Troubleshotting a Slow System

[Guest]

Windows XP Pro SR2. Occasionally I have users call me to say that their
systems have begun to run slowly. When I check I find that indeed the
systems are responding sluggishly. What can I do to find out what is slowing
down the system?

For instance, I checked the task manager and looked at the processes. There
was nothing hogging the CPU. The Idle Process was around 98%. I defragged
the disk (which was not that fragmented). I scanned for viruses and
adware/spyware and removed any detected (there were no viruses). I checked
the disk for errors using the tool from system tools. There were no disk
errors reported (but I am not sure exactly how the system reports them if
there are). Yet the system is still sluggish. What else can I do?

Thanks and God bless for any help.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Start here:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm
Some you have tried, but double check, there are other items to check as
well.

 

[jimbo]

Windows XP Pro SR2. Occasionally I have users call me to say that their
systems have begun to run slowly. When I check I find that indeed the
systems are responding sluggishly. What can I do to find out what is slowing
down the system?

For instance, I checked the task manager and looked at the processes. There
was nothing hogging the CPU. The Idle Process was around 98%. I defragged
the disk (which was not that fragmented). I scanned for viruses and
adware/spyware and removed any detected (there were no viruses). I checked
the disk for errors using the tool from system tools. There were no disk
errors reported (but I am not sure exactly how the system reports them if
there are). Yet the system is still sluggish. What else can I do?

Thanks and God bless for any help.

Sounds like you have covered all of the bases. I had a similar
problem. The system took 1 min 30 sec to boot. (My only objective
measure of performance.) I fiddled and worried for several months,
checking this and that when time permitted. Then one day I was doing a
hard drive speed test. (I think it was on PCPitstop.) My hard drive
read speed was about 1/10 of what was expected. To make a long story
short, the drive was in PIO mode rather than DMA. And I found that the
Intel Application Accelerator program was the culprit. When I removed
that program, the drive went to DMA mode and the boot time decreased
to 33 sec.

Good luck, jimbo