pentium 2 computer with 128Mb RAM. I have never noticed such freezes. I run Norton anti-virus though.

Or maybe it happened so fast, it's beyond my visual detection level.

 

[ainwood]

I forgot to add - we have McAffee at work, and I don't tend to see any pauses, although I probably wouldn't notice just 0.1 s.

A couple of thoughts: When it pauses, can you here it writing to the hard drive? Also, are you reading the MP3s from a CD ROM? It maybe that it caches some of the file, then has to pause to read more. You could try playing with the settings for the CDROM drive. Also, what is the size of your paging file? If its too small, or too large, then this can cause performance problems. I think that 128 MB is the magical optimum.

 

[the_travis_s]

You didn't mention the brand of processor.

In my experience, win 2000 (4.0 should be the same) with an AMD processor just doesn't cut it. Now yes, it's supposed to be 100% compatible, but something causes AMD machines to run like slugs up-hill.

 

[damunzy]

I have a P4 1.5 GHz, wrong by .1Gig

I have figured out a way to stop McAfee (Control Panel -> Virus Scan, and then stop it! LOL, I can't beleive it is that easy, someone must have missed something for this image) but it doesn't seem to help with the freezes.

I am playing mp3s that are on the local harddrive.

I have, at home, a Duron 750, and I never noticed any problems with 2000 or XP.

 

[the_travis_s]

Of course I wasn't too specific on model. The ones that were terribly slow were K6-2's

 

[GenghisK]

Oooh I found out why my computer froze sometimes. It's due to DC! If I have too many files in queue (once 500+) it often freezes everything....

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by GenghisK
Oooh I found out why my computer froze sometimes. It's due to DC! If I have too many files in queue (once 500+) it often freezes everything....

I have errors with DC also...that is why I was thinking of using DC++.

K6-2s! lol, that was back in the dark ages of AMD. AMD has its poop together now.