XP Pro Running Slowwwww

[Nat]

I've noticed that my computer running XP Pro now takes forever to open up a
simple text document. I open up the Task Manager and notice that the CPU
utilization jumps to 100% for at least 30 seconds before the file is open.
And I'm not talking about huge files - anywhere from 50-100K. Any ideas of
what's causing this?

 

[R. McCarty]

The #1 reason for loss of PC performance is
drive fragmentation. The Windows built-in Defrag utility
is adequate, but more comprehensive defrag is available.
I personally use and recommend Raxco's Perfect Disk.
You can download a fully functional 30-day trial from
their website http://raxco.com. If you download the trial
read the instructions as there are two distinct types of
defrag runs, Boot-Time and GUI based. Both should be
run to get you back to maximum drive performance.

 

[Philip Wagstaff]

My XP Home is ok once its running but it is the booting up and closing down
that takes an age. I'm sure it's taking much longer than when I first
started using it. I've checked the startup file and there's little in it.
Any thoughts much appreciated.

 

[RayO]

I've seen this sort of hanging in XP quite often,
except that the CPU is often not doing anything.
It occurs even when I've completely disabled
any virus scan; and tends to occur more frequently
when I'm doing plenty of multi-tasking, bunch of
apps and documents just sitting in the background
doing nothing.

XP then just sits there for a while before opening what
it was supposed to open 10-30 seconds prior,
It occurs very intermittently, though much too
often for comfort. I see no rhyme or reason in this
behaviour, except to conclude that there are problems
inherent with XP itself. The machine is a 2.53GHz/512MB,
and XP is configured for speed.

I had similar experiences with NT, prior to the last 2 service packs,
and even with Win2k, prior to SP 2, though not as bad. Funny how
it all stopped after a few service packs! It took MS a few years to
get these right, probably same goes for XP.


RayO