How To's, Questions, and Solutions for problems. This covers anything from computer hardware problems to software recommendations to tutorials for various software programs.
Note: Neither Gametoast nor any of its members/visitors are responsible for any damage to your computer as a result from advice given in this forum. Follow advice at your own risk and be sure to back up any important files.
As a few of you may know, I'm using an even older computer than I had before the crash.
Now, for some reason, this computer's mouse will freeze, unless I really try to move it around a lot or press one of the arrow keys/crtlaltdel.
I currently have about 1.79 GB left, but this morning I had about .56 (What? There's a lot of junk on here ) and the mouse is freezing less since I cleared up some space. Would this be the problem?
If it isn't, could it possibly be temperature? When it does this, it's also very humid/warm/hot and the fan is working hard to cool it off (I can hear it over the headphones ).
Help would be appreciated, if I can actually get to Gametoast later
Err yeah i would delete loads of stuff off the hard drive, and do a defrag as well. That should help with general slowness. If the mouse if a ball mouse then try cleaning it out as well.
I'd free up 1.5 gb again (the 1.79 was great). If your space is still getting gobbled up and you can't figure out why, I'd definitely run multiple virus scans. It could be a virus bomb of some sort. Those are a pain to find so use different progs. I found one on mine with avast's virus scan (sadly forgot the name if that isn't it ) when Norton and CA didn't find it. My hard drive space has remained stable since then.
Also check browser cache, temp folder, and the obvious (so don't hate me for saying it cause I know you probably already did it ) trash bin. Make sure those are all cleared.
One of the things that you could do to ensure that you don't have issues with virtual memory is actually SPECIFYING how much of your hard drive your computer reserves for virtual memory / swap drive.
Right Click "My Computer" ---> Left Click "Properties" ---> Left Click the "Advanced" tab. Under Advanced, you will have three different options - Performance, User Profiles, and Startup & Recovery. Click the "SETTINGS" button under performance. Click on the "Advanced" tab. You should now see three more categories - Processor Scheduling, Memory Usage, and Virtual Memory. Click the "CHANGE" button under Virtual Memory. Make sure the "Custom Size" button is ticked. You will see 2 options here Initial size, and Maximum Size (expressed in MB). Set BOTH of these to the same value (usually 1.5x the amount of installed RAM in your system). If you have 128 MB of RAM Get a new computer or set the value to 192 MB for both options. if you have 256 MB of RAM, set BOTH to 384 MB. If you have 512 MB of System RAM, set BOTH values to 768 MB. If you have 1 GB of ram, set this number to 1536 MB (see a pattern here??) Once you have done this, Click "SET", then click "OK", and close this window.
By default, windows will use whatever space on your hard drive that it can. If you specify the amount of space that Windows can use, your system should run faster, and you will have more space available to you for personal use.
Other things that can help you are to Specify how much space for the recycle bin to use. By default, the recycle bin is set to use 10% (I believe) of your hard drive for temporary storage. If you don't permanently delete the files from the Recycle bin right away, and your hard drive is 40 GB, Windows will store up to 4GB of junk in the recycle bin before it starts to dump items from it. You can change this value to a smaller percentage by using the slider, or if you are REALLY confident, you can make it so that NOTHING gets placed in the recycle bin at all, by checking the box "Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted." I would only suggest that you do this is if you are especially confident that you won't accidentally delete something that is critical to you. But if you set your recycle bin to 1%, you can save ALOT of space. Keep in mind that you can specify an amount for each of your hard drives, although I would set a global amount if I were you. On a 40 GB drive, this is still 400 MB - plenty of space for most users.
Lastly, do regular cleanings of your system. Once a week, click "Start" ---> "All Programs" ---> "Accessories" ---> "System Tools" ---> "Disk Cleanup" This will help cleanup things like temp files that windows leaves lying around etc.. After you do this, I would do a Scandisk (CHKDISK nowadays) - making sure that you check for file system errors, and tell windows to attempt to fix them, and THEN a full defragmentation of your hard drive. Routine maintenance goes a long way to ensuring that your system stays in tip top shape.
Wow, I should really create a guide book, or series of articles for people. I could call it "Routine Maintenance and YOU - Are you doing YOUR part to ensure a clean running system??" I may not know anything about how to mod for SWBF2 (or any game for that matter), but I am pretty good when it comes to anything technical (hardware or OS related...)