Slow performance since installing SP2

[Richard Taylor]

I have recently installed SP2 on my daughter's laptop and
the computer is now extremely sluggish when trying to run
any applications. I have noticed that the CPU
is "working hard" a lot of the time, even with no
applications running. The laptop was fine before
installing SP2. I have checked for and removed some
spyware and the virus scan is clear. The machine has a
1.6GHz processor and 256M RAM. It is only 2 months old.
Do you think extra RAM would help?

 

[Quaoar]

I have recently installed SP2 on my daughter's laptop and
the computer is now extremely sluggish when trying to run
any applications. I have noticed that the CPU
is "working hard" a lot of the time, even with no
applications running. The laptop was fine before
installing SP2. I have checked for and removed some
spyware and the virus scan is clear. The machine has a
1.6GHz processor and 256M RAM. It is only 2 months old.
Do you think extra RAM would help?

Extra ram will help in general, but try a few things first. Run Disk
Cleanup, and defrag. Check available HD space - 1G is a comfort zone.
Check this site for additional:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

Q

 

[Guest]

Please try some basics ...

Clean Temporary Internet Files, Cookies and other temporary files:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindowstempfiles.htm

Check for errors and defragment hard drive:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindowsharddrive.htm

Clean Windows Startup and hidden Startup:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/optimizewindowsstartup.htm

Spyware/Virus Removal and Prevention:
http://www.fixyourwindows.com/windowsxpsolutions.htm
(Links to online virus scans on the same page)

Check Event Viewer (Start - > Settings -> Control Panel - >
Administrative Tools - > Event Viewer) for possible errors.

Good Luck!

 

[Lorie A]

I'm keeping an eye on this post! I installed SP-2 2 days
ago, and my lightning fast computer has gone to a crawl.
The real interesting part is, it's not all the time. I'm
very anal about keeping my disk de-fragged, and my
updates current, so I know that isn't the problem. At
this moment I'm fine, but tomarrow, it may be a snail's
pace again.
Can't wait to see what happens with your post!
Good luck to us all!

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Werner_Tr=F6ger?=]

I have recently installed SP2 on my daughter's laptop and
the computer is now extremely sluggish when trying to run
any applications. I have noticed that the CPU
is "working hard" a lot of the time, even with no
applications running. The laptop was fine before
installing SP2. I have checked for and removed some
spyware and the virus scan is clear. The machine has a
1.6GHz processor and 256M RAM. It is only 2 months old.
Do you think extra RAM would help?

Hello, i had the same problem. After short time my Laptop (Gericom 1st
Supersonic M6T, 1200MHz, 384 MB RAM) started to work and the cpu-performance
was used to 100 %. After some days i decided to just let it work till it may
stop - and it did! I think, it´s the prefetch funktion. Just try to let it
work - maybe it works for you too.

Yours
Werner Tröger

 

[Richard Taylor]

Fixed it!

After much research I found the solution on the Dell Users
Forum. Apparently this is a known problem with applying
the SP2 update to some Dell Inspiron laptops. (My
daughter's is a 1150.)

It seems the service pack replaces the processor driver
with one which causes the processor to run at about 15% of
its rated speed! (About 300MHz instead of 2.1GHz.) No
wonder it was crawling along!

I followed the instructions to "roll back" the processor
driver to the previous one and the computer is now fully
back up to speed. (The other solution would have been to
un-install SP2.)

I am a bit displeased that Dell did not test their
machines with SP2 and have not issued any warnings /
advice.

Regards

Richard