Computer slows down after idle

[nielnield]

Hi, I'm fairly familiar with computers but can't find the cause or a solution to this problem. I have a 2 month PC and recently downgrade it from windows vista to xp 64 sp3. While using the computer everything works perfectly..very fast and smooth but after leaving the computer idle for more than 10min and come back everything is so slow that I cant even surf the web or even click the start menu and restart it. The cursor moves normally. I have checked for virus, spyware, defragmented the hard drive, changed the power options, checked the registry, system restore, disabled screen saver, updated drivers... nothing has helped. This didn't happen on windows vista. Please help me!

Intel i7 920, 6gb ram, 750 corsair psu.

 

[soundguruman]

Inadequate cooling, install cooler master or similar over-sized cooling solution, case fans, etc...
Go into bios and shut off energy saver features. These features cause the CPU to underclock when the system is idle. These features generally do not work very well.
Check for other energy saver applications and turn them off.
shut off system standby, standby: never
shut off hibernate
turn off monitor: never
shut off hard drives: never
click my computer
click control panel
click display
click screen saver
click power
set power schemes to: Home Office Desk

What kind of motherboard?

 

[nielnield]

Hi, I have done what you said but did not work. I just finished re-installing windows with another CD and the problem persists. Now I am experiencing something new: sometimes the PC won't restart. I click the restart button, windows ends processes, windows is restating screen, black screen monitor, but the computer never restart..it just stays on, fans moving, but windows never starts and the monitor stays in a no-signal mode. I am forced to unplug the power supply and plug it again to fix the problem. Also noticed that the computer not only gets slow when idle but after about 2 hours of use. Based on my research and my experienced with computers, i think it can be the psu, hard drive, or drivers issue. The strange is that nothing of this happened on windows vista.

I have a asus p6x58d motherboard.

 

[soundguruman]

Ah Hah! now I see the problem.
Replace the Asus motherboard and the problems will be solved. Get a Gigabyte board, not another Asus board.
You don't believe it? How much suffering can you endure?
You are experiencing typical Asus board problems, and nothing will solve it until you install a good motherboard.
Just plug all the hardware you have into a good board, including the hard drive, with the OS you have loaded now. No more problems, guaranteed. It will start and run with no further headaches.

 

[Demonio]

It took ages to solve idle issue, but finally cracked it for my XP.

SOLUTION
for my issue:

Windows XP very slow after idle appears to be issue with pagefile system cache (PF Usage) taking up exessive I/O activity on the disk (writing to harddrives) due to highly fragmented pagefile.sys file. Hence no real CPU usage showing, and changing PF Usage levels may not have much effect as it is not the size of PF, it is the fragmentation of the PF (normal defragment tools do not touch this file).

There is no more slowdown after I did a defragment of pagefile.sys with a tool that can actually access it (PageDefrag v2.32 By Mark Russinovich). An even simpler solution may be to set computer to clear pagefile on shutdown (I didn’t try this but probably works too - see below).

The high I/O was not from a rogue program or virus. It was slow buildup in pagefile.sys file fragmentation, the disk area storing current virtual memory blocks. My pagefile.sys had something like 264,000 fragments. Virtual memory is stored in 4KB blocks, but the fragmented block pattern was taking up excessive I/O for the drive to read after computer had been in idle.

During idle lots of application data is sent to pagefile rather than kept in RAM. Then when you start using applications again the computer is getting it back out of pagefile.sys: but if the pagefile.sys is highly fragmented then it can be painfully slow disk read speed. i.e. I sit there with almost nothing happening for 30 seconds, or watching webpages load almost one pixel line at a time.

I defragmented pagefile.sys, but maybe it is simpler to clear the file, something like:

Click Start >

Click Control Panel >

Click Administrative Tools >

Click Local Security Policy >

Click the "+" next to Local Policies >

Click Security Options >

Doubleclick "Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory

OR

Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). >

Change the data value of the ClearPageFileAtShutdown value in the following registry key to a value of 1: >

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management >

If the value does not exist, add the following value:

Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown >
Value Type: REG_DWORD >
Value: 1 >

Good luck!

References:

http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2007/11/27/too-much-cache.aspx