system dawned slow

[Sydney]

The HP Pavilion ZE4208s is dawn slow.

I re installed the whole system starting after erasing everything and
reformating.

System seemed OK, but after all the Microsoft software updates slow again.

Memtest showed no errors.
I am out of ideas !

 

[mike]

The HP Pavilion ZE4208s is dawn slow.

I re installed the whole system starting after erasing everything and
reformating.

System seemed OK, but after all the Microsoft software updates slow again.

Looks pretty conclusive to me. Don't install the update that makes it slow.

 

[who?]

The HP Pavilion ZE4208s is dawn slow.

I re installed the whole system starting after erasing everything and
reformating.

System seemed OK, but after all the Microsoft software updates slow again.

Memtest showed no errors.
I am out of ideas !

Take a look in task manager .. maybe some process is hogging the CPU or
loading up the Memory.

 

[Sydney]

Looks pretty conclusive to me. Don't install the update that makes it
slow.

This is a whole bunch of updates Microsoft has issued from 2003 to 2010 !

 

[mike]

This is a whole bunch of updates Microsoft has issued from 2003 to 2010 !

Nobody said using microsoft OS was easy.
There's no substitute for determining the cause of the problem.
You can also turn off groups of background processes to see if that
helps you narrow the search.
Virus scanners and firewalls are resource hogs.

IMHO, you will never be happy with XP at 256MB if you expect a FAST
system. If you have a slow disk, memory size is critically important.
I can only assume it's XP.

What I do is
Install 512MB of ram if I'm not running many OR big programs...1GB if I am.
2GB if I expect to run virtual machines.
Install the original OS.
Install SP3.
Turn off ALL updates.

 

[who?]

Nobody said using microsoft OS was easy.
There's no substitute for determining the cause of the problem.
You can also turn off groups of background processes to see if that helps
you narrow the search.
Virus scanners and firewalls are resource hogs.

IMHO, you will never be happy with XP at 256MB if you expect a FAST
system. If you have a slow disk, memory size is critically important.
I can only assume it's XP.

What I do is
Install 512MB of ram if I'm not running many OR big programs...1GB if I
am.
2GB if I expect to run virtual machines.
Install the original OS.
Install SP3.
Turn off ALL updates.

Increase RAM is a very good idea
Turning off automatic updates is a very bad idea .. for security

 

[Sydney]

Take a look in task manager .. maybe some process is hogging the CPU or
loading up the Memory.

No process in task manager is consuming apreciable memory...
I read there there are 249 Mo used memory out of 478 Mo total;

Physical memory is 191 Mo. at rest (only the desktop) the highest memory
cummer is ashServ.exe (Avast) for
16.6 Mo.
What do you think ?

 

[GT]

The HP Pavilion ZE4208s is dawn slow.

I re installed the whole system starting after erasing everything and
reformating.

System seemed OK, but after all the Microsoft software updates slow again.

Memtest showed no errors.
I am out of ideas !

What Virus software are you running? McAfee by any chance?

 

[who?]

No process in task manager is consuming apreciable memory...
I read there there are 249 Mo used memory out of 478 Mo total;

Physical memory is 191 Mo. at rest (only the desktop) the highest memory
cummer is ashServ.exe (Avast) for
16.6 Mo.
What do you think ?

I had a Dell laptop to look at which was slow, a clean install fixed the
problem to a large extent (it had very tough virus), but I also found a
little program running, reinstalled with the OS that slowed down text
appearing on screen. This gave the impression that the laptop was slow.

What you can do to find a problematic process is stop a process in task
manager, then see how the computer responds. Just work through them one at a
time. It may help to uninstall your AV to start with. Just don't go crazy
trawling the internet without AV running.

 

[mike]

Increase RAM is a very good idea
Turning off automatic updates is a very bad idea .. for security

Since I turned off automatic updates on ALL programs, I've never had my
system
crash or behave badly because of some unknown automatic update.
One should always know what got updated and when...so you can know what to
fix when something breaks. Last thing you want is 100 programs modifying
your system any time they want. I only update when it gets me some new
capability that I can't do without...although I did install the
confiker worm patches.

Security is blown all out of proportion.
If you care about your computer getting invaded, back it up.
If you care about your personal information, don't put it unencrypted on
your computer.
Run antivirus and a firewall with outgoing protection.
Stay out of the porn sites and you'll be fine.

 

[Sydney]

Nobody said using microsoft OS was easy.
There's no substitute for determining the cause of the problem.
You can also turn off groups of background processes to see if that helps
you narrow the search.
Virus scanners and firewalls are resource hogs.

IMHO, you will never be happy with XP at 256MB if you expect a FAST
system. If you have a slow disk, memory size is critically important.
I can only assume it's XP.

What I do is
Install 512MB of ram if I'm not running many OR big programs...1GB if I
am.
2GB if I expect to run virtual machines.
Install the original OS.
Install SP3.
Turn off ALL updates.

The Pc was with 128 Mb of RAM when bought.
nevertheless i keep your ideas for later. I want first to investigate the
other answers .
Thanks

 

[Sydney]

Take a look in task manager .. maybe some process is hogging the CPU or
loading up the Memory.

No difference in taking off the starting programs of msconfig

 

[Sydney]

What Virus software are you running? McAfee by any chance?

avast

 

[Sydney]

The Pc was with 128 Mb of RAM when bought.
nevertheless i keep your ideas for later. I want first to investigate the
other answers .
Thanks

Here what I have done in the end. I remove some of the updates which could
be removed.
The log of system events showed regularly an error with the avast scan of
web. i turned it off and the situation improved drasticaly
Thanks to all