Windows Slowing Down
 

Hello
I am running Limewire pro 4.6.0 with java 1.5.0_01 on a windows xp home ediotion. Whenever I open up Limewire it always slows down my computer. My computer has around a gig of ram so there is no reason for this. This is the only program that seems to slow down when I open it and then when I minimize it into the tray my computer speeds back up. What do you think the problem is and is there anyway I can fix that.

Thanks
David

PC Slow Down
 

Jarritos/David

The problem could be LW but have you tried a few housekeeping tricks and tips:

a) Run Ad-Aware SE and Spybot, to get rid of any hidden spyware/adware. Windows always slows down when a hard disk is burdened with hidden junk.

b) Run your anti-virus software, to kill off anything nasty running on your machine.

c) defrag your hard disk, this should be done once a month to keep your HD running at peak efficiency. A fragmented hard disk will always slow down access to and from itself as well as requiring more processing power.

Do the above and I am sure that will help your PC.

Meanwhile, others in this forum will give your more LW specific advice.



UK Bob

I have exactly the same complaint. Jarritos. My machine's super fast, with a ton of memory, no viruses, no spyware, regularly defragged, etc. And yet when I run LimeWire, everything on my PC slows down to an irritating level.

There's no way I can leave LimeWire open all the time, or my PC just becomes unusable. Which is sad, since the Gnutella network benefits from people connecting and staying connected. But its gotten so bad I now just connect long enough to get files from others, and then disconnect.

One of the more annoying symptoms I have is if I'm listening to MP3s or any other digital music on my PC, when I bring the LimeWire window to the foreground, the music just stutters and skips non-stop. When I minimize LimeWire, it gets better again.

I'm not sure if things got suddenly slower when I upgraded Java to 5.0, or if it was when I installed the latest LimeWire. I'm 90% sure the problem is one or the other of those, or the interaction between both of them.

A quick look at Windows Task Manager shows the LimeWire.exe process pegged at between 91% and 95% of the CPU. It's also using 104 megs of memory, which seems pretty extreme, given that Firefox "only" uses 76 megs and Outlook "only" uses 54 megs.

ps. My favorite Jarritos flavor is "pina" (sorry, I have no tilde on my keyboard) but I also like "tamarind".

Bring up task manager. Ctrl - Alt - Del
In Task manger ---- Processes ---- limewire. exe --- right mouse click ----- set priority to normal (or whatever priority works best on your machine)

Good suggestion, but it didn't solve the problem. LimeWire was already running at Normal priority. I tried setting it to the two lower settings, and it still caused other applications to slow down and still took greater than 85% of the CPU. The stuttering of music playing from iTunes decreased though. It didn't stop, but it did get less frequent.

Just for grins I tried setting it to priority High. Boy was that a mistake! Took me 5 minutes to kill LimeWire since even the Task Manager wouldn't respond anymore.

Same problem, looked into it a bit, first found it with Azureus (a java bittorrent client). My mates got the same issue, with limewire or azureus on java 1.5, haven't downgraded java yet, cos im a lazy guy, but hey I enjoy life :)
Now what similarities i've noticed with 90%cpu issues are:
*Java based p2p proggie - multiple connections
*Java 1.4+
*Athlon/AMD CPUs [in our cases]
*Windows XP SP1/2 [happens on both]

so the question is, do you have service pack 1 or 2 installed, and also, do you have an AMD processor?

I advise you to check out the azureus forums, I wonder if its just the multiple connections and graphically refresh-intensive gui-s

Infact I got the same high cpu usage issue with eXeem , but all the p2p apps work, they just slow me down like back in the day of my good old k6-2 350, ah what a beauty.... /me remenises back to the day and rolls another fat one

I've messed about with priorities loads, and even found that RemotelyAnywhere [a webbased remote control program] could auto-assign priorities to exe's everytime they load, and with dual processor systems even set a program to run on a specified cpu, therefore providing elementary load balancing :)

anyone with duals fancy giving it a try, bet its nice :D

Oh forgot to add, my problem is slightly worse with a mildly tempramental wireless network, but my connectivity is like 99.9% up 24/7 and i tested with cable aswell so its not that.

I am using XP Home SP 2 on an Athlon 64 cpu, with Java 1.5.0.

Some interesting pointers about Java: post 1 & also post 2 by verdyp which are both very entailed. lol
Java is not very memory efficient unfortunately.

You can reduce drag on your system by using a few small tips: Don't resume all your files. Set your downloads to auto-clear. Close/hide windows you're not using at that time (eg: connections, monitor & library windows.) Reduce the no. of shared folders or files or choose smaller files as alternatives. Reduce the no. of incomplete files by going to to incomplete folder (whilst LW is closed) & deleting those at 0 KB. Then open LW & arrange your downlds by Progress (click on top of progress column bar) & delete all those at 0%. Delete search results that are older than a few hours (they go stale after a while anyway.) Other things you might consider are reduce either or both upload & download bandwidth. Disable ultrapeer capabilities under Speed in options.

Allow LW to settle down before doing anthing with LW. Give it 20 or 30 mins before using it. Just some ideas.

Well if you all are into trying things. I heard through the grapevine that Java is very RAM inefficent, and also uses virtual memory.

I played around a little yesterday with this comp's virtual memory settings in WinXP. Control panel>Systems>advanced. Got it to choke when I went below 500 megs. It was automatically set at 765 megs. I increased to 1 geg, and it has been running a little more efficent. Don't know if you have that much HDD space to use for VM.

BTW- I do have my processor setup to run in HT mode.:D

So it's the java or what? If I need to tweak my system, then the program or java it uses is the problem.

I've been a P2P monster for years and currently use other major progs with no tweaking other than opening ports and configurations inside each program itself and have no problems at all with any of them.

I first tried LW a year or so ago and canned it for spyware. Not finding any now but, not happy with the java thing.

Other than messing with my virtual memory and shifting priority in Task mgr, are there any other solutions at all?

Try sharing less files or downloading less things at the same time.

found this
 

Went into my network connection and uninstalled the "new" TCP/IP version 6.

Resources are back to normal :)

Same problem...but...worked around issue
 

I was having the exact same problem. I was running an old version of LW...it told me to upgrade my java that I was running at 1.4x....as SOON as I upgraded to JAVA 1.5 my computer slowed down to a turtle. I reasoned that it seemed like a LW <-> Java 1.5 interaction problem. So...I downgraded back to Java 1.4x and have never looked back since. I am running LW 4.8.1 with old Java 1.4x and see NO performance hits as I was seeing with JRE1.5.

Specs:
P4 2.68Ghz
512M Mem
80Gb+ free HD
Win XP Pro SP2
JRE 1.4.2_07

So...something weird with new Java is not playing well with new LW. Seems like Sun changed something without telling the rest of the world. Just my opinion.

Ken

It seems to affect particular systems in different ways. For some people, Java 1.4.2 is the most stable & effective, but for others it's the other way around & they find Java 1.5 fixes all their problems. I've noticed this over the past 6 months. It really does depend on the particular person's set up. Java 1.5 does have better functionality & options than 1.4.2

Hmm...
 

Well that has me a little concerned. We need to determine the inconsistencies. I'm sure there is a common thread. I would rather run the latest everything, but JV 1.5 is a resource pig...from what I can tell.

Thanks

Ken

Limewire Slow Down
 

Hey guys I have read everything and have the exact same problem with LimeWire slowing down my computer. One thing I did notice though is that when LimeWire starts up at the bottom left-hand corner it lets you know how many files you are sharing, and everytime I start it up it like resets and slowly builds up to my 3000+ files. While it is doing this my computer comes to a crawl, but after it is done (which is like 10 minutes later) my computer runs normal. I guess if you want it to be fast you just shouldn't share files, but that defeats the purpose of the whole P2P thing. Anyways that was just something I noticed, I wonder if any of you guys have noticed that also?

Same thing here -- slow as molasses on my system, using 100% CPU. Athlon 1.5GHz, Java 1.5, LW 4.8.1, Sygate personal firewall (configured to be transparent to limewire). Even when reduced to "below normal" priority it seems to slow other apps down (which shouldn't be possible, unless the system is swapping, which it shouldn't be, because the commit charge is 600/1024M -- yes, I have 1GB *physical* RAM in this box).

May try going down to Java 1.4.2,

It seems to have gotten worse since browsing a host the other day and adding 4-500 files to my pending downloads list (although I didn't do anything stupid, such as set it to allow that many simultaneous connections -- they're mostly showing as "need more sources" right now, since their source seems to be only intermittently available), and worse again when I went from 4.6 to 4.8.1 a couple days ago.

The number of files pending seems to make it use more CPU, not just the number in an "active" state such as downloading, waiting for busy hosts, waiting in line, connecting, or some such. This suggests a design problem -- perhaps every single pending file is associated with a periodic polling for new sources to have been discovered, rather than when a potential new source is discovered all the pending files are iterated over to see if any are on that host, or those pending files being completely inactive except when explicitly searched for, either because a search result comes in that matches one or because you selected it and hit "find sources".

I'd rather avoid cleaning them out though, in case I don't find them again and it makes the difference between eventually getting the file and never getting the file.

Well I have more than 1 GB ram but on a mac. Java is worse on the mac, but I'm still able to run other 'heavy' processing apps simultaneously. I think it makes a difference how you use LW. Only on rare occasions would I select a large number of files to downld at the same time (same reason.) But yes, having a large incomplete list will slow LW down when it is starting up b/c it atempts to connect to each one individually. So that means a longer settling down period. But I'd say at least 2/3 of the time I have incompletes start by themselves after be it 20 mins or 40 mins or longer. And that's without doing any type of search. eg: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...028#post116028

I often turn LW on & forget about it, come back an hour or 2 later & see it's downlding. Perhaps b/c I very quickly have people uplding from me, within mins of my shared files loading up (perhaps even before they've finished loading.)
What I don't do is Resume all my files. Doing that is a cpu killer & uses up a lot of resources.

I like the topic of this thread:'Windows Slowing Down' b/c it reminds me of this: Windows errors or even more heavy a topic is Microsucks http://users.pandora.be/eforum/emoti.../happy/019.gif

I had this "slow down" prob.

Go to Limewire>Tools>Options
In the left hand column select "speed"
Then tick the box saying "disable ultrapeer capabilities"

I did this and after like 20 seconds everything was fine. It now runs smooth and theres no overprocessing etc. etc.

Hope it works.

Dobbie

Well i have Java 1.4.2_05 installed. So that might make the difference.

Don't have time to read the entire thread but again I believe it is a Java issue, its part of the same problem I get with the newer versions of Java:

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=32338

I'm noticing something strange here. I've got the same problems many people in this thread have, but I've specifically noticed that it often "pauses" right after successfully downloading a file. The UI freezes -- I have auto-clear completed on and the 100% download with status "Complete" will stick around and the whole UI quit updating or responding for several seconds, and sometimes for half a minute or more. It's as if it has to "think" a great deal about each file that has finished downloading. The slowdown often causes it to drop connections, other downloads, uploads, etc. -- task manager does indeed show decreased network activity and increased Limewire CPU usage at these times.

Greetings Unreg57687.

When was the last time you did, any system maint.

I have noticed my system slow downs some when my hardrive gets about 70% full. I usually run disk cleanup and disk defragmentor, and it corrects this problem.

I have noticed LW runs more efficently with a well maintained hard drive. It makes it easier for LW to locate and move files around when needed, tying up less resources in the process.

Have a good day

The machine is clean of viruses and spyware and patched up to date (OS, major network-using apps incl. Limewire@4.8.1, and drivers) if that's what you mean. There's also a couple gig disk free.

Here's what I have concerning this. LW only gives that problem when it detects NO connection to the net. Be it that there has been a slight break on DSL (which happens), or you disconnect your modem.
With modems, even if you select "disconnect" in the LW menu before disconnecting the modem, that's the only time CPU usage goes up, and from there onwards, it stays up. Restoring a connection to the net doesn't help. LW will reconnect and work like normal, but it will keep using CPU resources until the program is shut down and restarted.
If there's no break in your connection to the net, (modem that has never been disconnected with LW being started after making the net connection, or if you have an EXTREMELY GOOD DSL connection) LW works beautifully. but the instant it can't detect a net connection, even if for a split second (DSL too), CPU usage goes up through the roof, and stays there. It seems like a bug in LW and not Java.

that's my 2 cents. I'm sure if you look closely at LW you'll notice this too.

A few empty gigs on the HDD is not the measure of "what is enough?" A well running computer should have, minimum, 15% "free space". This is also the minimum windows requires to run defrag. Try a slave drive or even learn about hotswapping HDD's.

Here's my thoughts on the slowing down
 

Well, I think it's to do with the interaction of AMD cpu (Duron), the particular type of video card/driver (KLE chipset with VIA tech VT8361/8601 graphics controller, Trident 3D display driver) on the PC and Java (1.5x?).
I have had problems with this "slowness" with both LimeWire and XNap on the same machine (not at the same time of course). The funny thing is I use Firefox as a browser on that machine, which makes use of the same Java, but no problems with slowdown.
Also, I have another PC with an AMD Duron processor but different graphics chipset etc. running Wi*** & Java 1.5x and absolutely NO problems. Which makes me think it's to do with the graphics chipset/controller.display driver. I'd be interested in these configurations with other peoples PC that have the slowness problem.

So people should only use 50G of a 60G drive?

You're kidding, right?

I don't know about you, but I don't make the kind of money that would let me waste that kind of space. You're basically suggesting a 15% tax on hard drives, since the price tends to scale with the capacity. I can't afford that and I think there are plenty of other people who also cannot afford a 15% surcharge on all their storage media purchases.

java 1.5
 

I have been trying to download java 1.4.x for a couple of days now. when i get it from the sun website it states that the incorrect/ out of date microsoft installer is present. I looked into this and it needs version 2. XP pro service pack 2 instals version 3 by default. I managed to install version 1.3 and it kinda worked with a few errors, but less processor power used.

Does anyone have a version that will install on sp 2 that they can email to me of is available on a 3rd party site?

or failing that any advice, i have 5 gb of virtual memory set and that makes no differance

yours

drew

If you never noticed you never get 60 gig out of a 60 gig hard dirve from the get go. It could range 55 to 57 gig. Try to defrag that 6o gig drive with less than 15% empty and watch Windows warn you. Not me. I just report my observations I don't make the rules or the product. But this is just another answer to possible slow down on a system.

Greetings britboi

Hmmm that is strange I can dual boot on this comp. WinXP pro sp2 or WinXP MCE sp2. I've never had a problem uninstalling and reinstalling java from versions 1.3.x to my present 1.5.0_01. That includes the Japanese version.

Sounds like something is not right with your registry. Try cleaning the registry. You can search the forums here. You will find links to several if you don't have one.

If that doesn't work try booting your comp. from your WinXP cd and do a repair.

Best of luck

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant forum search. Enter peacec under user name.

Here is the link. http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=34408

I've discovered something significant about this problem, using Sun's 1.5 JRE on a WinXP SP2 b0x.

Even if Limewire is set via Task Manager to BelowNormal or even Low priority, it will sometimes preempt other tasks -- ones at Normal and even AboveNormal priority, and sometimes even the Task Manager itself at High priority!

For example, I can run a certain game application in a window and see it using about 40% CPU in Task Manager and getting roughly 60FPS. If I run Limewire and set it to BelowNormal priority, with the game at the default (Normal) priority, it drops to around 50FPS and sometimes spikes down to 20 or occasionally locks up completely for a while. Task Manager shows the following damning statistics:

95% CPU use by Limewire
5% CPU use by the game, which normally uses more and has the higher priority
Memory usage (commit charge) well below physical RAM in b0x
Steady pf usage and similar statistics

And the drive activity light shows no significant amount of drive activity.

So, what exactly is Limewire grabbing from the game? Both are running in windows so it isn't video contention. I'm not using Limewire's media player, so only the game is using the soundcard. The low mem use and lack of HDD activity seem to indicate no swapping/thrashing and no contention for explicitly accessing disk files either. Limewire is a user input, network, and event driven app that presents a GUI which is idle at the time; the game presents a window with DirectX graphics and uses DirectInput. They can't be clashing over input then. The game is local, single player; so they are not clashing over network access (Limewire has it exclusively).

That seems to mean that the game isn't blocking on something that's busy (hdd, network, whatever) and yielding CPU to Limewire. And yet Limewire is hogging the CPU. The only explanation I can think of is that Limewire is preempting the game -- even though it has the lower priority.

Fix Limewire to respect its priority setting and let higher priority apps preempt it.

Also, fix Limewire not to frequently saturate a 1.5GHz Athlon XP. What the hell is an event-driven app doing using that much CPU anyway?!

This might be related to Limewire -- I don't know. Usual setup: 4.something Limewire on XP SP2, using Sun's JRE 1.5.something.

Every so often the entire machine spazzes out: everything becomes slow, and network-using apps become unusable (take forever to make a connection, fetch a Web page, whatever).

Task Manager shows one of the svchost.exes using 95%+ CPU. This is with a fairly beefy Athlon -- and it stays that way for several WHOLE MINUTES, on a 2GHz CPU. That's around a trillion clock cycles being used by, apparently, NETWORK SERVICES. The only NETWORK SERVICES I can think of that need a trillion clock cycles are really heavy crypto or hundred-K-connection Web servers, which I'm not running. (Limewire is limited to 30 simultaneous downloads and 5 uploads -- yup, broadband.)

A Google for svchost CPU usage problems found numerous complaints where the problem was some service getting stuck starting up; the services control panel in XP showed nothing of the sort during several of these incidents. There were only two network services started, and these were "started", not "starting", and several that were stopped. The running ones were DNS and some RPC thing.

Event viewer does show a bunch of application events generated whenever the seizeup starts, and a bunch more when it ends, but they aren't listed as coming from Limewire. They are "Database stopped" or "Database stopped the instance" after the seizeup, and "started" or "started the instance" before. They come from various alphanumerically named executables like "wuclault" and such, whose names are unpronounceable. Googling them shows them to be Windows Update related. Turning off automatic updates hasn't stopped the seizeups, however, and they started when I got Limewire 4 and started using it regularly. Plus, as others in this thread have noted, Limewire is quite the resource hog.

The system is clean of viruses and spyware. The seizeups don't have any particularly regular timing, but have an elevated probability of occurring if I'm actively doing stuff in limewire, particularly just after a "find more sources" button click. Naturally, this results in it finding no sources, since clicky->seizeup->Limewire starved for CPU and all network stuff getting painfully slow during seizeups->Limewire hangs with a nonresponsive UI and drops all its connections and can't make new ones, so no sources are found.

(And I can't even go and do something else while I wait for Limewire to recover. Web browsers will spin for 30 or more seconds before even beginning to render a page, news can't be fetched, mail can't be fetched, and so forth, while the seizeup is in progress. Everything just tends to spin or timeout, and games and such won't run acceptably with svchost hogging the CPU either! So much for "multitasking" -- another great idea that falls flat when anyone actually tries to implement it. :P)

That other guy is right -- it does preempt stuff that has a higher priority than it, on Windows XP. Funny thing is, it doesn't always. Winamp's visualizer will stutter whenever Limewire preempts Winamp; if I play a long song and give Limewire low priority, it will still stutter every so often. And strangely enough the pauses seem to come in groups of four. It will run for a bit, then will come four one-second pauses with three one-second gaps between them. After a while, this will happen again. And again. Every once in a while, it will even make the music stutter and pop -- even though the music runs at high priority!

This should not be happening. What is wrong with Limewire? Or is the VM itself the problem? This seems doubtful though, since I see these problems and use Sun's VM rather than some third-party VM of dubious trustworthiness.

Java is not especially efficient to say the least. LW is built on & utilises Java to operate. So if there's a problem with Java then it'll affect LW. Apparently further down the track, hopefully with version 5, LW will be making better use of Java & not be so at its mercy due to Java's shortcomings. See THIS post (click on link) by et voilà.

There's a huge gap between "not especially efficient" and "violates all kinds of standards" -- and I have verified that Java (or Limewire, at least) does indeed violate standards, namely that a lower priority task is not supposed to preempt a higher priority task under a true multitasking kernel (such as the NT kerel in XP, and any unix whatsoever -- in other words, nearly every modern computer, including home computers).

Yep -- a Limewire "niced" to BelowNormal priority makes tasks with AboveNormal priority stutter on my own XP rig, despite there being enough RAM for both tasks and the tasks not having to time share any other device (e.g. network, hdd). No swapping, no significant drive activity, but task manager shows the CPU usage swing massively in favor of Limewire every so often, and I guarantee the other task is not yielding the CPU voluntarily or blocking on anything!

Why does it do this? This is like the bad old days of 16-bit Windows 3.1 crap!

What version of LimeWire and Java are you using?

The most recent, in both cases: 4.8.1 on Sun JRE 1.5.

What tha heck happened to this thread? It used to have four pages, and some more stuff by "unregblah" after the windows 3.1 crack...

I saw that I had Java 151 and 152, as well as 141, and Java web start. So I got rid of 151 and 152, and voila, CPU usage back to normal. Something else positive I noticed is that the lettering was now smaller, and the whole screen for the options was now visible. With 151, the bottom line was not previously visible. Thanks for the info.

Alot of good info guys. On my computer I have 512Mg of RAM and a AMD 1700XP processor. When I run Limewire my computer slows very bad too and when I check the memory usage while it's running it sometimes goes up to 110Mgs of memory usage...

There is no way out , I have a super fast laptop and yet limewire slows down!!! , If limewire slows down then use another p2p legal program with no java .

I am sorry I know how everyone is feeling , Its not my fault that the limewire developers are too lazy to develop a windows version of Limewire in other words no java.

I believe it's the Java 5 Update 2 that's causing the problems.

I seen in my Downloaded Programs Folder, that there was three entries. One dated as 12/06/2068...interesting.

I completely wiped out LW. Cleaned the reg, defrag...ya know, the usual stuff...nothing changed.

I uninstalled Java 5 Update 2....reinstalled LW....and VOILA!!! No more 99% CPU usage, and the program is back to running the way it should.

Now, the Java utility is telling me there's yet another update to v5, but I am not sure this is a good thing when it comes to LW.

If anyone has both updates in their Add/Remove programs, I suggest uninstalling LW, then Update 2...then reinstall LW and see if they have the same effect.

I have done all those insturctions above , Limewire did used to work until one day I loaded it and it remain minimized!!! , Then I removed LW and all Java then reinstalled Java 5 and LW then it was extremley slow so I did remove Java 5 and installed Java 4 and still its slow yes I have reinstalled everything replaced feature by feature and at the end I decided not to use Limewire either :

A ) I have too many software installed on my laptop
B ) Internet uses too much CPU

My laptop is very very clean in other words free from viruses , spam , spyware and all that....

So just use what your PC and you are happy with then this way your error-free!!!

I understand the frustration. For some reason, even with update 1 from Java, it's back to using up 99% resources...the logo spins at around .2-.5 fps...if it spins at all, scanning the drive takes forever...

This has started to happen only with the 4.8.1 version, as I have never had the issue with prior versions.

Going to go back to a previous version and see if the problem still exists.

I'll post back with more info.

I think I know why the error only happens to Limewire 4.8.1 , It because it promises more faster downloads and more chances then when you download the song it downloads then limewire freezes then when you check your song it says connecting then says waiting in busy line .

Well it happens to me , If anyone has difficulties with LW 4.8.1 just use an earlier version .
Anyway LW 4.2.6 was a bit faster and the computer froze less.

Hmm???
 

Why should java be a resource pig?

The task-manager ist soo stupid and does not report the real amount of memory taken, it also reports memory-mapped files and other virtual adress space.

Java-1.5 is more efficient and pre-packages classes in a file which is later on memory-mapped. This file is even shared between many JVMs if they run at the same time, but the Task-Manager just reports bogus stuff...

lg Clemens

This is not the matter of Task Manager.

1 ) I won't complain about Java since it works perfectly on other java applications
2 ) I won't blame Windows XP for not being built proply.

---------------------------------------------------
I WILL 100% BLAME THE CREATORS OF LW 4.8.1 ON CREATING SOME ERRORS , However I love to thank the creators of LW 4.2.6 since it is alright for me although it still freezes.;)

Hehe ;-)
 

Well Limewire is a rather big java app ;-)