Mouse & KB Locks Up

[Raybo]

I guess nobody here is familiar with ME. Maybe you could try an ME forum. There is one at annoyances.org.

Yes, you would be better off running XP, but you mentioned you plan on buying a new computer. That would probably come with XP or Vista installed so whether it would be a good idea to buy XP for your current machine depends on how long you will be using it.

I can only offer advice on your current situation based on my experience with XP and previous versions of NT.

There are two things that will slow up your machine. A screwed up or malevolent process that is consuming a lot of CPU cycles, or is using up your memory.

XP's task manager will show how busy the CPU is. When you are doing nothing, the CPU busy should be in the range of 0 to 10 percent with occasional swings higher. XP's task manager will show the amount of CPU time being used by each process, so it is easy to see which one is causing problems. As long as the total CPU utilization is less than around 50%, it should respond quickly to keyboard or mouse input.

If you have a program hogging the CPU or memory it could be malware or just a poorly written program. I found that if I left I.E. running for a few days it would use all the CPU it could get for no apparent reason. I then found it wasn't I.E. itself but rather it was an add-on. I.E. 7 puts a shortcut in Accessories > System Tools, that will run it without add-ons.

Figuring out memory utilization is more puzzling to me but I can usually figure it out from Task Manager, or sometimes I use SysInternal's Process Explorer. I rarely have problem with running out of memory, but I have more memory than you do.

If ME's Task Manager is lacking what you need to monitor your computer, you might want to try things like Process Explorer from SysInternals. It apparently can run on ME. The SysInternals stuff is high quality. I see now that Microsoft bought the company in July 2006.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx


I have a hell of a lot of processes running, but my CPU utilization is low so my machine works well. A lot of these processes are McAfee. If I click on "CPU" in taskManager, it will sort the processes by CPU utilization. The System Idle Process is unique. It runs when the CPU has nothing to do, so having it use 98% of the CPU is good.

You gots to clean up that mess, way to many processes running.

You do not need a lot of those things running, if you use them then just have a shortcut on your desktop, you will be better off in the long run.


:thumbsup:

 

[felder]

My recommendation is to find out if it's a hardware or software problem. It's not likely to be something like motherboard drivers. The mouse and keyboard are fairly basic pieces of hardware. For example, the keyboard works even without Windows booted at all. If you go messing around with the drivers you may break something else while not fixing your original problem. It makes very little sense to try things randomly without knowing what kind of problem you're dealing with. After all, no manner of software fixes will fix a hardware problem.

One sure way to determine whether or not it's a hardware or software issue is to use a linux livecd. Basically it's cd with a complete installation of linux on it.

Your machine boots off the cd and has a fully functional linux environment without having to touch your hard drive. It's a great way to recover files in a corrupted Windows install, but more importantly for this situation it's a great way to diagnose your mouse and keyboard. If your mouse and keyboard work correctly in the linux environment, then you know it's something in the Windows environment that's wrong (aka a software problem). If the mouse and keyboard do not function correctly, it may suggest a hardware problem. Particularly because the environment is completely different. It's a different operating system with of course completely different drivers.

Consider it almost like installing XP without having to go through the hassle and without doing anything permanent to your machine. When you're done with the linux livecd you simply eject it and reboot your computer and it's like nothing was ever done.

If you have a cd burner, download the cd image from here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso

Then use your cd burning software to burn this to a cd as a cd image. The download is large (i.e. a full cd in size).

 

[felder]

You know, I see a lot iexplore.exe processes there and not a single Mozilla Firefox process. Mozilla Firefox is a browser like Internet Explorer but is far more secure.

I guess nobody here is familiar with ME. Maybe you could try an ME forum. There is one at annoyances.org.

Yes, you would be better off running XP, but you mentioned you plan on buying a new computer. That would probably come with XP or Vista installed so whether it would be a good idea to buy XP for your current machine depends on how long you will be using it.

I can only offer advice on your current situation based on my experience with XP and previous versions of NT.

There are two things that will slow up your machine. A screwed up or malevolent process that is consuming a lot of CPU cycles, or is using up your memory.

XP's task manager will show how busy the CPU is. When you are doing nothing, the CPU busy should be in the range of 0 to 10 percent with occasional swings higher. XP's task manager will show the amount of CPU time being used by each process, so it is easy to see which one is causing problems. As long as the total CPU utilization is less than around 50%, it should respond quickly to keyboard or mouse input.

If you have a program hogging the CPU or memory it could be malware or just a poorly written program. I found that if I left I.E. running for a few days it would use all the CPU it could get for no apparent reason. I then found it wasn't I.E. itself but rather it was an add-on. I.E. 7 puts a shortcut in Accessories > System Tools, that will run it without add-ons.

Figuring out memory utilization is more puzzling to me but I can usually figure it out from Task Manager, or sometimes I use SysInternal's Process Explorer. I rarely have problem with running out of memory, but I have more memory than you do.

If ME's Task Manager is lacking what you need to monitor your computer, you might want to try things like Process Explorer from SysInternals. It apparently can run on ME. The SysInternals stuff is high quality. I see now that Microsoft bought the company in July 2006.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx


I have a hell of a lot of processes running, but my CPU utilization is low so my machine works well. A lot of these processes are McAfee. If I click on "CPU" in taskManager, it will sort the processes by CPU utilization. The System Idle Process is unique. It runs when the CPU has nothing to do, so having it use 98% of the CPU is good.