Aussie Needs Your help ... A happy mod is a good mod (LC)

[OziBattler]

Alright Micros

I need your help. A happy mod is a good mod and Im sick and tired of pokersites Im playing on running like crap. Things used to run well but recently even stars is eating CPU like it is going out of fashion. Admittedly I never paid much attention to it but it all came to a head when I Started whoring ipoker bonuses and I found that even without PT and PAHUD running the site (VictorChandler and Titan) would run their poker exe at 50-80%. Sometimes it would start out at sub 30% but after a few minutes or a bit of congestion it would rise and never fall.

Here is some taskmanager screenshots of running it at some sites. See anything majorly wrong here...remembe rIm running a almost 3yr old laptop with 1G ram @ 3.06GHz. Up til now its been a relaible bit of hardware. I run PT using access adn ive been running ipoker in a new database so PT database size shouldnt be an issue.





in the second shot it shows pT at a high useage ... this isnt very indicative of the average state but is here for completeness.

So basically Im an ipoker bonus but I cant play more than 2 tables whilst running PT and PAHUD without the occasional timeout.

Do you see anything strange in teh above shots? I recently increased my virtaul memory size but it didnt seem to help much. Ill turn on my aim tomorrow (US Sat night) incase anyone wants to suck up to a mod and give me some lightbulb moments.
Basically whenever I run ipoker or prima for that matter the casino.exe for the site runs at between 50-80% of CPU. PT and PAHUD kick it up to 100%. What is interesting is that if I open 2 tables and play for a bit it runs fine but then aftew a few minutes it hits 100% (even without PT and PAHUD) and stays there. I can run PT and PAHUD okay but if I try to do anything else I Get timeout and lags

Heres are some details
- 3.06Ghz 2+ year old laptop with 1G ram running XP
- Prima used to run without any problems
- Im running ZoneAlarm + Norton + Spybot + Spyblaster

IVe tried
- degragging
- deleting cookies and temporary internet files (I hadn’t done this for a while and I have noticed some improvement..just not with poker software)
- ran cleanup function (stalled the first time and crashed pc)
- chkdisk
- removing uncessary processes as part of programs ive used (mosaic on mlb.tv and Norton ghost) and/or dumping as much as I can (videos, mp3s etc) to my external hard drive.
- setting PT to low priority
- changing to windows classic mode
- turning off flicker free in PAHUD
- rolling PAHUD back from the latest beta (1.19.2) to 1.18
- contacting VictorChandler support and they said that on a similar spec machine they can run 7 tables with a 15% CPU load and suggested I try updating drivers and OS software. My windows is set to autodownload updates and I install them when I get them. Im not sure what drivers they are talking about but I can go into system and check I guess….
- ive googled various processes that run under task manager and the worst ive seen is some that say that if the process is running in an official windows dir then it is okay but otherwise it could be a trojan. when checked..ive found nothing suspicious.

Other points of Note
- I recently got a new BenQ 22in monitor that ive connected with D-sub and Ive got the laptop as a second screen. Not sure if was imagining it but I sometimes swear that things run slower when I put windows on the laptop. I only started playing ipoker recently so I don’t know if the monitor has any effect but Im mentioning for completeness.
- also am using a super old keyboard (like one that I got with my P-90 like 10 years ago) because I haven’t gotten round to buying a new one yet. Surely a keyboard or monitor cant cause this but Im at my wits end!
- Im pretty sure this is a problem with my laptop…I scan with Norton and run spybot weekly. With spybot I keep getting tagazaurus, zedo and a few other adaware stuff show up even though I keep deleting them. Im not really very knowledgeable at registry server stuff and an sceptical of sites that come up on google claiming be able to delete pest software permanently because some of them are actually spyware themselves.
- ive never knowingly been hacked and Im pretty thorough when it comes to what I let zonealarm pass.

Q: If my CPU usage is really low when Im not doing anything then is that a good indication that I dont ahve any/much spyware doing bad things and chewing up my precious CPU resource?

if anyone has any suggestions for me I'd appreciate it.

Reimaging should be considered a last resort although if it is a surefire way to make things better at the expense at having to reinstall software then Ill consider it. I have a 160G ext harddrive to dump stuff to for saving. I really really don’t want to have to reinstall everything. I also cant justify buying a new computer or upgrading the laptop (ive already doubled the ram so am probably out of slots and would have to replace the two 512 sticks in their).

So what to do? Help make Ozi happy again

[marchron]

This happens sometimes to me both at FTP and UB. When I use Task Manager to end the program, my winlogon.exe CPU usage shoots through the roof and I have to restart my computer.

So the short answer is I don't have an answer.

[kerowo]

Try crossposting over to computer technical help, there are some folks over there who love this kind of stuff.

[BadBigBabar]

every how many minutes is your pt set to import new hhs?

[Bona]

I'm totally not qualified to comment here but I'll repeat something I read in a post and you can decide if it fits. Is your data base so large that it is time to start a new one for speed purposes?

[kerowo]

Ya, what Bona said, what is the point of having more then a couple month's worth of hands in a DB?

[Fluffy_Shark]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm totally not qualified to comment here but I'll repeat something I read in a post and you can decide if it fits. Is your data base so large that it is time to start a new one for speed purposes?

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I run PT using access adn ive been running ipoker in a new database so PT database size shouldnt be an issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

However, do you move away the already imported hhs? That could be an issue...

[bozlax]

Looks like everybody's trying to push this off on PT, but if you notice in the first image PT isn't even running and MPPoker.exe is at 85% CPU.

I've noticed the same thing with 'stars in the last couple of weeks, Oz, without PT running at all (and I don't even use PA-HUD anymore). The client seems to be using waaaay more than its fair share.

Of course, I've also noticed that my DNS servers bog down unbelievably for an hour or so, right around midnight ET every night, but I'm attributing that to script kiddies.

In short, I don't have any answers, but I don't think it's isolated to you. Tyler, you have any input? You run some seriously outdated hardware...does your hamster have to run any faster in his wheel these days to get the sites to work?

[tyler_cracker]

[ QUOTE ]
I've also noticed that my DNS servers bog down unbelievably for an hour or so, right around midnight ET every night

[/ QUOTE ]

is this when your nightly crons run?

[ QUOTE ]
Tyler, you have any input? You run some seriously outdated hardware

[/ QUOTE ]

i only rarely play poker online but last weekend i played a few hands and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. this was just running pokerstars (no PT, no PA, and my regular assortment of firefox, xmms, and a billion terminal windows).

[bozlax]

[ QUOTE ]
is this when your nightly crons run?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, and I've traced it, it's not local it's the ISP's (Pacbe..., uh, SB..., uh, AT&T?) DNS boxes bogging down.

I know, I can setup a bind cache on my computer that'll solve the problem, I'm just too lazy to do it ATM.