Slow memory speeds on Toshiba laptop

[donb]

I know I have a problem, but what do I need to look at to fix it? Here is a little history. I ran the online version of PCPitstop which identified that access to the memory on my machine is about 1/3 the speed normally expected. My machine is a Toshiba laptop with a 1.1GHz Celeron processor with 512MB memory.

Okay, I purchased Optimize which found a bunch (several hundred) things to fix. I ran Optimize, rebooted and voila!! My machine is running at least 3 times as fast. I mean we are talking DRAMATIC difference. I started a few programs and suddenly we are back to the old machine. I rebooted and the fast machine is back again. Since PCPitstop gives only a sort of overview of things, I checked for additional testing software and found Performance Test which I downloaded.

I reran Optimize (which now found nothing to fix), rebooted, and ran the memory test in Performance Test. The machine was in "frisky" mode again (I can tell by running a solitare game I play ocassionally) so I saved the results as a baseline. After running a few programs, and the slow down kicked in again, I ran Performance Test again and compared it to the baseline. Every single test is 1/3 or less than the baseline.

I have previously agressively cleaned this machine up using Ultimate Troubleshooter, so am pretty sure that there is no unknown startup piece of software running. I run NOD32 VC ALWAYS.

What could be the issue? Where should I look?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

[David (PassMark)]

I can't really comment on the Optimize program as it is not our software. Looking at what the program claims to do, it seems extremely unlikely that it is going to do anything that have a dramatic impact on the PC speed. (emptying the recycle bin and removing some old registry entries just isn't going to have a major impact). And clearly running Optimize didn't fix your problem.

The complex nature of computer hardware and software problems means that even a good human technician can struggle to diagnose problems. Hoping that buying more software is going to fix your existing software is rather optimistic in my opinion.

It seems to me that it was the reboot that effects the PC speed. Maybe it is something simiple like the laptop throttling itself while on battery power. Or throttling itself due to overheating (this would explain by the reboot helps).

[donb]

Thanks.

You know, that makes a lot of sense, based on further information I have this morning. I generally leave my laptop running all the time, as boot up has been a problem at times. This morning first thing I ran the memory test and it was running at top speed. So I loaded The Ultimate Troubleshooter (TUT) and PT, looked for anything unusual running, then ran PT memory again. There was a slight slowdown. I loaded Quicken, did some work, then ran PT Mem again, more slowdown in evidence.

Then I started my network connection, then loaded IE and did some work on the web, then ran PT Mem and it is back to the 1/3 level where it has stayed consistently.

This also seems consistent with another problem I have ocassionally, where the computer just powers down - bam, no reason - no hibernate, no warning, nothing - just bam, power is off. When it happens, it usually happens within 10 to 20 min of bootup and then it is fine for as long as I leave it powered up. I have long suspected this had to do with some component getting up to operating temperature, or different componenets getting up to temp at slightly varying rates or something like that.

I keep my laptop on top of an open shelf to try to cool the bottom somewhat. Perhaps was is needed is a more agressive cooling scheme. This is kind of tough for a laptop though. Will have to stop by Fry's and see what I can figure out.

Thanks for your help.

donb

[johnhp]

Toshiba again

I have a Toshiba TE2100 (2Ghz Pentium M,512MbRAM) that appears to run OK but does not cope with being asked to do anything remotely like "work".
I downloaded PassMark to check if it was running normally, and when compared against the toshiba Dynabook as a benchmark (on the demo version, which appeared to me to be a close match for comparison) I found my laptop is running CPU and memory operations at between 1/5 and 1/40 the speed of the dynabook!!!
Have run the test several times with same result. Laptop is XP pro and recent install. Also have Norton 360 installed.
My desktop Athlon 1200 with 512MbRAM runs much faster and has the same basic software installed.
Have run Bios upgrade and driver upgrades that I could find with no change!
I will check Bios settings but I'm not expecting much... any other ideas?

Thanks
John

[johnhp]

Problem solved

OK... so the BIOS was the culprit...

I changed a couple of settings which didn't make a difference at first and there seemed no way to change the FSB speed... Eventually I hit "set to default values" in the BIOS screen and on reboot it functioned as I expected... more or less on par with the Toshiba dynabook and PassMark increased from around 70 to around 250.

Now functions as I hoped, e.g my previous attempts to play DIVX movies are disgraced by perfect operation I now get.