Windows XP high-end machine is terribly slow

[Guest]

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here are
the symptoms:

# Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login username/password
# While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
and the system clock shows up after ages
# Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
# Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
# Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context menu
after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
# In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large number
of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
(each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
# While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks off
and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing

Here's my hardware configuration:
My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M 1.86GHz
Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has about
17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.

I've run through all the usual things to do:
- Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
- I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned on
and running with the latest virus definitions
- I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
- My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little "crap"
- I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
- I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and it
does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
- I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
Microsoft support knowledge base
- I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support knowledge
base
- I've not configured or mapped any network drives
- I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at home
(Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
- My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks in)
even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
- I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
- I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
Options-General tab
- In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
* Automatically search for network folders or printers
* Display file size information in folder tips
* Remember each folder's view settings
* Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
- I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
- No files/folder are shared on my system
- I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the Prefetch
folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup or
runtime performance

What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready to
throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[Dave B.]

First thing I would do is uninstall MacAfee (permanently) and replace it
with a less resource hogging AV app.

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here
are
the symptoms:

# Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login
username/password
# While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
and the system clock shows up after ages
# Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
# Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
# Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context
menu
after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
# In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large
number
of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
(each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
# While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks
off
and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing

Here's my hardware configuration:
My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M
1.86GHz
Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has
about
17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.

I've run through all the usual things to do:
- Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
- I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned
on
and running with the latest virus definitions
- I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
- My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little
"crap"
- I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
- I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and
it
does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
- I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
Microsoft support knowledge base
- I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support
knowledge
base
- I've not configured or mapped any network drives
- I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at
home
(Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
- My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks
in)
even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
- I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
- I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
Options-General tab
- In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
* Automatically search for network folders or printers
* Display file size information in folder tips
* Remember each folder's view settings
* Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
- I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
- No files/folder are shared on my system
- I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the
Prefetch
folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup
or
runtime performance

What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready
to
throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[Guest]

First thing I would do is uninstall MacAfee (permanently) and replace it

with a less resource hogging AV app.

Any suggestions on what I can replace it with?

 

[Chuck Davis]

AVG Anti-virus. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Any suggestions on what I can replace it with?

 

[Dave B.]

I use AVG, but there are a few options.

Any suggestions on what I can replace it with?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Open your Control Panel, then open Power Options and set
the Power Scheme to "Always On".

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Kunal Ashar" wrote:

| I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here are
| the symptoms:
|
| # Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login username/password
| # While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
| and the system clock shows up after ages
| # Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
| take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
| # Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
| almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
| applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
| # Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context menu
| after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
| # In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large number
| of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
| (each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
| # While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks off
| and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing
|
| Here's my hardware configuration:
| My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M 1.86GHz
| Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has about
| 17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
| drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.
|
| I've run through all the usual things to do:
| - Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
| - I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned on
| and running with the latest virus definitions
| - I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
| them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
| BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
| - My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
| are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little "crap"
| - I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
| Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
| - I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and it
| does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
| - I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
| Microsoft support knowledge base
| - I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
| Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
| SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support knowledge
| base
| - I've not configured or mapped any network drives
| - I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at home
| (Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
| - My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks in)
| even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
| - I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
| - I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
| Options-General tab
| - In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
| * Automatically search for network folders or printers
| * Display file size information in folder tips
| * Remember each folder's view settings
| * Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
| SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
| - I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
| searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
| - No files/folder are shared on my system
| - I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the Prefetch
| folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup or
| runtime performance
|
| What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready to
| throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[Guest]

Open your Control Panel, then open Power Options and set

the Power Scheme to "Always On".

What would that achieve? I tried it, and the screen blips didn't go away.

 

[xxx]

Goodness this sounds a tough one. I hope none of what follows is telling my
grandmother how to suck eggs!

Are the event logs showing anything? I get problems with my laptop every now and
then when it cannot find the wireless network - some services take an age to
start and some timeout completely. What happens if you boot without your
internet being connected? Try disabling the wireless and then rebooting. What is
performance like then:??

Also, make sure you are running only TCP/IP as a networking protocol. Things
like Client for Microsoft Networks really does slow things down.

Uninstall / disable your AV program and Windows Defender (major resource hog).
Does this make any difference? I get issues when I have done a major clean up
and reboot. Windows Defender loses all its scan history and starts scanning
immediately I logon. This really slows things down.

Also, set pagefile to a fixed size, download pagefile defrag from
www.sysinterals.com and set it to defrag the registry and pagefile at next boot
- then reboot. Does this improve things??

After this run chkdsk on next boot to see if there is a problem with the disk.
Is it FAT32 or NTFS? I presume NTFS but if not try to run a convert as I find
NTFS is more efficient than FAT32.

Have you updated your system BIOS? Checked DELL's site for updated drivers of
any sort. Checked with DELL for any know issues running XP Pro??

Try replacing AV software with AVG free edition.

I found this on Google groups:-

If Windows is managing your wireless card and you have the Intel Proset
Wireless management software.
Switch to the Intel Proset Wireless management and your slow Bootup to
the Novell login screen is cured. Just be sure to re-enter your SSID
info into the Intel Proset Wireless management tool. It was taking up
to two minutes to get to the Novell Login screen before I figured this
one out. I haven't had any problems since.

Let us know know the results of the above when you can

Good luck,


Steve

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here are
the symptoms:

# Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login username/password
# While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
and the system clock shows up after ages
# Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
# Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
# Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context menu
after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
# In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large number
of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
(each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
# While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks off
and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing

Here's my hardware configuration:
My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M 1.86GHz
Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has about
17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.

I've run through all the usual things to do:
- Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
- I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned on
and running with the latest virus definitions
- I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
- My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little "crap"
- I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
- I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and it
does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
- I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
Microsoft support knowledge base
- I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support knowledge
base
- I've not configured or mapped any network drives
- I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at home
(Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
- My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks in)
even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
- I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
- I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
Options-General tab
- In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
* Automatically search for network folders or printers
* Display file size information in folder tips
* Remember each folder's view settings
* Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
- I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
- No files/folder are shared on my system
- I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the Prefetch
folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup or
runtime performance

What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready to
throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[Guest]

Before throwing the PC out the window, save important files, format and
reinstall the O/S.

Goodness this sounds a tough one. I hope none of what follows is telling my
grandmother how to suck eggs!

Are the event logs showing anything? I get problems with my laptop every now and
then when it cannot find the wireless network - some services take an age to
start and some timeout completely. What happens if you boot without your
internet being connected? Try disabling the wireless and then rebooting. What is
performance like then:??

Also, make sure you are running only TCP/IP as a networking protocol. Things
like Client for Microsoft Networks really does slow things down.

Uninstall / disable your AV program and Windows Defender (major resource hog).
Does this make any difference? I get issues when I have done a major clean up
and reboot. Windows Defender loses all its scan history and starts scanning
immediately I logon. This really slows things down.

Also, set pagefile to a fixed size, download pagefile defrag from
www.sysinterals.com and set it to defrag the registry and pagefile at next boot
- then reboot. Does this improve things??

After this run chkdsk on next boot to see if there is a problem with the disk.
Is it FAT32 or NTFS? I presume NTFS but if not try to run a convert as I find
NTFS is more efficient than FAT32.

Have you updated your system BIOS? Checked DELL's site for updated drivers of
any sort. Checked with DELL for any know issues running XP Pro??

Try replacing AV software with AVG free edition.

I found this on Google groups:-

If Windows is managing your wireless card and you have the Intel Proset
Wireless management software.
Switch to the Intel Proset Wireless management and your slow Bootup to
the Novell login screen is cured. Just be sure to re-enter your SSID
info into the Intel Proset Wireless management tool. It was taking up
to two minutes to get to the Novell Login screen before I figured this
one out. I haven't had any problems since.

Let us know know the results of the above when you can

Good luck,


Steve

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here are
the symptoms:

# Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login username/password
# While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
and the system clock shows up after ages
# Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
# Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
# Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context menu
after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
# In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large number
of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
(each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
# While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks off
and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing

Here's my hardware configuration:
My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M 1.86GHz
Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has about
17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.

I've run through all the usual things to do:
- Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
- I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned on
and running with the latest virus definitions
- I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
- My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little "crap"
- I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
- I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and it
does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
- I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
Microsoft support knowledge base
- I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support knowledge
base
- I've not configured or mapped any network drives
- I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at home
(Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
- My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks in)
even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
- I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
- I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
Options-General tab
- In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
* Automatically search for network folders or printers
* Display file size information in folder tips
* Remember each folder's view settings
* Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
- I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
- No files/folder are shared on my system
- I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the Prefetch
folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup or
runtime performance

What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready to
throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Steve! Some of your suggestions worked to improve the performance

1. The event logs didn't show anything useful.
2. I need client for MS networks because I regularly have to connect to
remote networks, often over VPN, so I can't disable it.
3. Disabling McAfee helped *a lot* - the post-login performance visibly
improved.
4. Disabling Windows Defender didn't make any difference.
5. Yes, I have NTFS. I degragged the harddisk and the pagefile, and ran a
chkdsk. The HDD was badly fragmented, and the defrag ran for nearly 27 hours.
6. Chkdsk reported no hardware errors.
7. Dell reported no problems with the BIOS or with Win XP Pro that resembled
the issues on my machine.
8. Windows had been managing my Wireless card; I installed the latest
version of Intel's Proset Wireless management software and configured it to
manage my Wireless card instead of Windows. *This seemed to speed up my boot
time considerably*.

With 8, my bootup time has roughly halved to about 2-3 minutes.
With 3 and 5, my application startup time has improved visibly too.

I posted the issue on another group/forum too (Windows XP Help and Support,
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...&p=1&mid=0ee8101a-853a-47e3-8173-e4a67f8fa0d0)
and some suggestions from there too worked, to improve performance.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions! Looks like I don't have to fling
the machine out the window after all ;-)

Goodness this sounds a tough one. I hope none of what follows is telling my
grandmother how to suck eggs!

Are the event logs showing anything? I get problems with my laptop every now and
then when it cannot find the wireless network - some services take an age to
start and some timeout completely. What happens if you boot without your
internet being connected? Try disabling the wireless and then rebooting. What is
performance like then:??

Also, make sure you are running only TCP/IP as a networking protocol. Things
like Client for Microsoft Networks really does slow things down.

Uninstall / disable your AV program and Windows Defender (major resource hog).
Does this make any difference? I get issues when I have done a major clean up
and reboot. Windows Defender loses all its scan history and starts scanning
immediately I logon. This really slows things down.

Also, set pagefile to a fixed size, download pagefile defrag from
www.sysinterals.com and set it to defrag the registry and pagefile at next boot
- then reboot. Does this improve things??

After this run chkdsk on next boot to see if there is a problem with the disk.
Is it FAT32 or NTFS? I presume NTFS but if not try to run a convert as I find
NTFS is more efficient than FAT32.

Have you updated your system BIOS? Checked DELL's site for updated drivers of
any sort. Checked with DELL for any know issues running XP Pro??

Try replacing AV software with AVG free edition.

I found this on Google groups:-

If Windows is managing your wireless card and you have the Intel Proset
Wireless management software.
Switch to the Intel Proset Wireless management and your slow Bootup to
the Novell login screen is cured. Just be sure to re-enter your SSID
info into the Intel Proset Wireless management tool. It was taking up
to two minutes to get to the Novell Login screen before I figured this
one out. I haven't had any problems since.

Let us know know the results of the above when you can

Good luck,


Steve

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2-based machine that is God-awfully slow. Here are
the symptoms:

# Startup takes at least 4-5 mins after I type in my login username/password
# While starting up, nothing responds anywhere, including on the taskbar,
and the system clock shows up after ages
# Starting up applications takes forever - simple apps like IE or Firefox
take anywhere from 1-3 mins to start
# Starting very recently, the harddisk seems to be *frantically* running
almost all the time - grind, grind, grind - even when I'm not running any
applications (the CPU usage is just 1%)
# Right clicking on a file or folder in Explorer brings up the context menu
after 10-15 seconds instead of faster
# In Explorer, when trying to open a folder containing either a large number
of graphic files (such as .ico files) or several large MS Office documents
(each 5-50MB), the system seems to hang/freeze for several minutes
# While starting up (after logging in) the display intermittently blinks off
and on a couple of times (as if it lost power) before stabilizing

Here's my hardware configuration:
My machine is a Dell Latitude D610 running 1GB RAM using a Pentium M 1.86GHz
Processor. It's configured to use about 1.5GB of virtual memory and has about
17 GB free hard disk space. The machine has no attached USB or external
drives. I have a single partition (C of 60GB.

I've run through all the usual things to do:
- Run msconfig and turned off all but the most vital tasks
- I always keep McAfee, Windows Defender and the Windows Firewall turned on
and running with the latest virus definitions
- I've run through McAfee, Windows Defender, CCleaner, Adaware and none of
them showed up anything. I've run TrendMicro's, Panda's, Kaspersky's and
BitDefender's online virus scans and they didn't show up anything either
- My temporary internet files (both in IE 6.0 and Firefox) and Recycle Bin
are cleaned up, and running Disk Cleaner shows that I have very little "crap"
- I've configured my system settings for maximum performance (Control
Panel-System-Advanced-Performance-Settings-Adjust for best performance)
- I've used Process Explorer and Dependency Checker on explorer.exe, and it
does not load any non-Microsoft DLLs
- I've turned off the indexing system using the instructions in the
Microsoft support knowledge base
- I've configured the system to search for DLLs starting from the
Windows/system32 folder instead of the home folder (using the
SafeDllSearchMode) based on instructions in the Microsoft support knowledge
base
- I've not configured or mapped any network drives
- I have pretty fast network connectivity both at work (T1/LAN) and at home
(Cable) and I'm not accessing anything through a proxy
- My CPU usage during [supposedly] idle times is 1% (unless McAfee kicks in)
even though the harddisk seems to be working ALL the time
- I've uninstalled most applications that I haven't used in 3 months
- I'm using Windows Classic Interface from Explorer-Tools-Folder
Options-General tab
- In Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, I've uncheck all the following:
* Automatically search for network folders or printers
* Display file size information in folder tips
* Remember each folder's view settings
* Show popup description for folder and desktop items Additionally, I've
SELECTED "Do not cache thumbnails"
- I've disabled "Allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file
searching" in the Properties window-General tab of C:\
- No files/folder are shared on my system
- I haven't touched the Prefetch registry settings or files in the Prefetch
folder because Windows experts say that it doesn't degrade either startup or
runtime performance

What the devil is wrong? Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm ready to
throw the damn machine and OS out the window and switch to Linux or a Mac.

 

[xxx]

Great news Kunal. Delighted to hear you have greatly improved performance.

I am not keen on McAfee or Norton (both too heavy) and prefer AVG.

I am a but surprised you still need Client for MS Networks on your internet
connection for remote work.

I also do some remote work and my internet connection is ONLY TCP/IP but my VPN
connections include Client for MS Networks. My point being that Client for MS is
not needed at boot time nor for ordinary internet access. Why not try this and
report back??

Steve

 

[Gerry Cornell]

"I degragged the harddisk and the pagefile, and ran a
chkdsk. The HDD was badly fragmented, and the defrag ran for nearly 27
hours. "

Did you runDisk CleanUp before running Disk Defragmenter? Also Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore. Did you run Disk Defragmenter in Safe Mode.
These could reduce the time taken to defragment.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Disabling Client for MS Networks did not adversely affect either my
performance or VPN connectivity.
Thanks!