Posts by lonejackal6

Timothy Kim60 said:It’s highly probable the mouse sensor just gave out on you, which explains why you were experiencing those stutters.

You haven't actually broken anything by installing that; if anything, it should prove useful down the road—either by filling a gap or simply ensuring your drivers are current.

👍

This is actually the first time I've ever witnessed a mouse issue causing such havoc within macOS. It wasn't just the cursor acting up; it was interfering with typing and general system responsiveness too. macOS hah. But the main thing is that everything seems to be functioning perfectly now, so thanks, darkowl72.🙂

darkowl72 said:You're just saying it stutters, but you aren't specifying when. Does the stuttering happen in macOS even when nothing is open, or does it occur while using things like Notepad or Word... or is it strictly in the browser? By the way, which browser are you using, and have you tried switching to a different one?

It is entirely possible that Norton and Windows Defender are clashing, or perhaps that lag is being caused by a virus scanner performing real-time file inspections. I would suggest temporarily disabling the real-time protection and active scanning for both programs to see if the stuttering persists. Since your computer is a bit older and on the weaker side, and you don't have much RAM, almost anything is a possibility.

Another possibility is that everything you have loaded and running simply won't fit into your RAM, forcing the poor thing to constantly swap data to the pagefile and back. On top of that, your hard drive is small and slow. It is likely also heavily fragmented, so that constant reading and writing to the disk can cause noticeable delays. Please check how much free space you have left, run some disk cleanup, and use a freeware tool to test the drive just to ensure it isn't failing you. If everything looks healthy, then go ahead and defragment it.

These are all just preliminary steps meant to help you rule out possibilities one by one. Additionally, if you have any resident background programs running, I'd recommend closing them all to free up some much-needed memory.

EDIT:

I see you managed to resolve the issue, but regardless, please take a look at my post and follow those steps so you can get back to hanging out here sooner rather than later. 😬

I will, thank you so much for everything—both for this thread and for the advice regarding the laptop. 🙂

Bradley Lewis59 said:Well, congratulations. You finally have the correct monitor driver installed on your computer. 😁

🤣 Hahahaha, yeah... I mean, deep down I knew I didn't have it, but my first thought was just, "Who cares?" 🙂

Well, I finally swapped out my mouse and now everything is running smooth as silk, oh God 🤦

I nearly bricked my entire setup—software and hardware included—just because of one damn mouse 😵

Good grief...

A few days back, I realized (though it slipped my mind until just now) that my old mouse wouldn't even turn on. Specifically, the laser underneath was dead. I actually tried blowing into the sensor to get it working—held my breath and gave it a good puff—but looking back, that’s when all this nonsense started...

Anyway @The New Guy..., (Data 🙂)

Hey friends, I just wanted to ask you something—it might just be my paranoia talking—and everyone else here too:

Did I potentially mess things up for the future by manually installing those drivers for my graphics card and motherboard? (The second download in the sequence, V8.13):



I've been checking everything in the Device Manager and so on... but everything looks fine there. No exclamation marks or anything suspicious... everything seems okay; the graphics card and display show the correct names...

The only thing that feels different on my PC is what shows up on the screen when I check the resolution settings, since it changed on the Dell monitor Display 22...

Timothy Kim60 said:Not exactly, but it wouldn't hurt to run a full scan on your drives. You could always opt for a custom scan instead—just check the boxes for your C: and D: drives, or whatever they're labeled as on your system.
Regarding the stuttering issues you mentioned—do you think you could borrow a mouse from someone just to test it out? 😬
It also wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye on your CPU and GPU temperatures. I usually rely on something like HWInfo or AIDA64; you can find those sensors right under the hardware section.

Could you please check your private messages? I actually have a spare mouse here, and I’m going to try testing with it now, though I honestly doubt that's the culprit. Please read what I sent you privately first. If we need to, I'll post the results here for everyone to see once I'm done. If it turns out to be the mouse after all... well, we'll either have a good laugh or a reason to cry about it.

My Antimalware flagged "only" this specific item. I'm going to go ahead and wipe it out now, though I honestly have my doubts if this is actually the root of the trouble. Just take a look at this:



I'll clear this out and give the computer a quick reboot...

Timothy Kim60 said:Good grief, man, that’s just the model name of the monitor; like darkowl72 mentioned, that isn't the root cause here. It might be that a Windows update messed something up, or even better, maybe Windows is downloading an update right this second, which would explain the slowdown. Try hitting Ctrl + Shift + Esc and check your RAM usage in Task Manager (that third tab, I believe it's labeled System or Performance)—if you're sitting at 75% or higher, that could definitely be why things feel sluggish. Secondly, run a scan on your PC using the free version of Malwarebytes. Check those two things first, and if that doesn't yield anything, we can look into whether your hard drive is failing, but let's save that for later.

It's not above 75%. Right now it's sitting at 50%, and I have Malwarebytes running a scan with Mozilla open at the same time. Even so, it's at 50%, so that shouldn't be the issue—unless Malwarebytes finds something during the final phase: Heuristic analysis.

Windows isn't downloading anything, and my computer isn't exactly "slow." I can't quite put my finger on it, but it isn't slow, per se; rather, it just "stutters" for a split second, or maybe half a second, during certain actions.

By the way, can I send you a private message? What happened is so ridiculous and honestly a bit pathetic that it occurred to me to ask: is it possible that because of this, my mouse cursor stutters across the screen and during general tasks?

Timothy Kim60 said:...

Regarding Windows updates, looking back at the history of recent ones, is it possible something went sideways with the Windows Defender update? I have that enabled, but I'm also running NOD32 at the same time.

I'm about to run a scan with Anti-Malware 2.2.0 on my machine... If that doesn't do the trick, I'm considering uninstalling the driver for my Samsung monitor. Do you think that's actually a sound move?

My apologies if that sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, but I am honestly at my wit's end here.

It seems like I just can't get this Dell monitor Display 22 to behave properly; it refuses to leave my display settings alone. It used to look exactly like this:



But now, it looks like this:



In an attempt to fix things, I went ahead and uninstalled the driver through the Control Panel, then via System and Device Manager.

Once I did that, the resolution defaulted back to 800x600. After I restarted the computer, Windows immediately started searching for drivers and actually found one on its own. Regardless, I decided to follow the advice I received and manually install the specific "package" you all suggested—the second one shown in the image here:



To be precise, here is the exact folder and the specific name of the "package" I am referring to:



Unfortunately, that didn't help at all. In fact, things seem to be getting progressively worse. Even basic tasks, like moving the cursor or typing text, are starting to lag more and more with every passing minute...

Does anyone know how I can finally get rid of this cursed Dell monitor Display 22 from my display settings? I also need to remove that "Dell monitor Display 22 (analog)" label sitting next to my graphics card name; I am quite certain that is where the root of the issue lies. I can check my Antimalware software to see if there's any malicious activity on my system, but honestly, all these performance issues started the very moment that Dell monitor Display 22 appeared in the settings...

I suppose it is possible I picked up some kind of virus while browsing the web, though I certainly don't visit any questionable adult sites (ha!), nor do I download anything suspicious. I have Norton running constantly, and I even ran ComboFix yesterday since that software was already active... so while there might be a virus lurking somewhere, I am convinced this entire mess began the second that Dell monitor Display 22 showed up in my display options...

darkowl72 said:It isn't a laptop; it's a desktop.

The stuttering and lag you're experiencing aren't actually caused by the monitor. The monitor itself is perfectly fine. What likely happened is that you previously had a Generic monitor driver active, and at some point, Windows automatically pulled a driver update in the background without you ever noticing. You've only just noticed it now and linked it to the performance issues you're seeing.

But really, your problems don't stem from the monitor. What kind of software have you installed recently, or roughly when did this start happening? It could very well be an issue with your graphics drivers, or perhaps some malware snuck in and is currently eating up all your CPU cycles. That usually happens during a software installation or while browsing certain sites.

I would suggest keeping a close eye on your CPU usage via a hardware monitor and running a thorough scan for any potential infections. The guys here will be able to recommend the best tools for that job...

Once we go that route, we can take the next steps...

I see others have already jumped in; Larry Ortiz5 pretty much covered everything I was going to say...

So, I think it used to just say "GENERIC MONITOR" on the display?

Well, I haven't installed any new software—honestly, nothing at all. I tried running ComboFix yesterday to see if it would help, but clearly, that didn't fix anything. My main priority is getting that Samsung name off my display. I am telling you, everything started acting up the moment that Samsung identifier appeared on the screen. I swear, it’s been a mess since then, and even that text next to the graphics card name—please, just look at the image I posted above.

On another note, should I proceed with uninstalling my current graphics driver? Like I asked before: do I go into the Control Panel, select "Uninstall a Program," and get rid of the Intel (R) Graphics Media Accelerator driver?

Larry Ortiz5 said:Go ahead and uninstall the current driver through the Control Panel. You know how to handle that, right?

I likely know the way, but I must admit I'm feeling a bit turned around at the moment... haha. Should I head over to the Control Panel, select "Uninstall a Program," and then find the entry labeled: Intel (R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver?

Larry Ortiz5 said:I haven't personally run that specific detection tool, but I believe it should work for you if you give it a shot..

Here is all the data I've gathered (please, I’m really hoping for some guidance here because things are starting to get incredibly sluggish; my computer is becoming almost unusable—everything from moving the mouse to typing is just stuttering and lagging). Here is everything:

Larry Ortiz5 said:Go ahead and list your entire system setup. If you aren't quite sure what you're running, just download Speccy. What I really need to pin down is your motherboard model; once we have that, we can identify the specific Intel integrated graphics you're using and find the right driver.

Alright, please give me just a moment to look things over... I should be able to pull all those details through PC Mechanic, right?

Larry Ortiz5 said:Try reinstalling your graphics card drivers.

Oh, I don't know about that. Honestly, who knows where that original disc even ended up? I bought this computer all the way back in 2010... goodness, what a mess. I can't believe this is happening to me right now, honestly... 😢

Honestly, I’m a bit at a loss here. I’ve been using this Samsung monitor for about two years now without any issues, but for the last three days, I’ve been noticing this strange stuttering. Every time I move my mouse or try to type, the whole computer just freezes for a split second. It was incredibly frustrating because I couldn't figure out why. Eventually, I went into my screen resolution settings to investigate, and that's when I noticed something odd under the display section. This specific model info—it says Dell monitor Display 22 instead of what I expected. It definitely wasn't showing this before, and I can't quite recall what the previous setting actually read, but this isn't right. Any advice?

Also, take a look at what it’s reporting for the graphics card. It used to say Dell 24 EN33, but now it shows something else entirely. What on earth does this mean? I am completely lost regarding what is happening with my system... Does anyone know how I can clear this incorrect Samsung information and just get everything back to the way it was originally configured?



The lagging is constant; everything feels sluggish, from the cursor movement to the actual typing process. It’s making work nearly impossible. What should my next steps be?

darkowl72 said:Splitting a drive into partitions isn't exactly smart. Those partitions don't actually change how the physical hardware is laid out; they're just logical divisions, which means something—or someone—has to manage them, adding extra work to the mix. You didn't mess up by partitioning, but you have to be careful to actually install your programs onto that second partition. If you just mash the Enter key during installation, everything defaults back to C:\Program Files.

Also, every once in a while, take whatever junk accumulates in the subfolders of your User folder and move it over to the other partition (and I mean *move* it, not just copy it). That way, your C: drive doesn't run out of breathing room. It’s basic logic. Physically, you're creating a bit of a mess (but that's an OS issue, not yours) because when you move things this way, you're really just updating pointers in the Partition table to point to D: instead of C:. This makes the disk a bit more fragmented... nothing major if you just run a defrag every six months or so. Look, you haven't done anything catastrophic; you've just given yourself more chores to deal with later...

Back in the day, computers worked differently. Hard drives were tiny, but honestly, what people were doing on them wasn't nearly as demanding or space-hungry as it is now. Nowadays, since drives are dirt cheap, it’s just bad practice to leave your boot disk (C: 🙂) struggling with less than 50 GB or 100 GB of free space. That kind of thing leads to unexpected headaches.

Here’s a stupid example from a month ago: I record shows on my PC—movies or whatever else looks interesting. I noticed a movie from the night before didn't save, even though I was positive I set it to record. Usually, recording works fine, whether it's live or on a timer. But there was no movie. After wasting an hour digging into it, I realized I had left the target folder (where recordings go) at the default setting on the C: drive. In the meantime, a bunch of downloads had piled up (I wasn't using the PC myself, and others had been using it too), so the free space dropped below 10%. The recording software I use has a built-in limit where it won't save content if the drive has less than 10% free space. The stupid program records the entire movie into a temp folder, then "smartly" realizes there isn't enough space to move it to the final destination and just deletes the whole recording...

I've been working with computers for a long time. I know all this stuff, I stay on top of it, and I'm careful, yet... even this happens to me. Imagine what happens to someone who just sees a computer as a tool for work...

Regarding the processor, like I said, they're basically the same kid. One might be slightly faster at certain tasks, the other at different ones. If we're talking single-core tasks, the Intel Core i3 is a bit faster. But if we're looking at multitasking—which is most people's setup, running an antivirus, listening to music, browsing, etc.—then yeah, the seller was right: the AMD should be a little more responsive ... But those differences are...

It’s like when some guy in a hardware thread claims he measured program speeds on one machine with slower memory versus another with faster memory and didn't notice a damn difference. 🤦

Don't stress about it. The dumbest thing you can do is stress after you've already bought the machine. You bought it, it's yours now. Take care of it and enjoy it. And don't be a whiner; you bought a low-end machine, and it’s going to act like one if you push it too hard. Honestly, it wouldn't have mattered much even if you'd bought the other one. Trust me...

Man, I really appreciate all the help but now I’ve run into a whole different headache, and it's happening on my desktop setup, which makes this even more frustrating. I actually started a separate thread specifically for this issue, but could you take a look and see if you can help me out? I'll just paste the text from my other post right here:

So, guys, I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve been using this Samsung monitor for about two years now, but for the last three days, I’ve noticed this weird stuttering—like everything just "hangs" for a split second whenever I move the mouse or type... I couldn't figure out what was causing it until I went into the screen resolution settings and saw this under the display section (THIS WASN'T THERE BEFORE; I don't know exactly what it used to say, but it definitely didn't mention the Dell 24 Monitor!), any ideas?

And check out what it's showing for the graphics card—it NEVER used to say Dell 24 Monitor! What does that even mean? I'm completely lost here... How do I get rid of this nonsense regarding the Samsung unit and just revert everything back to how it was before?

Everything is CONSTANTLY "lagging" while I'm working on the PC—the cursor freezes for a second, the typing stutters... what should I do?

Here is the link to the thread where I posted this: View on reddit

swiftbear7 said:No problem at all! 👍

Honestly, I don't think there's a laptop out there that can't handle Windows 10. In fact, I suspect it might actually run smoother and feel a bit snappier. I'm not entirely sure what your specific setup allows for regarding the upgrade, but I personally jumped from 8.1 over to 10 on both a nine-year-old ThinkPad and my newer desktop. Both were running Windows 7 before that. Interestingly enough, that old ThinkPad actually struggled quite a bit with Windows 7, but once I moved it to 10, it started singing—even with an ancient Pentium processor and just 3GB of RAM, though I did swap in an SSD 🙂
.
Also, if you haven't done it yet, I'd really suggest what I mentioned before—maybe grab at least a 60GB SSD specifically for your OS and main programs? My advice would be to format that big hard drive during the new installation and split it into two partitions. If you set aside about 100-150GB on the first one for Windows and your essential apps, it should make things much easier.

Cheers!

Well, I have actually already gone ahead and partitioned my drive. Out of the 1 Terabyte of space on my hard disk, I set the C: drive to 350 GB (which is where Windows lives, naturally), leaving the rest for the D: partition to hold all my other programs and files. 🙂

P.S. Once I find a spare moment in my schedule, I'll get around to performing the Windows 10 upgrade myself...

darkowl72 said:This is easily one of the dumbest things you can do. First off, partitioning a drive just slows it down. Second, most users don't give a damn about where stuff gets downloaded or installed; they just mash the Enter key whenever a prompt pops up. Everything ends up on the C: drive—all the music, movies, cache files, documents, emails, system restore points, backups... and of course, Windows itself along with every single program installation.

And don't even get me started on fragmentation on such a tiny space where everyone is constantly writing data. Pretty soon, even the swap file won't be contiguous.

And leaving 100-150GB for that? Within six months, that user will be knocking on your door whining about how their computer is lagging because they're out of space, even though they have a whole terabyte drive!

Sure, you could avoid this by being careful and manually moving files around—but why bother? Most people don't care. They aren't studying how Windows operates or where it stores its junk; they just want their PC to work as a tool for some other task and want zero contact with this kind of technical nonsense.

What's wrong with using folders? You can organize things however you want inside them.

As for processor speeds, I'm not looking for a debate over which one is better or faster (since honestly, both are pathetic), but I'll say this: Benchmark tests are pure synthetic garbage. They're lab measurements—and that's when a lab actually does them, not like this case where they're just scraping samples from random users. Just because someone drew a two-colored diagram doesn't mean those results reflect real-world usage or common daily workloads.

Given that the Celeron is newer, built on a more advanced process, uses half the power, and hits up to 2.6 GHz via turbo—go ahead, draw your own conclusion about who's actually faster in single-core tasks and who's leaving who in the dust.

What exactly am I looking at here—making the jump to Windows 10, or messing around with the Partition settings?

darkowl72 said:This is easily one of the dumbest things you can do. First off, partitioning a drive just slows it down. Second, most users don't give a damn about where stuff gets downloaded or installed; they just mash the Enter key whenever a prompt pops up. Everything ends up on the C: drive—all the music, movies, cache files, documents, emails, system restore points, backups... and of course, Windows itself along with every single program installation.

And don't even get me started on fragmentation on such a tiny space where everyone is constantly writing data. Pretty soon, even the swap file won't be contiguous.

And leaving 100-150GB for that? Within six months, that user will be knocking on your door whining about how their computer is lagging because they're out of space, even though they have a whole terabyte drive!

Sure, you could avoid this by being careful and manually moving files around—but why bother? Most people don't care. They aren't studying how Windows operates or where it stores its junk; they just want their PC to work as a tool for some other task and want zero contact with this kind of technical nonsense.

What's wrong with using folders? You can organize things however you want inside them.

As for processor speeds, I'm not looking for a debate over which one is better or faster (since honestly, both are pathetic), but I'll say this: Benchmark tests are pure synthetic garbage. They're lab measurements—and that's when a lab actually does them, not like this case where they're just scraping samples from random users. Just because someone drew a two-colored diagram doesn't mean those results reflect real-world usage or common daily workloads.

Given that the Celeron is newer, built on a more advanced process, uses half the power, and hits up to 2.6 GHz via turbo—go ahead, draw your own conclusion about who's actually faster in single-core tasks and who's leaving who in the dust.

Look, friends, I stepped away from the hardware world quite some time ago, which is precisely why I’ve come here to seek your seasoned advice. I'm struggling to see what your point is—are you trying to tell me one of these two laptops is a complete waste of money? My entire objective when purchasing was simply to ensure the processor was fast enough for my everyday, mundane tasks. The salesperson insisted that the quad-core model was significantly superior just because it had four cores, telling me not to worry about the 1.50 GHz clock speed. He acted as if I were stuck in the dark ages by even considering the raw GHz rating for single-core performance...

swiftbear7 said:Look, anything is possible—you might even have some kind of glitch or malware hiding in your Windows setup, I don't know, but those "23 problematic issues" people talk about aren't exactly something you can just ignore right out of the gate. 🤷
Anyway, sticking with Windows 8.1 isn't exactly winning any prizes. Honestly, I’d say just upgrade to Windows 10; you should notice a pretty massive difference! Windows 10 feels way more fluid, like it actually has room to breathe. That's probably why they didn't bother with updates for 8 and just pushed everyone straight to 10.
As for how fast it opens folders, that usually comes down to the hard drive. If you haven't set up a Partition and everything is just crammed onto one single 1TB drive—the OS, all your programs, every single file... well, fragmentation happens a lot faster that way. But I guess that's pretty common knowledge by now.
If, for example, your videos are playing smoothly and YouTube works fine in your browser, then I don't think you're looking at a huge deal-breaker.
And if it helps at all, =2005&cmp[]=2388']I just dug this up—it's a Benchmark comparing those two processors —and it turns out the AMD chip actually beats the Celeron!

So, yeah... if that even matters...

Thanks so much, friend, but I have one very important question before we move forward 🙂: are you honestly advising me to switch to Windows 10 using THIS specific laptop with the specs you now know about?

I always had this nagging thought that it might be a bad idea, fearing this laptop simply wouldn't be able to handle the load given its hardware...

P.S. Movies, videos, and basically everything online works perfectly; I'm not experiencing any sluggishness there.

swiftbear7 said:The Dell is actually a much better pick as a laptop because it includes a few key "little things" that the HP just lacks; the processor supports DDR3L-1600 (whereas that Celeron is stuck with a slower DDR3L-1333), plus you get 3 USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, a hard drive that's twice as big, and a DVD burner.
Now, I guess neither of those two processors are exactly speed demons—the Celeron might be slightly faster, maybe, but at least the AMD has four cores and decent graphics. You could probably give it a massive boost by swapping in an SSD, assuming it's easy enough to reach the slot through the bottom panel? If not, you could always just grab an external enclosure for the current drive and call it a day.🙂

ps. Honestly, I don't think you'd gain anything by swapping out that HP (even if they’d actually agree to a trade now that the OS is already installed... though I highly doubt they would).

Thanks for the reply! Look, I realize neither of these processors is exactly high-performance, but... well... I have an old laptop myself with a 1.70 GHz processor (not four cores like this one), and it honestly felt faster... I don't know, really. Maybe I'm just getting a little obsessed with whether things should be faster or not, haha, I can't tell... I just know that there was this whole argument about how this one had certain GHz specs, and I was told not to even look at what the numbers say—like 1.50 GHz versus 2.50 GHz—because it doesn't matter since it has four cores and all that blah blah blah...

Look, my friend, when I go to open a folder on this laptop—just a standard, ordinary folder—there is a delay of a second, maybe a second and a half. For people like us who tend to nitpick over every little detail, we definitely notice that, if you know what I mean...

So, is that happening because I installed something incorrectly regarding Windows? I honestly doubt it, as I was quite careful with everything, but I don't know.

It’s actually gotten to the point where I was trying to disable those visual effects settings that people recommend to make Windows run faster, and man... I don't know. Everything is telling me I should just reinstall Windows, though even I am not entirely sure what I expect to happen—that Windows will somehow behave better, or run faster, or what.

I'll tell you, ever since I ran a scan with my anti-malware software, it flagged about 23 "problematic" items. They aren't necessarily dangerous, just things it suggested removing, and ever since I did that...

I noticed this issue with the folders, and on top of that, I've been sitting here wondering if I made a mistake by not picking the other laptop, and now I'm dealing with this too... man...