SP2 Slows Dell GX PCs to a crawl

[Guest]

Before deploying to the enterprise i setup a test lab of 6 XP pcs. Five of
the PCs came to a crawl after the SP2 update. (DELL GX260, 270, and 280s)
I reinstalled XP pro from scratch, installed the Dell drivers, jointed our
domain, and rebooted. Everything worked well.

Then installed SP2. Now we are back to snail pace (2-4 minute login times).
Once the desktop appears I am able to click START, CONTROL PANELS, then the
snail pace starts again. 2 minutes for the control panels to appear.

No other software is installed, no antiviurs or 3rd party firewalls.

CTRL-ALT-DEL works at regular speeds, Idle process is at 99%, no HD activity
or network activity.

If I boot into safe mode and remove SP2, the speed issue goes away.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Guest]

It's probably a RAM issue. I don't know anything about your models but Del
typically uses little RAM (128-256mb). My parents computer came with 256 and
once I installed SP2, it nearly halted. I put another 256mb of RAM in it and
it works fine (well as fine as a Dell can work). Dell, like almost every
other computer manufacturer, always loads their PCs with the most useless
junk. Press Ctr-Alt-Del and click the performance tab and see how much of
the RAM is being used, mine will usually use about 100-128 without any
programs running. My parents will usually be pretty close. If the usage is
much beyond this, try terminating all the processes except these:

alg.exe - 3,284k
crss.exe - 3,248k
ctfmon.exe - 3,760k
explorer.exe - 14,996k
lsass.exe - 1,012k
services.exe - 3,824k
smss.exe - 372k
svchost.exe (5 instances) - 28,450k
System - 212k
System Idle Process - 16k
winlogon.exe (I think this can be terminated) - 928k

If the RAM usage is nearer to the 100mb range, then Dell is probably booting
a buch of useless junk like technical support and blah blah blah... To fix
this, use Advanced Startup Manager
(http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/Advanced-StartUp-Manager.shtml)
and remove all the programs that are starting-up with Windows except for ones
that you want to startup. Best of luck.

 

[Guest]

I performed a clean install of XP, no dell apps (loaded dell drivers). 84Mb
are in use, 400MB available. Still slow.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Guest]

Is that 84mb of RAM or 84mb of page file? If it's RAM, what's the page file
usage (under Task Manager > Performace)?