Computer has slowed down

[Guest]

I had not run application X for 2 months. X is a compute-bound .exe which
took 10 minutes to run, 2 months ago. Now it takes 30 minutes -- my computer
has apparently slowed down by a factor of 3 !

I have checked thoroughly: no viruses, no spyware on the machine. I even
took it down to my local computer vendor, and they could find nothing wrong
either. I have verified that X is the same -- ran it on another computer,
where it still takes only 10 minutes, as before.

I have Windows XP Home Version 2002, SP2.

Any ideas ?

 

[Ron Martell]

I had not run application X for 2 months. X is a compute-bound .exe which
took 10 minutes to run, 2 months ago. Now it takes 30 minutes -- my computer
has apparently slowed down by a factor of 3 !

I have checked thoroughly: no viruses, no spyware on the machine. I even
took it down to my local computer vendor, and they could find nothing wrong
either. I have verified that X is the same -- ran it on another computer,
where it still takes only 10 minutes, as before.

I have Windows XP Home Version 2002, SP2.

Any ideas ?

While the application is running press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up
Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab and the click twice on the
heading of the "CPU" column. That will sort the process list in
descending order based on CPU usage. That may show you something.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Guest]

the more stuff you put into the computer, the more vast your registry
becomes. the more data in your registry, the slower it is.

heres an idea, partition your hard drive and make like a 10gb partition, put
xp in it too, any other programs that play files like realplayer, windows
media player, winamp, etc etc into that drive, but only those type of stuff.
but keep your other data like the video files you have, music files you have,
etc etc, on the larger partition. have your computer by default, boot from
the 10 gb partition, since its registry is smaller and more clean, it should
act like its running from a brand new computer.

 

[Ron Martell]

the more stuff you put into the computer, the more vast your registry
becomes. the more data in your registry, the slower it is.

heres an idea, partition your hard drive and make like a 10gb partition, put
xp in it too, any other programs that play files like realplayer, windows
media player, winamp, etc etc into that drive, but only those type of stuff.
but keep your other data like the video files you have, music files you have,
etc etc, on the larger partition. have your computer by default, boot from
the 10 gb partition, since its registry is smaller and more clean, it should
act like its running from a brand new computer.

Partitioning will not have a measurable effect on the size of the
Windows registry. There is only one registry in Windows and it
contains relevant information about files in all partitions.

Put a file or an installed application onto a partition other than C:
will not reduce the number of registry entries.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."