PC with XP Slowest I ever saw...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dennis
  • Start date Start date
D

Dennis

I have a pc with a PC Chips motherboard M810LR, 1.3 gig AMD Athlon
processor, and 120 mg ram. If there are three widows open it locks
up and has to be rebooted. It has to be the slowest pc in the world.
It is basically not useable. The hard drive checks out and was zero
written. This is a clean first install of Windows XP Professional.

Under "System Information" at the bottom is this:

Total Physical Memory 128.00 mb
Available physical memory 31.79 mb
Total Virtual Memory 406.71
Available Virtual Memory 245.90
Page File Space 287.39
Page file C:\pagefile sys

What is causing this and how do I fix it.

Any help greatly appreciated...
 
Dennis said:
I have a pc with a PC Chips motherboard M810LR, 1.3 gig AMD Athlon
processor, and 120 mg ram. If there are three widows open it locks
up and has to be rebooted. It has to be the slowest pc in the world.
It is basically not useable. The hard drive checks out and was zero
written. This is a clean first install of Windows XP Professional.

Under "System Information" at the bottom is this:

Total Physical Memory 128.00 mb
Available physical memory 31.79 mb
Total Virtual Memory 406.71
Available Virtual Memory 245.90
Page File Space 287.39
Page file C:\pagefile sys

What is causing this and how do I fix it.

Any help greatly appreciated...

That thing is running on virtual memory 10 seconds after it boots up.
Virtual memory is slow. XP takes more ram then you have there. At least 256
and if you can 512 or more.
 
It had (2)128 mb in it and I thought there might be a conflict between
them causing it to be slow. I took one out and it made no difference.
I'll put it back in but it will likely still not be enough...
 
looks like your PC is running with an on-board Display Adapter. Go to BIOS
and give it more than the 8Mb that it would appear to have given:

Total Physical Memory 128.00 mb and that you also report:
1.3 gig AMD Athlon processor, and 120 mg ram

You can adjust this in BIOS.

Also you should review the Display Adapter Properties and set the colour
depth back down to 16bit from 24bit as it will speed up Window 'drawing' and
'refresh'.

Check also in Device Manager for any other devices that may have a Yellow
Exclamation Mark next to them which would indicate an error, usually an
incorrect driver. Also check there to see if Xp has installed a generic
display adapter driver or the specific one for your PC [review the Manual to
identify the model and type of your adapter].

Another item to consider, is IF you have a separate Display Adapter [plug-in
card], then diable the on-board card in BIOS and plug the Monitor into the
plug-in adapter.
 
Added 128 mg memory and it is still as slow as STP in the winter.
It now says:

Total Physical Memory 256.00 mb
Available physical memory 160.29 mb
Total Virtual Memory 660.64
Available Virtual Memory 499.60
Page File Space 413.28
Page file C:\pagefile sys
 
NEED RAM!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
I know of two PCs running Windows XP professional for several years
now with no problem on 1 stick of 256 mb memory. Never one problem
like this...
 
Yeah! OK. It's your choice! Having repaired many computers I have first hand
knowledge as to what the benefits of more RAM are.

You have to live with what you have if you can't afford more.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Denis

Found this comment about the power supply. However, I do not know how
you check it out.
http://radel.inet.net.nz/m810lmr.html

You might try updating all drivers. Also housekeeping is very important
after major system changes.

Poor system performance can be the result of a single problem or a
combination of factors. Listed
below are issues, which you may wish to examine if you are experiencing
poor performance after
the boot process has completed. Some items may help with slow starting
of Windows XP but the
list has not been prepared for tackling that problem. Work through the
list until you achieve an
acceptable result.

Regular and effective housekeeping is essential. What you do and how
often you do it will depend
on how you use your computer. A suggested routine may include:

1. In Outlook Express empty your Deleted Items folder.
2. In Outlook Express run File, Folder, Compact All whilst OFFLINE.
3. Run Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk
Cleanup with
Temporary Internet Files, Offline Web Pages (optional), System Restore
( more Options tab )
and Recycle Bin selected for deletion. If you have more than one drive /
partition you may
need to do this operation for each drive / partition.
4. Remove Cookies. Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, General,
Delete Cookies.
5. Run Disk Defragmenter.

Check whether you could reduce the number of days the History of sites
visited is retained. Start,
Control Panel, Internet Options, General, History.

Spyware causes many problems. If not installed download Adaware and / or
update Reference file
from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/ and use it to remove
parasites. If Spyware
persists as a problem try a Hosts file.
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

Slow performance resulting from insufficient memory, causing over
reliance on virtual memory,
may be especially noticed by those upgrading to Windows XP from an
earlier version of Windows.
Windows XP will run with 64 MB of RAM memory. However, a minimum of 256
MB is
recommended and many users will recommend 512 MB. You may check on
pagefile (virtual
memory) usage with Page File Monitor for XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

Check how much free space you have on the hard drive / partition where
your pagefile is located.
You need a minimum of 15% but 20% or more is better.

Check your setting for the Indexing Service. Start, Administrative
Tools, Services, Indexing
Service. The default setting is Manual. Check that it is not running.
More information here:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#Indexing_Service

You can have too many programmes running in the background. Close
programmes/windows after
use. Check whether all the programmes loading when Windows is started
are really necessary.
http://aumha.org/a/loads.htm
Check whether you can identify slow performance with a particular
programme. Look in Google to
see whether others have encountered the same problem and found a
solution.
http://groups.google.com/

Are there any error messages in Event Viewer? You can access Event
Viewer by selecting Start,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of
the error, information
regarding Event ID: and Source Description is important.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&Product=winxp

~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I put this memory and processor on a different board in a new case
and it runs great. Apparently memory amount was not the problem.
I'm using all the same drives.
 

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