Possible for DOS game to screw up computer?

blu87 · Post by **blu87** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:53 pm

The other day I put a DOS game on a relative's computer. The game doesn't have to be installed - you just extract the zip file to a folder and then start the game. I ran setsound.exe to select the soundcard and that went ok. The game worked ok and there were no problems. I also have this game on my computer and I have no problems.

Some 12 hours later and I get a call that their computer is running extremely slow. And by slow I mean that it takes over 20 minutes after a reboot for the icons to appear on the desktop. It takes over 5 minutes just to open a folder.

I can't find anything obviously wrong with their computer - no viruses, no spyware, no hardware conflicts. I removed a few programs that are known to have spyware problems but I did not remove the DOS game.

Would the DOS game be causing this slowness? I really don't think it would but I thought I should ask just to rule it out for sure.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:49 am

Doubt it... sounds more like something else(as in, malware)...

But just to be safe: what DOS game did you install? and what antivirus/spyware are you using?

Post by **Dogbreath** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:55 am

What was the game in question? Did it make any adjustments to system memory? (EMS, etc.?) Virtual memory? Do you know the OS of your relative?

This seems very strange to me, as I've messed around with my computer a ton trying to get various games to work, and have never had a similar problem.

How much HDD space does your relative have left? I can't imagine a DOS game making a big enough dent to cause any problems, but if there's very little free space left on the hard drive, it can slow things down drastically.

blu87 · Post by **blu87** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:28 am

The game is Big Red Racing. To install it, all you do is just extract the contents of a ZIP file to a folder and that's it. So I can't see where it would make any changes to the computer.

The computer is new (3-4 months old) and custom built. It's Win XP Home, over 100 GB hard drive with over 75% free space. I'm pretty sure it's got over 1 GB RAM. I imagine it's the newest Pentium Processor at the fastest speed. They went all out with this computer.

They are using Norton Internet Security and I think it may be the 2005 version, I don't know. That of course has the Norton Anti-virus included. They also use AOL and the AOL spyware program. They did have some spyware installed but I removed all that junk.

I posted a HijackThis log on a computer tech forum and no one can find anything in it that would cause a problem. The general consensus so far is that it's either a software/driver problem or an overheating problem. The problem I'm having is getting anything open to actually check what's going on. I need to check what processes are running but it won't show up when I open Windows Task Manager. The only thing that shows up is the Applications, all the tabs and toolbars at the top are missing. I should've had them shutdown the computer for a couple hours to see if that makes a difference. I spent three hours today screwing around with the darn thing and got nowhere. I've never encountered a problem I couldn't fix so this is driving me nuts.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:28 pm

er... if the other tabs don't show up, means that the current user doesn't have the privileges he needs to er... view those tabs

I really don't know what the problem could be, if it really is an overheating problem, it's probably(as in surely) not the game's fault(tho' I'd use Ad-Aware to scan for once...)

Oh, and I'm sure you mean 100GBs or something like that, since XP won't even bother INSTALL on a 1GB HDD

abyss · Post by **abyss** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:55 pm

Check how hot the fan is running. If it's running too hot then you probaly need to replace the fan. If it's a laptop then it's most likely the fan. I know it would not be the game. It's not spyware or viruses so i would replace the fan. Laptops have crappy fans that overheat easily and i am not lying about that.

blu87 · Post by **blu87** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:37 pm

Larry Laffer wrote:er... if the other tabs don't show up, means that the current user doesn't have the privileges he needs to er... view those tabs

I really don't know what the problem could be, if it really is an overheating problem, it's probably(as in surely) not the game's fault(tho' I'd use Ad-Aware to scan for once...)

Oh, and I'm sure you mean 100GBs or something like that, since XP won't even bother INSTALL on a 1GB HDD

Well don't I feel like a dope. Yes, I did mean 100GB. Thanks for pointing that out.

The reason the tabs weren't coming up is because the computer is so slow. The relative waited an hour after opening the task manager and the tabs eventually showed up. They said the CPU usage is at 4% and System Idle process is at 99. It's now virus and spyware free so that can't be the problem. Very odd.

I don't know if I can check the fan. I'm not sure how to do that either (what I should be looking for).

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:01 am

run the windows XP repair ! boot off there windows XP CD and when prompted repair there windows installation and see if it solves the issue.

it will prompt you to repair windows BEFORE it asks anything about partitions etc.

Post by **CPT Worm** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:20 am

You could always try running a Knoppix or Ubuntu Live CD. (FYI: I don't know about your computer literacy, but a live CD does not install anything on your computer; it runs off the CD)
If you can get it to run fairly quickly (Not super fast, since it is off of a CD), then you know the problem lies with Windows (what problems doesn't it have, amirite?) and not the computer itself.

BUT, if you are experiencing extremely noticeable slowdown even with Linux, then there's something run with the hardware. Maybe the RAM is not compatible or burned out, the processor is faulty, the fan is broken, or any other number of problems.

Guated · Post by **Guated** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:09 pm

usualy stuff that slows down a computer that badly is a virus. There are some out there that a lot of scanners don't detect.. You pretty much need to know what to look for.. Here's a link to a data file that is updated every day, if you don't have the scanner yet that is also free.

http://www.trendmicro.com/download/pattern.asp
if you need the program click on Virus Cleanup Template. Save target on Sysclean package. It's 3mb. You just gotta put the data file in the same folder as the package each update..

This site also has a Java scan option which catches both spyware and viruses.. Doesn't do a very good job as java.... So the above link is better for specific virus scanning. Again, it's updated like.. Every day, so if one's not found 1 day, could be found the next.

Post by **dosraider** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:12 am

blu87
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:37 am
His last post is from April.
Please don't revive old topics.
THX.

Deleted several of your posts on OLD topics.