Total Windows meltdown

[hellrazor]

This is gonna be long, so hold on...

So today I woke up and my cable, internet, and phone connections all didn't work. So my mom called up Verizon and asked them WTF was going on, and as far as they can tell it's their stupid wall box thing. I'm not sure whether it's related or no, but I'm currently on my neighbor's wireless - which causes all sorts of shit because Windows translates horrible horrible network latency to horrible horrible desktop latency (I was not when everything turned to shit).

So I was bored and actually getting around to doing things I should have done, and ended up installing Bulk Rename Utility from an installer I had stashed away - I've used it before and no problems. After I was done I decided to cook some lunch and then go outside, so I shutdown the thing and went about my business.

When I came back I turned it back on I was playing Morrowind (it's not installed on the C drive - that'll come in handy later), and a few seconds after I quit my computer froze so I restarted it. When Windows was booting it said it wanted to check my C drive, and when it actually tries to check it it says it can't access it directly because of a recent software package, and then just loads Windows - which then puts me into a temporary profile which is full of an annoying background, annoying default firefox settings, annoying animations, an annoying control panel, and annoying alerts everywhere.

I've uninstalled BRU in a vain attempt, but to no avail and I'm gonna try to repair it from the DVD, and I'd appreciate thoughts on just exactly what the hell is going on.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I'm scratching my head here, because there are two problems.

1) Network speed does not influence windows, unless you've got some nasty malware running your computer. My laptop doesn't speed up on my home 100 mbit connection, or slow down on the wireless work 50 mbit.
2) What in Hades caused your crash. I've run the bulk image renamer, but never (win 7, vista, and xp) has it caused a windows failure.


Not knowing more, there are two possible problems that I can see.
1) You corrupted a windows file, and the boot loader doesn't know what to do. This is easy if you used the bulk renamer incorrectly, and renamed child directories accidentally, or the crash occurred while writing new data to the user profile. In the case of the former, you'll have to manually rename files. In the case of the later, you're SOL.
2) The installer you used piggy-backed some nasty crap into the system, or there was already some there.


Please excuse the assumption, but either of these situations is likely. You've not given much to work with, other than a corrupt profile. Perhaps something more substantial would allow us to help more, but "annoying background, annoying default firefox settings, annoying animations, an annoying control panel, and annoying alerts everywhere." are the symptoms of so many things it isn't funny.

 

[hellrazor]

So it turns out one of my hard drives died and tried to take the one with Windows out with it, but Windows still won't let me log in to my profile.

1) Network speed does not influence windows, unless you've got some nasty malware running your computer. My laptop doesn't speed up on my home 100 mbit connection, or slow down on the wireless work 50 mbit.

I've always had really bad latency when I connect to their wireless, both ping and desktop latency, and the only other times I get the same symptoms are when I connect to a network with almost no reception.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I've always had really bad latency when I connect to their wireless, both ping and desktop latency, and the only other times I get the same symptoms are when I connect to a network with almost no reception.

My condolences on the HDD death. That always sucks.

As far as desktop latency, what? Do you mean a slow opening/closing of programs? Do you mean it's slow to access web pages?

Along the same lines, I'm guessing you've tried to ping something, presumably using the command prompt, and that is what you mean by ping latency. Please correct me if I am wrong.


No matter how I look at this, program access speeds in windows aren't related to internet connection speed unless you're on a remote desktop. From the sounds of it, that is not the case. I'm still scratching my head here...?

 

[D007]

Stupid box thing in the wall? A wall plug that runs a semi wireless connection? One of those? If so those things suck. I'd remove that and go straight cable or wireless, directly to a wireless receiver.
I was using one of those and it cut my bandwidth in more than half. Took it out and wala, perfect..

 

[hellrazor]

As far as desktop latency, what? Do you mean a slow opening/closing of programs? Do you mean it's slow to access web pages?

DPC latency, it's basically how long it takes for the computer toget around to processing the highest-priority tasks. Basically if it's too high it causes all sorts of hitching and tripping over itself. There's a good utility to check it over here. It's usually caused by services or drivers taking forever to do something.

Stupid box thing in the wall? A wall plug that runs a semi wireless connection? One of those? If so those things suck. I'd remove that and go straight cable or wireless, directly to a wireless receiver.
I was using one of those and it cut my bandwidth in more than half. Took it out and wala, perfect..

It's some giant white box they shoved in one of the closets that has a few phone jacks and some battery back-up thing.... If I can find a camera I'll try to put up a picture. But the power went out at like 7 in the morning and when the power went out it just assumed the end of the world came and never thought to check whether the electricity came back on, so it just burned through the battery. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details and why that would disrupt my cable, internet, and even the phone.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

DPC latency, it's basically how long it takes for the computer toget around to processing the highest-priority tasks. Basically if it's too high it causes all sorts of hitching and tripping over itself. There's a good utility to check it over here. It's usually caused by services or drivers taking forever to do something.



It's some giant white box they shoved in one of the closets that has a few phone jacks and some battery back-up thing.... If I can find a camera I'll try to put up a picture. But the power went out at like 7 in the morning and when the power went out it just assumed the end of the world came and never thought to check whether the electricity came back on, so it just burned through the battery. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details and why that would disrupt my cable, internet, and even the phone.

Ok there's the disconnect.

That resplendence software basically monitors the process list, and check to see how much is on it over time. You can do basically the same with ctrl+alt+dlt, task manager, Processes/Performance, and a bit of logic. The only way windows would take longer to respond on Wifi is if you've got malware which activates when connected to the internet (or some updater programs...), and the glut of programs accessing all at once brings windows to its knees.

This is not Wifi's fault, nor is it yours. Learn to kill auto-updaters, and you'll see faster performance.


There is one device a telecom puts into your house, a modem. Whether with a battery back-up (for phone), or not, it does one thing. A modem changes coaxial data feed into something else; in this case, the new data feed is either ethernet, telephony, or television. That failing would cause all the problems. To fix it:
1) Remove power
2) Remove battery
3) Reconnect power
4) Wait for modem lights to stabilize
5) Reconnect battery
6) Enjoy everything (tv, phone, internet) again


Perhaps we are looking at the same thing, from different angles. Troubleshoot first, then assume the apocalypse. As it stands, you seem to have skipped out on the troubleshooting, and went directly to rage. Too much of that will kill you.

 

[hellrazor]

There are a few threads on the subject, this is one of my favorites.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

There are a few threads on the subject, this is one of my favorites.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that you're mixing terminology.

Latency: time between sending and receiving signals
Ping: measure of time between sending and receiving computer signals


So, on wireless you can ping another device, and measure the latency between those devices. A ping time that is higher means more delay, and dropped packets means a poor signal.


So, I'm going to extrapolate here:
You have a high latency on the neighbor's wifi. This is reasonable, considering both distance and signal strength. This latency will make browsing the internet slow.

If you've got a bunch of background programs that want to access the internet, they will consume resources until they've completed contact. A high latency internet connection will cause these programs to access data slowly, which will slow down windows because resources are not being freed up.

My advice still stands. Kill auto-updaters, so that the computer doesn't spend too many resources there. As you're leeching off the neighbor's wifi, you don't have room to complain there. The router from your telecom needs a good hard reboot.

 

[hellrazor]

The problem is that I don't have any auto-updaters, I've had this problem on fresh installs of Windows (completely stock), old installs of Windows and everywhere in between.

 

[NinkobEi]

Holy thread jesus batman. Have you tried system restore with Win 7 dvd? Should fix any re-named files that might have been accident'ed. To be safe load in safemode and run malwarebytes.

 

[de.das.dude]

sniff sniff

smells like malware or a virus!