System suddenly very slow that shuts down randomly

vrucsandescu

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
5
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10,510
Hi all,

My name is Virgil, I have an issue with an old system. First of all I hope I am posting this in the right forum here, if not I sincerely apologize...
My issue: after a few years of working pretty fine (Q9450, Asus P5Q,4GB DDR2 RAM,HDD WD 750GB, Win XP SP3 Pro) the system suddenly became very very slow. Trying to copy files to an external HDD would be very slow, even opening small PDF files will take maybe 30 seconds at least...
After a while, the system will just try to reboot (randomly) - no BSOD, just a black screen... Another problem here: unless I completely unplug the system from the power outlet and plug it back after a minute or so it won't reboot (it would give that message "bad media... please change the boot device or insert a bootable bla bla...) If I do the unplugging and plugging back then it will start but the system will be so slow that even trying to backup~ 5 GB of data to an external HDD is just a nice dream...

Please help, I need your help guys... My first thought was to check if the HDD went in PIO mode but that is not the case, then I thought that maybe the OS got broken somehow but that wouldn't (?) explain that after unplugging/plugging back it will reboot (and I would be capable of browsing the internet or copy small files, even if slow), I am terribly confused...

I suppose this is important: I have Kaspersky Internet Security installed, I checked the processes and there is nothing using too much CPU (and it showed CPU ~20% utilization) and I don't think the OS was updated recently, no software has been installed/removed lately for sure...
Thank you a lot in advance!
 
Uhm yeah HDD failing, and your soon to be without a working system. Best solution would be make a Boot DVD of like Ubuntu, boot off that, then copy the files from the HDD to the External IF POSSIBLE. Most likely you waited WAY too long to do a back and now you will lose everything on the HDD.

As your on DDR2, on a OLD CPU, XP is no longer supported by anyone, and your HDD is failing, I would say you might want to cut your losses at this point and just pick up a new PC from Walmart, only $300 or so for a i5 Core (midrange) or i3 (budget / entry level) system with everything in the box or better yet move to a laptop (laptops still sell 3 to 1 against desktops).
 

vrucsandescu

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
5
0
10,510


The system is so slow now, installing a new application will probably take a day or so... :) But I will backup my HDD by using another system, reconnect it, then try to reinstall WinXP ...