Too many handles, or wtf is slowing down my system?

[montaillou]

Ok, this is pretty much a last resort for me.

I have an intel core2 cpu (Conroe) 6600 @ 2.4GHz, 4 gigs of ram, running Win XP Pro 64. Multiple hard drives.

About a month ago after running a windows update, I rebooted and got a missing file error. Could not get the system running again and eventually abandoned my main system drive (which I believe was corrupted) installed a brand new drive and reinstalled Windows xp pro x64 on the new drive. Ever since the install, and I mean since the very beginning, my system will slow down after it's been on a while.

I used to leave my system on for weeks (or months) before I rebooted, now by about 18 hours the who system is lagging out so bad the sound effects are corrupted, programs take 5+ minutes to load or just don't.

What I've tried:

1)It's not spyware or a virus. I don't see how one could move into my brand new, reformatted by me, drive from the manufacturer and I've ran multiple programs just in case Bill Gates went nuts and started seeding them from Microsoft.
2)I've moved the pagefile off the system drive across the 3 other drives. (1.5x min/3x max)
3)I've defragged the system drive and all of the others.
4)There are no memory leaks, in fact I've yet to run a process that occupies more than 250,000k memory since the reinstal whereas before I could run a process that took up to 500,000k w/out any problems.
5)I've gone into the System Configuration Utility and disabled EVERYTHING under the Startup tab except for NvCpl & ctfmon which the system rechecked. I'm currently running on "Selective Startup".
6)I've gone through "Services" looking for anything that appears remotely non-essential and switched it to manual.
7)I've disabled automatic updates
8)It's not Windows Defender - I've had trouble with that in the past sucking up resources, it's not even installed.
9)I ran OCCTPT (a cpu test utility) for 14 hours under heavy data set - found no errors in the CPU's. Ran it again when the system was running very slowly (after being on about 24 hours), again no errors found.
10)I've tried multiple reinstalls of the OS, just in case there was something I managed to *&$@ up but there appears to be no effect.
11)All drivers are updated, along with Windows.

When the system starts to slow down, any program I attempt to start up will use only 50% of the available cpu (usually) as seen in the processes tab. But the system will be crawling. The more I use the system the faster the slowdown occurs.

Only weird thing I can't explain (because I don't know enough about 'em) are the handles. I usually have less than 30 processes going, threads are around 350, but last time I rebooted I noticed the handles were over 16,000. I don't know if this is high or not. At the time of the reboot, I had no programs open so I don't understand why there should be so many handles.

Anyone have an idea?

 

[Weeman]

install SpeedFan, and check your CPU temps. HD Pro Tune to check your hard drive transfer rates. CPU-Z to monitor to see if your CPU multiplier is ramping up when it should. It could also be bad memory...
If you let the system sit does it speed back up again, shut off or just keep running slow? I'm assuming you've cleaned the CPU cooler?
While booting does the POST recognise all the RAM?
What kind of drive have you installed the OS on?

 

[orion456]

I hope someone has an answer for you. I have also experienced strange slowdowns in WinXP.

My best guess is a piece of hardware that isn't responding properly to a WinXP process and so y ou have multiple retries. Perhaps the video card, memory or some harddrive.

 

[montaillou]

install SpeedFan, and check your CPU temps. HD Pro Tune to check your hard drive transfer rates. CPU-Z to monitor to see if your CPU multiplier is ramping up when it should. It could also be bad memory...
If you let the system sit does it speed back up again, shut off or just keep running slow? I'm assuming you've cleaned the CPU cooler?
While booting does the POST recognise all the RAM?
What kind of drive have you installed the OS on?

I've yet to been able to let the computer sit for more than a day, I just need it for stuff, however as long as I've ever let it sit it just slows down more and more. On Saturday it took about 35 min to load a program, I had to reboot shortly thereafter.

Actually, a couple weeks before all this happened I pulled all my cables, drives, and cards out and cleaned all the dust from the system including the cpu cooler.

Yes, all the ram is accounted for. I initially built this system before Windows 7 & Vista.

The HD is a Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s.

OCCT showed temps & nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I also have a MACS CPU fan/monitor sitting on the cpu, it's only a surface temp, but still it's a good indicator - and temp on the cpu usually hovers around the low to mid 40's while in use. No spikes even when it's running slow. GPU temps are higher, but then those have targeted cooling on my system.

However, I did pick up all that is recommended above. Still nothing jumps out as abnormal. I also ran benchmark performance test from PassMark, when the system is newly rebooted everything is fine, when it slows down everything slows down except the HD - guess that's one thing I can forget about...

At this point I'm pretty much completely out of ideas. I haven't run a test on the RAM chips, that's probably next - a monitor just isn't good enough, I'm gonna have to run 'em through their paces. One problem with memory tests and I've seen this before, if your Mobo is fubar a memory test can come back with faults and the memory is still fine.

After that my next step is to just suck it up and live with it until I can afford ~$250 for a new Mobo and CPU. When I do get around to ordering those I'm gonna load up Windows 7 and see if it was a software or hardware issue - at this point I suspect (hope!) it's a hardware fault somewhere.

I really don't want to move away from Win XP x64.

 

[Joeteck]

Sound like CPU throttling is turned on (C1E, EIST, C0, C1 and C2) or any other power saving features... and is not recovering 100%

 

[Weeman]

I'll second that. while watching your CPU-Z what does the FSB and multiplier do when you run a stress test?

 

[CompuTamer]

Since it's XP, you could try pulling half the RAM out, reboot, and see if it works. If it doesn't, replace that half and take the other half out.

Had a laptop that wouldn't even POST half the time. Friend though it was a bad screen, but the RAM was just fubared. Pulled half the RAM out, and XP is still chugging along with 256MB of RAM to this day.

EDIT: XP64 is also pretty incompatible with a lot of stuff... maybe look into Win7

 

[montaillou]

I'll second that. while watching your CPU-Z what does the FSB and multiplier do when you run a stress test?

The cpu/fsb ratings do not change while running any stress tests. In fact, I just ran a bench mark and the CPU mark was only 9% below normal. On the other hand the 2D graphic mark is 2505% below, 3D mark is 3352% below and the memory mark is 9311% below normal leading me to think maybe it's more a mobo issue.

As to moving away from Win XP 64, I've never really had any insurmountable issues with compatibility. It hasn't always been easy finding a driver, however with the advent of Vista finding 64 bit drivers is much easier now. And I don't think this is purely a software issue as before this last install XP64 worked fine for me for years.

 

[Weeman]

With the GPU benchmarks so low, download GPU-Z and check out the sensors, see if anything is out of the ordinary. Might also help to download HD Tune pro, to monitor the hard drive bandwidth. 64bit OS with 4 Gigs of RAM, might still be relying on some virtual memory; also check to see how much space you have allocated for virtual memory. How much space do you have free on your OC boot drive?
The symptoms would suggest either CPU, Motherboard or Memory (I know, 'thanks tips", right). first things first, lets remove the memory. reset BIOS to default, Boot up running only one stick, run memtest86+, then do the same with all four sticks. If all that checks out, visually inspect the motherboard for any blown caps, or burn marks. failing that I don't know find a computer store and pay for an hour with their tech guy. Hope it helps.

 

[montaillou]

With the GPU benchmarks so low, download GPU-Z and check out the sensors, see if anything is out of the ordinary. Might also help to download HD Tune pro, to monitor the hard drive bandwidth. 64bit OS with 4 Gigs of RAM, might still be relying on some virtual memory; also check to see how much space you have allocated for virtual memory. How much space do you have free on your OC boot drive?
The symptoms would suggest either CPU, Motherboard or Memory (I know, 'thanks tips", right). first things first, lets remove the memory. reset BIOS to default, Boot up running only one stick, run memtest86+, then do the same with all four sticks. If all that checks out, visually inspect the motherboard for any blown caps, or burn marks. failing that I don't know find a computer store and pay for an hour with their tech guy. Hope it helps.

...

At least you didn't tell me to defrag or check for viruses/spamware.

Sorry, I know you're trying to help, but you mention ideas that I've already gotten advice about, followed, and have posted about. If the mobo is at fault, testing memory is just as likely to be inconclusive, and I think it far more likely that 1 mobo is wrong over 4 memory sticks and 2 graphic cards. As far as the HD I mentioned it is new, 150gb, and it has 113gb free however I fail to see how that is relevant, especially since I previously posted that I am not even using that drive for virtual memory - which I also posted about above.

 

[ratbuddy]

...

At least you didn't tell me to defrag or check for viruses/spamware.

Sorry, I know you're trying to help, but you mention ideas that I've already gotten advice about, followed, and have posted about. If the mobo is at fault, testing memory is just as likely to be inconclusive, and I think it far more likely that 1 mobo is wrong over 4 memory sticks and 2 graphic cards. As far as the HD I mentioned it is new, 150gb, and it has 113gb free however I fail to see how that is relevant, especially since I previously posted that I am not even using that drive for virtual memory - which I also posted about above.

So you still haven't run memtest? That is your next step...

 

[Weeman]

well good luck with solving this one. Let me know what the end result is.