System very slow

[Ray C.]

I recently upgrade my PC from a Celeron @ 400MHz with 160 Mb ram, running
Windows XP pro, to a Pentium 4 @ 1.6GHz with 128 Mb ram, running Windows XP
pro. For some reason the Celeron runs noticably faster than the P4 even
though both are set up nearly identical as far as software, and visual
settings go. Is there something obvious that I'm overlooking that could be
the cause of the P4 system being so slow?

TIA,

Ray

 

[WIRED]

I recently upgrade my PC from a Celeron @ 400MHz with 160 Mb ram, running
Windows XP pro, to a Pentium 4 @ 1.6GHz with 128 Mb ram, running Windows XP
pro. For some reason the Celeron runs noticably faster than the P4 even
though both are set up nearly identical as far as software, and visual
settings go. Is there something obvious that I'm overlooking that could be
the cause of the P4 system being so slow?

TIA,

Ray

128 Megs of ram is IMO isn't even capable of running Windows XP
properly, much less applications you may install.

If you want to speed it up, buy yourself a couple of sticks of
ram. If money was an object in the upgrade, you would have been
much better off decreasing the speed of the processor and using
those savings to greatly increase the amount of RAM.

 

[Ray C.]

128 Megs of ram is IMO isn't even capable of running Windows XP
properly, much less applications you may install.

If you want to speed it up, buy yourself a couple of sticks of
ram. If money was an object in the upgrade, you would have been
much better off decreasing the speed of the processor and using
those savings to greatly increase the amount of RAM.

Money was not an issue, the PC was given to me at the time it's user decided
to leave the company. It was offered to me as an upgrade, and I figured
with the credentals it had, it would be much faster that what I was using.

After reading your response I went and looked at the credentials for one of
the fastest PC's in my department, a Pentium 4 @ 1.7GHz also with 128 Mb of
ram, it smokes my PC hands down also running XP pro, so go figure?

Ray

 

[WIRED]

Money was not an issue, the PC was given to me at the time it's user decided
to leave the company. It was offered to me as an upgrade, and I figured
with the credentals it had, it would be much faster that what I was using.

After reading your response I went and looked at the credentials for one of
the fastest PC's in my department, a Pentium 4 @ 1.7GHz also with 128 Mb of
ram, it smokes my PC hands down also running XP pro, so go figure?

Ray

Wow. Actually this is not the first time I've heard of a company
purchasing heavy duty processors with the minimum amount of ram
needed to start the computer.

Why they skimp on the ram, is beyond me. However, the computer
you are using could have much more fluff turned on than the one
you compared it to. Check what services are on and turn off
anything you don't need.

Check what programs are starting with your computer also. Don't
allow anything unneccesary to start. You can do that through
msconfig.

There are several other tweaks for XP you can use to speed it up.
And one such site can be found here :
http://www.windowsxpatoz.com/cgi-bin/performance/index.cgi

 

[Ray C.]

Wow. Actually this is not the first time I've heard of a company
purchasing heavy duty processors with the minimum amount of ram
needed to start the computer.

Why they skimp on the ram, is beyond me. However, the computer
you are using could have much more fluff turned on than the one
you compared it to. Check what services are on and turn off
anything you don't need.

Check what programs are starting with your computer also. Don't
allow anything unneccesary to start. You can do that through
msconfig.

There are several other tweaks for XP you can use to speed it up.
And one such site can be found here :
http://www.windowsxpatoz.com/cgi-bin/performance/index.cgi

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out...

 

[Alex Nichol]

I recently upgrade my PC from a Celeron @ 400MHz with 160 Mb ram, running
Windows XP pro, to a Pentium 4 @ 1.6GHz with 128 Mb ram, running Windows XP
pro. For some reason the Celeron runs noticably faster than the P4 even
though both are set up nearly identical as far as software, and visual
settings go.

You have come down in RAM size - 160 is marginal, 128 is really too
small. Give the machine some more RAM - making sure it is accurately
matched to what you have - windows is fussy about that. For example I
have just added some to my machine; Crucial suggested modules with
either 'CAS L' at 2 or at 3 - I needed to check what I had and get the
same value. I suggest another 128 at least , 256 would give you elbow
room