Going slow

[Denis Scadeng]

I have Windows XP Home, SP2, Pentium 4 - 3 GHz, 512 MB RAM. I have two
anti-virus programs - Norton and AVG, kept up to date, Ad-Aware, Spybot
Search and Destroy, and MS AntiSpyware. All of these show my system to
be clean. Up to a few days ago I was being hit by 100s of spam emails
and a lot of virus attacks, mainly Sober and Netsky - all were stopped
by the scanner, though, of course, you never know what they didn't catch
but I always run Norton and AVG soon after and have found nothing.

I upgraded and did a clean reinstall last summer. However, recently -
about 6-8 weeks ago - everything started to go slow. Slow to boot up,
slow to open files, slow to do anything with them. Also, I often had
difficulty opening my broadband connection and my wireless mouse gets
very sticky and unresponsive. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of HD
activity so I suspect that it is trying to process stuff and everything
gets caught up in it.

The problem is erratic - sometimes everything is OK, other times not.

Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? It probably isn't the OS and
in any event I can't do a repair install because of SP2 when I put the
disc in it says I have a later system. I may have to do a reformat and
reinstall but would rather avoid that if I can.

Denis

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Please see the following article:

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Denis

Norton and AVG? Is that necessary? Uninstall Norton and listen to your
system breather a sigh of relief!

How much RAM memory? Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and
click the Performance Tab. What is the Total, the Commit Charge and the
Peak?

You may check on pagefile (virtual memory) usage with Page File Monitor for
XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

If you get anything much more than 20 / 30 mb virtual memory usage you
need to add RAM memory. The system uses virtual memory for a
limited number of tasks rather than RAM memory.

Make sure you study the readme.txt file carefully to ensure you get the
utility to work as it should.

Have you installed any "memory boosters" ?

How large is your hard drive? Is it partitioned? How much free space on each
drive / partition? How is the drive / partition formatted -FAT32 or NTFS? To
get this information, whilst in Windows Explorer, place the cursor on each
drive in turn, right click and select Properties.

To increase you free space on your C select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and
remove all but the latest System Restore points? Restore points can be quite
large.

You should use Disk CleanUp regularly to Empty your Recycle Bin and
Remove Temporary Internet Files. Whenever you remove redundant files you
should always run Disk Defragmenter by selecting Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore on
your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right
click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore.
Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time find the
slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get
to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

I would suggest you try cCleaner.
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
http://www.ccleaner.com/

With any cleaner you need to proceed with caution. I invariably
recommend creating a restore point before using cCleaner. cCleaner also
offers backup before removal.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

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

Hi

Please see the following article:

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

--


Will Denny
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups