Need guidance diagnosing increasingly slow PC. Must Win2k typically be reinstalled each year?

[Peter]

I have found that my Windows installation, Win2k at the moment, run
increasingly slowly over time.

Almost everybody I know with a PC tells me much the same thing about
theirs. They always get slower as they age and the only solution seems
to be to reinstall the OS.

I have kept my machine clean, installed the latest MS updates and
regularly ensure Adaware, Spybot and Norton AV report no problems.

The speed issue is presently so bad that MP3 files will not play
without stuttering. As the bad playback is exhibited whatever player I
use (BSPLayer, WinAMP, WMP) I thought maybe it was a codec issue but
then even WAV files stutter.

So now I am in guesswork territory: Is there an IRQ issue, a thread
blocking problem someplace, a driver hogging the system? What do I do?
What tools are available to diagnose and debug a slow running PC.

 

[Rick]

I have found that my Windows installation, Win2k at the moment, run
increasingly slowly over time.

Almost everybody I know with a PC tells me much the same thing about
theirs. They always get slower as they age and the only solution seems
to be to reinstall the OS.

I have kept my machine clean, installed the latest MS updates and
regularly ensure Adaware, Spybot and Norton AV report no problems.

The speed issue is presently so bad that MP3 files will not play
without stuttering. As the bad playback is exhibited whatever player I
use (BSPLayer, WinAMP, WMP) I thought maybe it was a codec issue but
then even WAV files stutter.

So now I am in guesswork territory: Is there an IRQ issue, a thread
blocking problem someplace, a driver hogging the system? What do I do?
What tools are available to diagnose and debug a slow running PC.

There are only four major causes of performance degradation
over time:

1. Disk fragmentation. Keep your drive(s) defragmented.

2. Lack of proper file maintenance (e.g. not clearing out
temporary files periodically, accumulating thousands of files
in a single folder, etc).

3. Legitimate third-party software: drivers, applications,
utilities etc. that install background services or processes
(e.g. antivirus software is notorious for this), or that can
replace default Windows components and settings. E.g. an
IDE driver update that switches data transfer mode from
DMA to PIO.

4. Illegitimate software: spyware, viruses, trojans etc.

 

[Leythos]

I have found that my Windows installation, Win2k at the moment, run
increasingly slowly over time.

Almost everybody I know with a PC tells me much the same thing about
theirs. They always get slower as they age and the only solution seems
to be to reinstall the OS.

I have kept my machine clean, installed the latest MS updates and
regularly ensure Adaware, Spybot and Norton AV report no problems.

The speed issue is presently so bad that MP3 files will not play
without stuttering. As the bad playback is exhibited whatever player I
use (BSPLayer, WinAMP, WMP) I thought maybe it was a codec issue but
then even WAV files stutter.

So now I am in guesswork territory: Is there an IRQ issue, a thread
blocking problem someplace, a driver hogging the system? What do I do?
What tools are available to diagnose and debug a slow running PC.

We don't experience this, but we maintain our systems as follows:

1) Always keep enough free drive space - at last 2GB on every drive

2) Purchase DiskKeeper and run it often

3) Empty TEMP and TEMP INTERNET FILES OFTEN, MOVE Users and OS TEMP to
someplace like D:\TEMP

4) Set IE6 cache for 50MB only and to delete temp files on exit

5) Uninstall old/unused apps and check to see if there is anything that
can be uninstalled monthly.

6) Repeat #1,#2,#3

 

[Peter]

1) Always keep enough free drive space - at last 2GB on every drive

2) Purchase DiskKeeper and run it often

3) Empty TEMP and TEMP INTERNET FILES OFTEN, MOVE Users and OS TEMP to
someplace like D:\TEMP

4) Set IE6 cache for 50MB only and to delete temp files on exit

5) Uninstall old/unused apps and check to see if there is anything that
can be uninstalled monthly.

Thanks for the advice though I routinely do these tasks and yet
Windows ALWAYS get slower over time and nothing I do has ever fixed an
installation bar complete OS reinstallation.

Are there any tools that will examine kernel level activity and spot
bottlenecks, thread blocks etc?

I feel it would become much clearer if I could see a map of the number
of clock cycles spent on each and every process, much like an Intel
VTune report.

 

[Colon Terminus]

I have found that my Windows installation, Win2k at the moment, run
increasingly slowly over time.

Almost everybody I know with a PC tells me much the same thing about
theirs. They always get slower as they age and the only solution seems
to be to reinstall the OS.

The PC I'm using to type this response has been running Windows 2000 for
five years now. It runs 24/7 and I doubt that is has been rebooted five
times in its life. It runs just as fast now as it did in January 2000. The
O/S has never been reloaded, just updated with SP/1 then SP/3 and a few,
select, critical patches. If your machine(s) get slower over time, it's
almost certainly due to an accumulation of scumware.

Check out this site:
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/

If you dig deep enough, you'll see that the two most commonly recommended
anti-scumware tools, Ad Aware and Spybot S&D, are ineffective seperately and
combined.

The bad guys are winning.

 

[nobody]

There are only four major causes of performance degradation
over time:

1. Disk fragmentation. Keep your drive(s) defragmented.

2. Lack of proper file maintenance (e.g. not clearing out
temporary files periodically, accumulating thousands of files
in a single folder, etc).

3. Legitimate third-party software: drivers, applications,
utilities etc. that install background services or processes
(e.g. antivirus software is notorious for this), or that can
replace default Windows components and settings. E.g. an
IDE driver update that switches data transfer mode from
DMA to PIO.

4. Illegitimate software: spyware, viruses, trojans etc.

5. Normal disk fill-up. Outer (first) tracks are faster. This,
however, shouldn't affect performance much once apps and data are
loaded, depending on your memory amount.

But, regarding #1, don't fotget to defrag you pagefile and keep it on
the earlier tracks of (preferably on a separate bus) disk.

#3 Use a startup manager but also disable services that you don't use
or need.

Finally, NAV itself can take a heavy CPU overhead.