Re: Speeding up slow XP PCs - suggested remedies when you've tried the obvious
- From: Chris Whelan <cawhelan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:25:42 GMT
Mortimer wrote:
"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)
When XP was released, 256MB of Ram was OK, but the improvements that came
with SP2 really mean that 512MB is the minimum. I'm guessing the machine
may well have on-board graphics, which is eating in to your available Ram
also.
Having said that, the times you gave in your OP do seem excessive. It may be
worth testing the HD as your next step, either with the maker's utility or
with HDtune from here:
http://www.hdtune.com/
One further point; is a Norton malware product installed? If so, temporarily
disable it starting from msconfig/startup. (It would be inadvisable to go
online whilst doing this.) You may be as surprised as I was recently to see
what a difference it makes!
Chris
--
Remove prejudice to reply.
.
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