Windows XP is Slow

[Scott]

I have Windows XP Pro on a 2.4 Ghz PC with 1 GB of RAM.
The Windows 2000 partition runs fast, however, the second
partition with Windows XP Pro is running very slow. I
ran all the maintanence programs, disabled the startup
programs, and even ran the SFC utility to bring as much
back to the original as possible.

It takes over 3 minutes to boot up, and there is a
significant delay when the start menu is displayed or a
program is launched. This is with all the startup
options disabled. I made sure no spyware was installed,
and I scanned several times for viruses.

Does anyone have any sugestions that I can try, other
than reinstalling the OS?

 

[Guest]

Hi, Scott - Have you tried looking in the Task Manager
(via Control-Alt-Delete) to see if there are any Processes
that are hoarding the CPU? With no programs running, the
only one that should show a high CPU % should be the "Idle
Processes".

If the is one (or more) capturing the CPU, *maybe* it will
be identified as something you will recognize. But if it
shows "svchost.exe" then it could be anything - but at
least you'll have a point from which to start
troubleshooting.

 

[Guest]

SCOTT - I am having the exact same problem. If you do a global search several other people are having the same problem and all of the recommendations such as running msconfig -- don't work --- ISN'T THERE ANYONE OUT THERE THAT CAN OFFER REAL ADVISE?

----- (e-mail address removed) wrote: -----

Hi, Scott - Have you tried looking in the Task Manager
(via Control-Alt-Delete) to see if there are any Processes
that are hoarding the CPU? With no programs running, the
only one that should show a high CPU % should be the "Idle
Processes".

If the is one (or more) capturing the CPU, *maybe* it will
be identified as something you will recognize. But if it
shows "svchost.exe" then it could be anything - but at
least you'll have a point from which to start
troubleshooting.

 

[Guest]

Hello
Are you running Norton Utilities? I have had considerable speed improvement by turning off Norton Protection, which keeps copies of changed files. Outlook opens several times faster than before...but I am still suffering from a very slow startup, so any ideas there would be appreciated
Alan

 

[Rob Schneider]

Eric,

Inspecting the list of programs that you have instructed XP to start via
msconfig is *terrific* advice. Unless you manually start something, or
unless some nefarious program (virus, spybot, etc.) program starts
itself or other things, it will be in msconfig. Look there and see.
Also inspect the task manager list of running program.

Just running msconfig won't work. You have to run it and inspect it and
think about it.

Other common causes of slowness are fragmented disks (defrag it),
insufficient swap space, Anti-virus programs slowing down opening and
closing of files, lots of unnecessary processes (see msconfig),
insufficient memory (you should have at least 256, 512 better), etc.