Re: Speeding up slow XP PCs - suggested remedies when you've tried the obvious

"Chris Whelan" <cawhelan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u1fqj.1128$nG4.711@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mortimer wrote:

When a Windows XP runs painfully slowly, there are lots of magazine
articles which suggest the same old things to try: uninstall programs
that
aren't needed; scan for viruses and spyware using AdAware and/or Spybot;
add more memory; defrag hard disk; remove any unnecessary programs from
All Programs
| Startup and the HKCU/KHLM | Run sections of the registry.

But can anyone suggest a good book or magazine article which goes one
stage further and suggests other remedies for when the default ones don't
fix the problem?




For example I'm trying to speed up a customer's PC at the moment.
The symptom is very long boot times (about 1 minute each on the Windows
logo and the Welcome screens, and a total of 5 minutes before clicking an
icon on the desktop will actually run a program. New programs (or even
Control Panel) take a minute or so to begin after clicking on icons (with
lots of disk thrashing) and repainting of the screen when a window is
moved to reveal another one can take 30 seconds.

Task Manager says there's no excessive CPU usage (normally about 98% idle
process) and the Available memory is around 100 MB ("low memory" disk
thrashing usually happens when you get down to 10 MB or less). There are
no unwanted programs in Add/Remove Programs. I can't see any unnecessary
Startup and HKCU/HKLM | Run entries. AdAware 2007 and Spybot 1.5 now give
a clean bill of health (although they initially removed a lot of crap!).
The disk now has 0% file and volume fragmentation (originally 36%
fragmented!).

Failing hard disk?

What is the machine spec?

Celeron 1800 with 256 MB RAM, XP Home SP2, 80 GB HDD (70 GB free), 384 MB
pagefile (as recommended by XP on the pagefile screen of Control Panel |
System) - it's an unidentified Evesham PC (there's a serial number but no
model number sticker such as Evolution 1800 or Axis 2400)


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