Reason for a pretty slow XP machine ?

[Peter]

We get a 4 year old XP machine and it is getting slow. The HD is always
being accessed (The light is flashing). Some fellow suggests that it is the
slow HD and some one suggests that the memory is not sufficient and paging
all the time.

We have started Performance Monitor and get some rough information when it
is slow
1) Available Memory is around 18MB
2) Average Disk Queue Length is 1.281 and Max is 4.6
3) Average Paging File is 30%

We would like to know what is Disk Queue Length ?

Thanks

 

[DL]

Slow PC can be caused by any or all;
1) Its infected with malaware/trojans - these are not neccessarily detected
by anti virus apps
2) Low free disk space
3) Incorrect drivers installed
4) To little memory
5) Damage winxp files
6) Applications running in the background

So how much memory does your sys have
Whats the free space
Have you scanned for malaware, and with what

 

[Bob I]

Have you checked that the drive is being accessed using DMA as opposed
to PIO. If there have been drive read errors the system will revert to
PIO, slowing all access down. Look in Device Manager on the Primary IDE
channel Properties, Advanced for the mode it is actually using. IF it's
PIO, remove and reinstall the IDE channel in Device Manager.

 

[Peter]

Dear Bob,

I recall that we have this problem since we install Norton Antivirus 2007 on
it.

The HD is already in DMA mode.

Peter

 

[Daave]

Norton is a well-known memory hog. And if you don't have much RAM
installed, that might very well explain your poor performance.

 

[Bob I]

OH, that would be the "resource allocation problem" that Symantec keeps
claiming that they are "fixing" in the "next release". Replace that
software with something a little more computer friendly like AVG from
Grisoft.