Recently my XP machine started misbehaving itself, and I have yet to track down the problem. The diagnostic path has been interesting though, and it shows how misleading some behaviors can be.

The problem first manifested itself a week or so ago, about the time I was installing the BitTorrent client, as noted in an earlier article. Part of the performance problem, which showed up at boot time in the form of a massive delay in system startup, was traced to the BitTorrent DNA application. The system has been booting normally since I removed this troublesome piece of code. The problem now is that, in many cases, switching among active programs has become appallingly slow. Also, in some cases it takes far longer than normal to start some applications. But there’s no discernible pattern.

For instance, usually I have both Firefox and Thunderbird active, with the email client in the foreground. If I click on the Firefox window to bring it to the front, the disk activity light can come on solidly for up to 30 seconds before the applications switch occurs. During this period, Thunderbird is still accessible (I can switch back to it just fine). But Firefox appears hung, until suddenly its window again becomes active. The same happens with other program combinations, so it’s not isolated to a specific application.

One problem was disk fragmentation. Several months ago I’d installed Diskeeper 2009, and all 3 local disks were set to automatic (background) defragmentation. I opened the Diskeeper manager, only to find that this setting had somehow — I suspect a Windows update — been changed. The C drive was a mess, but has been cleaned up. The application switching delay persists. Zone Alarm shows no viruses or other malware.

On a hunch, I opened Zone Alarm’s Program Control center and removed literally hundreds of old entries from it. Every setup program, installer, and other temporary application leaves an entry behind in the “permitted application” list, and it had grown significantly over time. We will see if pruning it has a positive effect on performance.

Diagnosing performance issues often isn’t easy. And system slowness isn’t always caused by viruses or other malware.

Recently I needed to install a copy of BitTorrent on my XP system in order to download a patch for a game. The software company’s official site was appallingly slow and a quick Web search found the patch on several Torrent sites, so I decided it might be useful. I had an older version of the client, but it kept hanging and becoming unresponsive.

As part of the new installation for 6.1.2, BitTorrent included two new features. The first was the ASK toolbar, which I immediately bypassed. In my experience toolbars are generally useless and cause more problems than they’re worth. The second, however, was something called BitTorrent DNA, where DNA refers to their newer “Delivery Accelerator Network” functionality. I’d never heard of it, but allowed it to install.

After a quick reboot, I was able to obtain the large patch I needed. However, my PC experienced a fairly significant slowdown. Task switching was slower. Occasionally, an application hung for anywhere from a few seconds to nearly a minute. I cleared off a few things and rebooted, watching the process to see if anything had changed.

I noted that, at login, the process of installing my various toolbar applications took much longer than before. The system sat for a solid 5 minutes before the process completed, and even then was slower. Zone Alarm showed a lot of underlying network activity. So I removed BitTorrent and rebooted, with no change in behavior.

Then I found that the DNA application had installed itself as a separate instance, and a process called “btdna.exe” was running. I disabled it using the Windows Configuration manager, and immediately everything got faster. I removed DNA, rebooted again, and the machine was back to normal. Needless to say, it’s not being re-installed anytime soon.

Is DNA that resource-heavy? I don’t believe so. It could simply be that my particular configuration isn’t well suited to it. But if you’ve installed it and are finding performance issues, try removing DNA and see what happens. I’d be interested in the results.

It’s fairly obvious that a lot of energy is wasted every year when people leave appliances and lights on unnecessarily. We turn on the TV and a few lights, leave the room for an hour or two, and the meter keeps running. Some consumers are installing motion-sensitive on/off units that toggle lights when people move around rooms. After a period of inactivity, the lights shut themselves off.

Most laptop users know you can do the same thing in order to save battery power. Change a few settings in the Power Options control panel application, and you can have your monitor shut itself off after a specific period of inactivity. Likewise with hard drives and even the CPU, which can put the machine into hibernate mode. There’s even an application on Facebook that will allegedly tune your PC to comply (as much as possible) with Energy Star efficiency ratings.

The program, created by a company called SupportSoft, works “either by downloading a piece of SupportSoft software (an .exe file) that automatically performs the configurations or by following a tutorial written by SupportSoft that instructs users on how to change their PC’s configurations themselves.” Either is a reasonable option. Changing Power settings is a fairly simple operation, and one could simply select the pre-defined “max battery” scheme to enable some fairly aggressive power-saving options.

This is a great thing to see, especially as a free option from a company that normally provides IT support services. If more people adopted aggressive power-management settings, we could save huge amounts of energy just by “greening” our PCs. According to one estimate, “if 100,000 computers and monitors reduced electricity use to the level set by the “Green Your PC” app, it would save more than 11 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually (roughly the same as emissions from burning 13,000 barrels of oil).” Given the millions of PCs in households and businesses today, many of which are used only sporadically during the day, we could certainly save a whole lot more than 13,000 barrels.

Green your PC. Save a few bucks, and save the environment at the same time.

In my experience, most problems that turn up on a PC or Mac are the result of recent configuration changes. Install a new application, and it conflicts with previously installed software. Add a new video card, and your old drivers start playing havoc with performance.

Having been in tech support for way too many years, the first question any competent rep should ask a user is “what’s the last thing that was changed on the machine?” If you’re the user and lie when answering this question, shame on you. I know lots of people let their egos get in the way; they can’t admit that something they did caused a problem, so they try to hide it. But not being honest with a support rep is a poor way to get a problem fixed.

If you want to avoid calling tech support and admitting you’ve done something stupid, try backtracking to see if you can find the problem yourself. If your machine started crashing randomly right after you installed Manic Mania IV, uninstall it and see if the problem goes away. If the crashes or hangs started right after you installed new memory, take out those new modules and see what happens. You might have a defective memory stick, or maybe you bought the wrong type for your machine. You’d be amazed at the number of problems I’ve solved using this exact strategy.

A hint: take notes when you’re going through these steps. You might need to backtrack again, after all. If all else fails and you end up on the phone with tech support, you’ll look a lot smarter when you can recite the troubleshooting steps you’ve already performed. It may also save you time and money.

A second hint: change only one thing at a time. This is called the scientific method, and it’s the best way to perform troubleshooting. If your problem started right after you installed Manic Mania IV AND added memory, don’t remove them both at the same time or you’ll never know which caused the problem in the first place. Uninstall the software and run the machine for a while. If it’s still having problems, remove the memory.

If rolling back your most recent changes doesn’t correct the situation, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get dirty with diagnostic software. Or you can take the machine to a repair shop. It’s your choice.

If you enjoy building your own machines, as I generally do, you’ve probably learned not to skimp on component quality. If you’ve never built a machine and are considering giving it a try, here are some tips you might find useful. They’re based on experience, and I’m sure others have hints I haven’t thought of (if you do, let’s see some comments!).

The golden rule is: never buy low-grade components. This applies to everything from the case to the motherboard and cabling. This isn’t to say you should spend a lot of extra money, or that high cost means high quality. It just means the cheapest may not be the most cost effective over time. You also need to think about the long-term costs, and how long an item is likely to last.

Let’s consider the case itself. Ultra cheap cases can be had for $30 or so, and they’ll probably work just fine. However, many of them are cheaply built from stamped parts. Inside are lots of sharp edges that haven’t been cleaned up during the manufacturing process. Many of these units are also hard to fit together, and any case that doesn’t allow you to remove both side panels should be avoided.

I bought a cheap case many years ago, and have the scars to prove it. I can’t count the number of times I sliced my hands and arms while replacing components. Not only does this take the fun out of building a machine, but also consider what those sharp edges might do to your power cables over time. I replaced it with a high quality unit with built-in rails, rolled-over internal edges, and easy to remove side panels. It’s paid for itself many times over.

Next, consider the power supply. This is a critical component. If it fails, the system dies. If a cheap supply dies badly and allows a high-voltage surge to pass through, it can take other components (like the disks and motherboard) with it. Super-cheap power supplies are also generally noisy, and their fans use cheap bearings that wear quickly. There’s nothing worse than a loud fan whirring away 3 feet away while you’re trying to work (or, worse, listen to music). When buying a supply, look at its noise ratings. Lower is better, i.e. quieter. Ball-bearing fans are the way to go.

By now you probably have the general idea. Building on the cheap isn’t always the best option, since you could end up paying for stuff all over again later. Some years ago a friend’s grandfather told me “a poor man pays for everything twice” — something to keep in mind when buying everything from cars to computers.

Disk defragmentation is an ongoing problem for most users. It’s especially important on the system disk (usually that pesky C drive) since lots of temporary files are written and deleted there on a regular basis. A fragmented system disk means poor performance and, at the extreme, crashes.

This said, many defragmentation utiliities often can’t effectively deal with special system files like the Registry and Pagefile. There’s a good reason for this. Those files are usually opened as soon as the system gets through the initial boot process, and lots of processes use them on an ongoing basis. Thus your disk utility (including the built-in Windows Disk Defragmenter) may get stuck on these files. I experienced this last weekend, when a defragmentation process got stuck on several Registry files. It sat there for hours, making no progress, until I finally stopped the utility.

A bit of research turned up a handy tool that can help. The free PageDefrag utility is a tiny application that can tell your system to defragment critical system files during the boot process. You can tell it to run once (at the next boot) or every time the system is rebooted. Usually defragmentation takes a few minutes, unless your system files are badly broken up. In that case it could take a lot longer.

The nice thing about running a defragmentation utility during boot time is that far fewer files are open at this stage. Fewer open files means more effective defragmentation and faster run time. The process is just faster and safer if the utility doesn’t have to wait for files to be closed by other processes. Most commercial utilities, like Diskeeper and others, offer boot-time options that should result in a relatively clean system disk.

If you’re having trouble defragmenting your system drive, try PageDefrag and see if it helps. If not, pick up one of the commercial utilities and give it a try during a reboot. If you don’t want to (or can’t) spend the money, you can try moving your system disk to another machine and defragmenting it there (don’t boot from it — make it a secondary drive). Whichever method you use, do it as often as necessary to keep fragmentation to a minimum. That might be once a week or once a month, depending on your usage pattern. Schedule it and forget about it. You have more important things to worry about.

Recently I had a long discussion with some colleagues about disk defragmentation and the various 3rd party companies that provide software for Windows. One of these people asserted that the built-in Windows Defragmenter really isn’t all that good, and that something like Diskeeper or PerfectDisk is a better option. I decided to run a quick and wholly unscientific test to see what results could be obtained.

First off, it’s useful to note that Windows’ built in Disk Defragmenter is actually a stripped version of Diskeeper, a commercial product that’s been around for years. I first used it on, of all things, a VAX/VMS system back in the 1980s. Thus, there’s not much difference between the two other than options and scheduling tools.

In my unscientific test, I ran Disk Defragmenter on my (admittedly) badly fragmented system disk. It did a reasonable job, but obviously could not clean up every file. I then fired up an evaluation copy of PerfectDisk 2008, and had it analyze the same drive. It reported an overall file condition of “excellent” (indicating Disk Defragmenter had done a pretty good job) but said the Windows Pagefile was only “okay.”

I like this feature, since you’re provided with a more granular analysis of the disk’s condition. It also suggests an easy solution: run Disk Defragmenter while the machine is booted in Safe Mode. Why? Because Safe Mode doesn’t load all the drivers that are active in normal operating mode. Fewer open files means any defragmentation program will do a better job — it’s much harder to clean up open files. The Pagefile is always in use in normal operating mode, so it’s even more difficult to clean up.

PerfectDisk is nice because it provides its own scheduling tool and the more granular analysis. But as a colleague noted, “Different defragmentation programs would likely do things in a different order and store temporary files in different locations. They might different in efficiency and thus how long they take. In the end, however, defragmentation is pretty much defragmentation — the results of the process shouldn’t be that different for the user.”

Obviously your mileage may vary. But in general, you can do a pretty good job of cleaning up your system by running Windows’ built in Disk Defragmenter from Safe Mode.

Remember the commercials with the tag line “I’m not gonna pay a lot for this muffler?” Today, the same rule often applies to PCs and other hardware. In these days of low hardware margins and heavy competition, you can often buy a decent machine for very short money. It all depends on your requirements and expectations.

If you’re a gamer or power user who wants multiple applications to run like lightning, just skip this article and start saving money. You’re the folks who want ultra fast processors, loads of RAM, huge disks, high end video, and big (20″ or better) monitors. You’re generally stuck with machines that cost $2k or more. Deal with it.

The rest of you, take note. It’s not hard to find a decent machine for under $1k these days, especially if you don’t need high end hardware and maybe are willing to buy the model that was hot six months ago (yeah, a real dinosaur right?). The guys at PC Magazine just published an article that talks about good, cheap desktop machines for mere mortals. Want a Lenovo for $450, or a medium range HP for $1k? Take a look. You might find just what you’re looking for.

In my experience, most people don’t need high end hardware. If you’re just working online and maybe managing your finances, a low-end machine will do the work just fine. For users with these needs, I recommend a good monitor (sorry, but the days of 15″ tubes are long over) and a nice keyboard. Screen real estate is critical to user comfort, and no one should be forced to type on a cheap $15 keyboard that feels like it’s about to self-destruct. Small monitors increase eye strain and can lead to headaches, especially if you’re stuck using high resolution (over 1024×768) graphic layouts.

If you think you’re going to need an upgrade later on, check the machine’s specs before buying. Can it take a faster CPU, more memory, or a second disk? Can you upgrade the graphics, or are they built into the motherboard? If the latter, can the built-in graphics system be bypassed? And most importantly, do you care? PCs are now cheap enough that you can just buy a new one every 3-4 years rather than spending time on upgrades.

Cheap can be good. Yes, you get what you pay for. A $500 PC isn’t going to win performance awards. But you also wouldn’t buy a $10k Ford and expect it to perform like a $300k Maserati, right? I hope you wouldn’t, anyway.

Now that the system disk was upgraded, the rest was easy. The remaining 40GB EIDE drive was next on the list. All I needed to do here was to reformat the PC’s original 80GB SATA drive as a single NTFS partition, then I coped the whole directory tree from the EIDE drive to the SATA disk. This took about 40 minutes.

Now it was time for another shutdown and reboot. The EIDE drive was disconnected and removed (yippee, one less cable inhabiting the PC case). Then I vacuumed out the case since a lot of dust had accumulated, rebooted again, and changed the 80GB SATA drive’s letter to match the one used by the now defunct EIDE disk. This completed the disk upgrade phase.

Last but not least was the memory upgrade. This produced a surprise, since I discovered I’d accidentally mixed PC2700 (320MHZ) and PC3200 (400MHZ) memory on the bus at some point in the past. The result was that the system ran at 320MHZ. No wonder the overall memory performance wasn’t what I’d expected.

This is something to look for if you’re having performance problems even with large amounts of memory installed, since the system will always run at the refresh rate of the slowest RAM in the box unless it’s told otherwise.

I pulled the offending 320MHZ stick, added a 2nd 1GB PC3200 module, and the machine was on its way back up with 2GB of faster memory. Everything is now significantly faster overall. Disk access, window manipulation, program startup, and other tasks all appear to run more cleanly with less thrashing. Heavy duty applications like Second Life and a World War II simulation that I play occasionally are now more stable and responsive.

As a side note, be sure to keep your PC’s case clean. While working on this upgrade, I stopped at a local shop for a SATA cable and overheard a technician talking to another customer. Her 1 year old Dell’s power supply was toast. Why? Because the case as absolutely stuffed with pet fur and dust. This inhibited airflow and fried the power supply. She was lucky…it could have destroyed the CPU instead!

We’re getting closer to the much anticipated release of Vista SP1. As I noted a few weeks ago, Microsoft released the Beta code to anyone who wanted to try it out in advance (and probably figured they’d get some free software QA from the deal as well). The good news is that early reports indicate it’s better than the initial release. The bad news is that it may not be good enough to overcome pervasive objections to the product’s features and performance.

The biggest complaint I’ve heard so far is about the UAC, or User Account Control feature. This is brand new in Vista, and it’s designed to provide better security by limiting user-level privileges. The idea is to prevent installation of unwanted software (read: malware) by forcing users to approve such installations in advance. Too many users either log into the Administrator account or give their personal account full administrative privileges. This means the user has full control over the system, and software will be installed automatically. This is great until you hit a URL that silently downloads and installs malware on your machine, or click on a piece of spyware masquerading as a legitimate application.

The UAC is supposed to fix this by asking the user for explicit permission to install new software. It’s also supposed to ask for confirmation before performing other potentially hazardous actions. The problem is that it’s too pervasive and annoying. One reviewer noted “Just try to add, remove, or rename any of your Start menu folders, or to set your system clock. Any such attempt involving various common, everyday, and relatively safe tasks will cause your screen to go dark, after which a scary confirmation prompt pops up, requiring an extra click.”

The usual reaction to this level of annoyance is to shut off the UAC altogether. That’s a bad idea because it’s really there to save you from yourself, and from malware vendors. The same article provides a better solution, which is to turn off only parts of the UAC’s notification system. SP1 apparently hasn’t changed the existing behavior. As a result, many users will probably just turn it off. Hopefully it’ll be improved in a subsequent release.

Otherwise SP1 seems to address a number of serious problems with Vusta’s base release. File copying times allegedly have been improved, as have system boot time and other performance-related issues. Network browsing issues have been addressed, and early support for some emerging technologies (EFI and ExFat) is included.

Will SP1 save Vista? The jury’s still out, and the code still isn’t released.