Slow/intermittent text writing

[Slasher]

The last few weeks whenever I type any text anywhere on my puter (MS Word, Wordpad, writing threads on browser etc) the rate of observed printout gets jerky and hesitant if I type at my normal speed, needing me to slow down my typing rate to avoid boo-boos.

For example I'm typing away at my normal typing rate then....it slo w s down...catch es up then keeps printing out ok th en...slows... again before resuming normal printout speed.

Also if I hold down the left/right/down/up arrows the same jerkiness/hesitancy of corresponding cursor movement occurs.

Just wondering if anyone might know what this is indicative of, and anything to worry about? I've tested the memory and processor but everything's honky dory.

Thanks.

- Slash

[11Fan]

Dude, me too.

Dell Studio Laptop - Vista - IE 8 - MS Office, MCAfee Total Protection, only about a year old.

[Capetonian]

I have had this problem with several machines, in the past on Windows NT, XP, and now on 7. The only thing that fixes it is a reboot. I don't know what the cause is and what permanent cure there might be. It's annoying but in the scale of things not catastrophic.

[YPJT]

I had a similar problem and it appeared to be associated with some trojan viruses that were running on my computer at the time. Cleaned them up and everything was ok again.

[Spurlash2]

Sounds like something is eating your memory or processor. Can you play music/videos normally, or do they slow down as well?

One thing to check the next time, is to right click the task bar at the bottom of your screen and select Task Manager from the menu that appears. Click the Processes tab and click the Show processes for all users. Something using up memory would show up in the Description column. if you don't have a Description column, click on View, select Columns to select what you want.

Click the Memory column heading to sort the numbers high to low. That will show at the top if anything is using lots of memory and slowing everything down. Clicking on the CPU column heading will also sort high to low to check for high CPU usage from something.

Capetonians reboot would cure it as you get a fresh start, as it were, but things would eventually return, so no real fix. The trojan that YPJT mentions is a possibility as something is doing something it shouldn't! Run a scan with Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware and/or Spybot, and let us know how it goes.

How many programmes do you have open at the same time? Running say, Outlook, several browser windows and a media player, and trying to type might just tip your comp over the edge; especially if you do not have a lot of memory installed.

Does it slow down with just the one programme running, or lots?

[jimtherev]

Another thing which might be causing trouble is Skype. Keef brought this to our attention a couple of months ago: it seems that there are memory leak problems with some evolutions of Skype, which eventually can hog all the available RAM. (Goog Skype memory leak.) There is a work-around which I haven't bothered with, since it's never got too bad on this machine... yet.

But worth a look?

[11Fan]

Spurlash2,

Thanks. The highest was a svchost.exe, just with IE open. Didn't see anything fishy, not that I would know it if I saw it. I'll go bag Spybot and maybe just reboot more often. This thing is on most of the time, just sitting on the desk.

Cheers,
11Fan

[onetrack]

Ahhh... but seeing the author of the question, leads one to guess that excessive amounts of p☺rn being viewed, would be the major source of the problem. Those sites download some nasty little loose pieces of code, ya know.... :E
Time for a big disk cleanup, Slasher. Malwarebytes is probably a good start. If Malwarebytes doesn't fix the problem, you may have to call in a computer STD specialist .. :D

[Spurlash2]

Good article (with pictures!) HERE (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/) on SVCHOST and what you can do to cut down on the number of processes running.

There is a school of thought that setting everything to Manual and then rebooting just runs the stuff that Windows requires, and not all the other processes. I would advise doing a search on which processes you can disable, though, as everyone's computer configuration is different.

[Slasher]

Thanks for your replies.

I've done everything that everyone has suggested, and still
the problem persists. Its not anything serious but I hope its
not a portent to an impending crash and meltdown.

My resource hogs are Firefox, Explorer, and MS Movie Maker
(MM is more a CPU hog than anything else). But even with
a normal boot, not opening anything (except Explorer), and
say opening MS Word, I still get this hesi ta tion w h ere i t
slows dow n and t hen resumesatthespeedIamtyping at.

I'm fuctifino what's going on. If it gets worse I'll just have
to take it in to the garage. :rolleyes:

Ahhh... but seeing the author of the question, leads one to
guess that excessive amounts of p☺rn being viewed, would
be the major source of the problem.

Nope I'm fully protected and condommed up in that dept onetrack
- I wear extra strength Malwarebytes, Norton ribbed, mint flavored
Superantispyware and extra length Peerblock! :)

[green granite]

Is it a desk top or laptop, if desk top try swapping the keyboard for a different type ie if it's USB swap it for a PS2 one or t'other way round.

Otherwise try and distract ceiling cat while you're typing. :cool:

[call100]

If it's a laptop and you have an ageing battery this will cause the problem you describe, even if you have your laptop plugged in......Try removing the battery entirely restart the laptop with just the A/C adapter connected.....
See if that cures it.......
Good luck..