win xp sp3

[Larry]

Just wondering, is sp3 eating up all my ram or not. Since windows updated
it to my pc, The pc is painfully slow, (like 6 minutes to reach my desktop,
or is somthing else going on. On my disk space I still have 84% available.
The ram I have is just 520 mg, so this might the problem? Any advice
Thank you in advance Larry

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Run Disk Cleanup | Run a Defrag session | Reboot several times.

Free unlimited installation and compatibility support is available for
Windows XP, but only for Service Pack 3 (SP3), until 14 Apr-09. Chat and
e-mail support is available only in the United States and Canada.

• US:
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• CA:
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• UK:
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• Other: http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?gprid=1173 | select
Windows XP | select Windows XP Service Pack 3

 

[Mike]

520MB?!! Don't even think about it with less than 2GB

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

Horse Hockey!!!

: 520MB?!! Don't even think about it with less than 2GB
:
:

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Just wondering, is sp3 eating up all my ram or not. Since windows updated
it to my pc, The pc is painfully slow, (like 6 minutes to reach my desktop,
or is somthing else going on. On my disk space I still have 84% available.
The ram I have is just 520 mg, so this might the problem?

Several points:

1. Wanting to minimize the amount of memory Windows uses is a
counterproductive desire. Windows is designed to use all, or most, of
your memory, all the time, and that's good not bad. Free memory is
wasted memory. You paid for it all and shouldn't want to see any of it
wasted.

Windows works hard to find a use for all the memory you have all the
time. For example if your apps don't need some of it, it will use that
part for caching, then give it back when your apps later need it. In
this way Windows keeps all your memory working for you all the time.

2. Is the computer just slow to boot, or is it also slow after
booting?

3. You say "The ram I have is just 520 mg." I assume you mean 512MB.
For most people, that's fine. How much RAM you need for good
performance is *not* a one-size-fits-all situation. You get good
performance if the amount of RAM you have keeps you from using the
page file, and that depends on what apps you run. Most people running
a typical range of business applications find that somewhere around
256-384MB works well, others need 512MB.

 

[Larry]

Hello Ken Blake I appoligize, yes I ment 512 mb of ram. The pc is slow
to boot and open apps. as well. I use the disk cleaner each day I defrag
every day. I have software called advanced windows care v-2 personnal I use
each day, along with it's memory cleaner. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded
AVG 8.0 free, ran the scan and after an hour the results was 24568 warnings
of possible infections. I used the clean button to remove all of these, don't
know if that was the right thing to do. My pc's software is nothing all that
spectacular, Quicken 2005, Openoffice 2.4, Mozillia Firefox, Broderbund, ( a
will making app.) and family search ( a geneology app.) Thats about all I
use. So I don't know what is going on. If it help's my disk space is 37 gb
with 84% free Larry

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello Ken Blake I appoligize, yes I ment 512 mb of ram. The pc is slow
to boot and open apps. as well. I use the disk cleaner each day I defrag
every day. I have software called advanced windows care v-2 personnal I use
each day, along with it's memory cleaner. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded
AVG 8.0 free, ran the scan and after an hour the results was 24568 warnings
of possible infections.

That's an *enormous* number. If you were that badly infected, there's
an excellent chance that not everything was cleaned properly, and you
are still infected.

I'm usually very reluctant to recommend that someone reformat and
clean install, but with a system that badly compromised, that's likely
your best course.

 

[Larry]

Ken Those items that AVG picked up, Those were warnings of possably harmful
threats. Were these really viruses???????

 

[Larry]

Ken I also forget to mention that I did a hijackthis scan and sent the log
file to a web site called Tech Guys for their inspection, a little while ago,
this afternoon 5/14/08 Larry

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken Those items that AVG picked up, Those were warnings of possably harmful
threats. Were these really viruses???????

I haven't seen the report AVG generated, so I have no way of knowing
the answer to that question. Nevertheless that's an enormous number;
if 90% of them were false positives and only 10% were real, 245
infections is still an enormous number.

Do you remember anything about what they were? If they were all just
cookies, for example, I wouldn't worry about it. Most other things
should be taken seriously.

 

[Larry]

Hey Ken; if I remenber right all but 1 were tracking cookies, the one was a
virus and AVG removed all of them. I don't know if I'm dealing with a ram
problem, a virus problem, but somthing is eating ram and CPU, most of the
time I only have 36% available of CPU until I do a memory cleaning with
advanced windows care v-2 personnel

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hey Ken; if I remenber right all but 1 were tracking cookies,

OK, I wish you had said that earlier. In that case, disregard my
earlier comment. Certainly don't reformat and reinstall for a bunch of
tracking cookies.

the one was a
virus and AVG removed all of them.

OK.


I don't know if I'm dealing with a ram
problem,

You mean defective RAM? Unlikely.

a virus problem,

Probably not. You mentioned AVG as your anti-virus program, but I
don't remember your saying anything about anti-spyware software.
Unless you have good anti-spyware protection, that's the next thing I
would suspect.

but somthing is eating ram

"Eating RAM," as you call is not any problem at all. See my earlier
comment about this, quoted below.

and CPU, most of the
time I only have 36% available of CPU until I do a memory cleaning with
advanced windows care v-2 personnel

Ugh! Products like this are all snake oil and if you are using this,
it wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be the cause of your
problems. I see that it includes a registry cleaner. Here's my
standard advice on registry cleaners:

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

That's an *enormous* number. If you were that badly infected, there's
an excellent chance that not everything was cleaned properly, and you
are still infected...

AVG 8.0 now includes the functionality (but not the UI) of AVG Anti-Spyware
(FKA Ewido), Ken, so I'm not suprised that it's finding more. (Then again,
who knows what, if any, AV app OP had installed before installing AVG 8.0?)

Chances are that a majority of these "infections" were in old System Restore
points which pose no threat as long as user doesn't use any of them.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Please post a link to your thread, Larry.

 

[Larry]

Hi Ken I did have ( all shareware or freeware) Spy-bot S+D, Adahware 7.0,
and ran several online scaning programs. Currently I still have spy-bot.

So you recommend losing the Advanced window cleaner software. I can do that.

What I mean by saying eating ram is, do I have enough of it, according to a
previous post you say yes, than I must ask why do I have such low CPU all the
time.

I will delete Advanced windows after this post. Larry

 

[Larry]

I am not real tech smart, so don't laugh, but what is a link and how do you
post one. Larry

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

A link is the URL (http://......) that's displayed in Address Bar when
you've opened your forum thread.

 

[Larry]

Pa Bear Here is the link you requested

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...eral&mid=2ebb2d16-7a92-412c-af54-01f660d0e70b

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Close but no cigar. That's a link to THIS thread. I'm asking for a link to
your thread at http://forums.techguy.org.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi Ken I did have ( all shareware or freeware) Spy-bot S+D, Adahware 7.0,
and ran several online scaning programs. Currently I still have spy-bot.

OK, good. That doesn't completely rule out the possibility of
infection, of course, but it makes it considerably less likely.

So you recommend losing the Advanced window cleaner software. I can do that.

Good. I hope that it hasn't already caused the problems you're
experiencing, but there's no way I can know that for sure.

What I mean by saying eating ram is, do I have enough of it, according to a
previous post you say yes,

No, I said "probably." Again, how much you need for good performance
depends on what apps you run. 512MB is enough for most people running
a range of ordinary business applications. Whether it's enough for
*you* and your apps, I can't be sure from where I sit.

But again, my guess it that that's not your problem.

than I must ask why do I have such low CPU all the
time.

You're mixing up two things: CPU usage and RAM usage. They are not the
same.

If available CPU is low, it's because of some app or apps you are
running. Download and run Process Explorer at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

That will show you what is using your CPU. Once you have that
information, post back for more help.

I will delete Advanced windows after this post. Larry


Good.