XP running *really* slow

C

Christoph

Lately, my XP has been running *really* slow. When I open
the task manager, it's showing the CPU usage as a very low
percentage. However, when I try to open applications, switch
windows, move the mouse, etc, it takes a very long time to do
anything. And the longer it's been since I've rebooted, the
slower my XP gets.
I've run Ad-aware, Spybot, anti-virus, etc - basically the whole
gauntlet in trying to determine exactly what is causing the slow
down. None of the aforementioned apps found any problems
aside from a few cookies.

While I understand that you guys cannot diagnose my problem
with the little bit of information I've provided above, I am hoping
that you guys can tell me where to look to try to find out what
is causing everything to run very slowly even though my CPU
usage is very low.

thnx,
Christoph
 
D

Dana Brash

Hi Christoph,

You can try running Performance Monitor to see what's happening more
clearly. Progressive degredation like you've described could be many
things, if I had to guess I'd probably say memory leak.

But to be sure, add some counters in Performance monitor (Start > Run >
perfmon)

HTH,
=d=
 
C

Christoph

You can try running Performance Monitor to see what's happening more
clearly. Progressive degredation like you've described could be many
things, if I had to guess I'd probably say memory leak.
But to be sure, add some counters in Performance monitor (Start > Run >
perfmon)
Click to expand...

Ok, I added the counters. What am I looking for? What's a good value
for these counters and what's a bad value?

thnx,
Christoph
 
D

Dana Brash

Hi Christoph,

In XP, the default counters in SYSTEM monitor (perfmon ~ sorry for the name
confusion) should tell you quite a bit about what's going on, and are set up
to be very intuitive. They've set up the 3 common areas for you to review:
Memory, PhysicalDisk, and Processor. Basically, if the graph shows high,
that object is working hard. If something is working too hard, it could be a
bottle neck. If any one of these is particularly high, you can add more
counters under that performance object to explore what the problem actually
might be.

Rather than re-create the wheel, I'm going to refer you to the helpfiles
included in the MMC as they're actually quite thorough for more information
on using System Monitor.

However, if you want to solve your problem, some other folks have responded
and made some great suggestions on generally cleaning up and tuning your
system. I suspect that by following the steps they've recommended you'll
manage to get your system working smoothly again. You may not know exactly
what or why, but good system maintenance is important anyway and if it works
that's good enough, yes?

HTH,
=d=
 
G

Guest

What is your RAM? To run properly, you'll need a minimum of 256megs, 512megs
is recommended.
 
R

Richard

Christoph said:
Lately, my XP has been running *really* slow. When I open
the task manager, it's showing the CPU usage as a very low
percentage. However, when I try to open applications, switch
windows, move the mouse, etc, it takes a very long time to do
anything. And the longer it's been since I've rebooted, the
slower my XP gets.
I've run Ad-aware, Spybot, anti-virus, etc - basically the whole
gauntlet in trying to determine exactly what is causing the slow
down. None of the aforementioned apps found any problems
aside from a few cookies.

While I understand that you guys cannot diagnose my problem
with the little bit of information I've provided above, I am hoping
that you guys can tell me where to look to try to find out what
is causing everything to run very slowly even though my CPU
usage is very low.

thnx,
Christoph
Click to expand...

You have not said what your computer is nor what changes or updates you have
installed. There are many things that could cause a progressive slow down
there are others that cause a sudden loss of performance. For example if
your machine is a particular notebook computer and you have just installed
Windows SP2 there is a known problem and a couple of workarounds that will
restore performance are available.

Have a look at My Computer, Properties,General to see if the CPU speed
reported is the same as what it "says on the tin".

Richard.
 
S

SlowJet

Ahem, XP doesn't run slow. It runs as fast as the cpu and memory will allow.
The cpu doesn't run slow. It runs as fast as it can when work is available
to do.

The Cpu is going to wait until there is something to do.
It can't do anything until that something to do is in memory.

If the cpu has more to do that it can process it will run at 100%. and time
will be added to the processes.
If the memory is not enough to hold all the processes that need to run, the
cpu will need to page data and code, to and from the disk.

The paging uses cpu, memory, and causes waits on the disk.

If the memory (and cpu) are near or less than what is needed to hold the
working set of what is running you will get a page / swap thrashing
condition.
The more this occurs the more reads and writes the disk does so the wait
time is added to the process run time.

When these limits constrict the acual OS elements and or drive set, the OS
is the process waiting, and thus all processes are waiting.

Because you ran the clean up and checks, and you say the mouse and programs
loads slow the computer down then it is most likely because your cpu is not
fast enough for the work to be done.

Memory - you need 256 MB min, because the memory working set of XP is over
128 MB. 512 MB would be better because it would give extra file cache.

The more the devices need to work the more the cpu could be used to transfer
data to and from memory.

If the disk is not bus mastered than all data is moved by the cpu.

If the video card is not ...
If the video card and driver is old, mouse interaction can be affected and
use more cpu.

If you are using fat32 some cpu overhead is used to transverse through
directoies (over and over again.)

If your disk drive is less than 20 GB or an older 20 GB, it is running at
1/9th the speed of today's common ATA100 drives.

There may indeed be a problem with a program leaking memory which would make
all of the above increase over time.

But my guess is that your computer will not get any faster than it is for
the first few minutes after boot up.

SJ
 
C

Christoph

Because you ran the clean up and checks, and you say the mouse and
programs
loads slow the computer down then it is most likely because your cpu is not
fast enough for the work to be done.
Memory - you need 256 MB min, because the memory working set of XP is over
128 MB. 512 MB would be better because it would give extra file cache.
Click to expand...

Well, my CPU is running at 2.17Ghz and I've got 512mb of RAM.
If the disk is not bus mastered than all data is moved by the cpu.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what this means.
If you are using fat32 some cpu overhead is used to transverse through
directoies (over and over again.)
Click to expand...

I am using NTFS
If your disk drive is less than 20 GB or an older 20 GB, it is running at
1/9th the speed of today's common ATA100 drives.
Click to expand...

I believe my drive controllers are ATAultra133

thnx,
Christoph
 
S

SlowJet

Well, now that I know I'm in a different ballpark.
You have a failling disk or your motherboard has got problems.

If you have one of those cpu with bad firmware or one that slows down when
running on battery power it would have different symptoms.

So it is not the CPU, not the memory.
It is not a bad driver.
It is not the OS.
I is not the programs or they would be crashing or showing up in task man as
busy and growing.

It could be a bad cable on the disk, or a bad IDE controller but not likely.

It could too many shared IRQ's. It could be a hot device like a USB port
shared with a main device but not likely.


What's left, a board bug or a failing disk.
Have you installed the newset board drivers and bios from the MFG?

Try a differnt disk with a new cable.
If that is the same it is the MOBO, if it runs like the wind, it is the
disk.

SJ
 
G

Guest

i had same problem whid slow computer and i tryed everything but the best
fore me whas a friend took hees computer to me and i tankt that i wontde to
save then we took awaw everything and instal windows from the begining and it
workd but after a while it become slow again i think fore me frends loded
home htings to my computer that i diddent know how to use or why so atleest
it get to much and its no use to try to fix it so now i have bought a nother
one and htis is nowboddy tuch only lisend to music and messenger and
informations you need to know on internet
 
G

Guest

You should check the Performance Manager for problems of your PC. The reason
that your PC is slow that the files are fragmented, HD is full of junk, or
many programs that aren't used frequently. You should run Disk Defragmentor
to defrag files so that it can improve speed on programs or the system
itself. When you open Disk Defrag, you should click Analyze before you can
defrag your system, if it is full, then click Defrag and it'll take minutes
depending on the fragmented files on your hard drive. After it's finish,
speed can increase up to 50% or more. The other reason is that Windows is
slow is that your hard drive is messy, you should run Disk Cleanup to delete
any unnecessary files on the hard drive. You'll choose stuff to clear files
in your PC so that it can reduce problems and improve HD space, performance,
and stability. If you have many unused programs on your computer, you can go
to Start and click on Set Program Access and Defaults and check programs that
are rarely used. If you have many unused programs, you can uninstall it and
it can improve stability and hard drive space. The other reason is that the
registry is full of entries that is from programs that are uninstalled.
Changing the Registry is hard and needs computer experience. There are
third-party system maintaince software to clean the hard drive and fix errors
 

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