XP computer is slow

[sweetp5555]

I repair computers for my friends. I receive a lot of computers that
my friends say are “slow”. It used to be that a cleanup of Spyware and
startup programs would speed things up. But more often lately this
does not work. I have had 3 computers in the last month that are slow,
that is when you press the start button it takes a long time to draw
the start options and switching between windows is slow, you can
literality watch the windows being redrawn.
After re-installing XP on 2 of the computers, things worked fine and
they were MUCH speedier. This slowness has nothing to do with
networking, local programs are slow. I am working on a 3rd computer
now with same issue,

I have checked all of the following and have nothing else left to
check and I am almost ready to re-install XP again:
Ad-aware is up to date and runs clean
Spybot S&D is up to date and runs clean
Norton AV is up to date and runs clean
80 gig HD, 40 gig free
HD is not fragmented
Removed all not needed programs out of startup via msconfig
No errors in error logs
Scan disk runs clean
Indexing is off and set to manual
256 meg RAM
(one of the other PCs with same issue only had 256 and after XP re-
install it was fine)
XP sp2 installed and up to date on all XP updates
Only one FW enabled, that is Sygate personal FW
Pentium 4 CPU
taskmanger shows CPU is not over worked, 70-90% idle

I am getting tired of re-installing XP to fix this issue, any ideas,
please HELP!!!

I am suspecting that in these cases maybe the registry has grown too
big over the years. But I do not trust registry cleaners, I’ve had bad
luck with them in the past.

Or may rootkits are the issue, aren't they undetectable?

Thanks for any help!!!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I repair computers for my friends. I receive a lot of computers that
my friends say are “slow”. It used to be that a cleanup of Spyware
and startup programs would speed things up. But more often lately
this does not work. I have had 3 computers in the last month that
are slow, that is when you press the start button it takes a long
time to draw the start options and switching between windows is
slow, you can literality watch the windows being redrawn.
After re-installing XP on 2 of the computers, things worked fine and
they were MUCH speedier. This slowness has nothing to do with
networking, local programs are slow. I am working on a 3rd computer
now with same issue,

I have checked all of the following and have nothing else left to
check and I am almost ready to re-install XP again:
Ad-aware is up to date and runs clean
Spybot S&D is up to date and runs clean
Norton AV is up to date and runs clean
80 gig HD, 40 gig free
HD is not fragmented
Removed all not needed programs out of startup via msconfig
No errors in error logs
Scan disk runs clean
Indexing is off and set to manual
256 meg RAM
(one of the other PCs with same issue only had 256 and after XP re-
install it was fine)
XP sp2 installed and up to date on all XP updates
Only one FW enabled, that is Sygate personal FW
Pentium 4 CPU
taskmanger shows CPU is not over worked, 70-90% idle

I am getting tired of re-installing XP to fix this issue, any ideas,
please HELP!!!

I am suspecting that in these cases maybe the registry has grown too
big over the years. But I do not trust registry cleaners, I’ve had
bad luck with them in the past.

Or may rootkits are the issue, aren't they undetectable?

Thanks for any help!!!

Vundo maybe?

Try superantispyware and multi-av to see if they find anything.

Backup the machine "as is" (imaging would be a great way to do this) before
doing anything...

The registry thing is myth - at least in the situations (extremely slow) you
are giving. I am on a machine originally installed with Windows XP in
2002 - have changed hardware on it twice before and have done repair
installs because of that (not clean) and have installed/uninstalled more
software than most normal users likely do in a lifetime (theirs, not the
computer/OS install) of use - simply because I test so many things myself
and others and I have finally turned it into a virtual machine now because
it just doesn't give me trouble (although I have had to clean it up for
various incidents over the 6+ years it has been running.)

I would check for infestations with the two things I mentioned, uninstall
all unused (or easily replaced/installed again applications) to get it as
close to just "Windows XP and nothing else" as you can. Then I would update
the hardware drivers to the latest/greatest and make sure it has the latest
Windows XP updates (including SP3) and I would use AVG Free 8 without the
email/link scanners (search to see how to install that way.)

Here is where I bend a "little" on the "don't futz with the registry" thing.
Run CCleaner. Let it completely clean the files and the 'registry' - in my
experience with it - I have not had any ill-effects from doing this on a
machine in this state (minimal installed.)

After you have it down to a "well-updated bit virtually only Windows
XP"-like installation and it is running okay - then install the applications
back on - one at a time. Don't forget that Quicktime, Real Player
(alternative), Shockwave, Flash, Adobe Reader, PDFCreator, TweakUI, Firefox,
Paint .NET, Open Office, etc - all of those types of programs should have
been removed and now need to be put back. This was done to safely cleanup
any corruption these applications have encountered over the years and to
update them.

This will all take some time - expect to spend a good solid day or more on a
machine to do this - and I heavily suggest heeding the backup the entire
machine suggestion first.

Check performance monitor too. I've noticed a lot of people coming to me
with 512MB of physical memory as of late and upon initial boot - they are so
scaring the 500MB mark - it is obvious they need to get some memory. Last
couple of times I upgraded people from 512MB to 2.5GB total for less than
$70 investments from them.

Truthfully though - a clean install would be the easiest fix (with an SP3
integrated installer and all the latest hardware drivers - at least *if* you
have everything else to install and no program settings/etc to keep.
Time-wise - about the same in my experience, because I save everything I can
of the users (favorites, documents, special settings, etc - but all without
exporting/importing their profiles - as sometimes - their profile contains
the issue.)

 

[Gerry]

256 mb RAM will normally not be enough to run Windows XP and get
satisfactory performance. The system starts using the pagefile over
much. Using RAM is much quicker so it often advantageous to reduce
pagefile usage by adding extra RAM. Ypu need to ensure that the Total
under Commit Charge in Task Manager is less than the installed RAM. You
need to base your assessment on typical usage ignoring peaks and
troughs.

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You can get more accurate information on pagefile usage using
pagefilemon, a small freeware utility.

Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak usage. Start it to run
immediately after start-up and look at the log. Pagefilemon takes
snapshots. You need to run it at the beginning of the session at then
run it again at intervals throughout the sessions. The log is Pagefile
log.txt. If you right click on the file in Windows Explorer and select
Send to, Desktop (Create Shortcut). The same applies to
XP_PageFileMon.exe.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

Note that programs using undo features, particularly those associated
with graphics and photo editing, require large amounts of memory so if
you use this type of programme check these first observing how the page
usage increases when they start and whether the usage decreases when you
close the programme.

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Norton AV will be another thing to dump. Replace with a freeware
antivirus. AVG 8 or Avast.

Problems can also be caused by having too many Internet Explorer
Add-Ons.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[sweetp5555]

Here is what taskmanager shows:

Physical Mem:
total = 260m
avail = 80m
sys cach = 131m

Kernel mem
total = 86m
page = 68m
non-page =18m

Commit charge
total = 279m
limit = 1033m
peak = 292m

top mem users:
svchost.exe = 13m
smc.exe = 7m
explorer.exe = 5m

CPU usage is 95% system idol. Thats what is strange, even with 80=95%
idol, computer is still slow. I am not talking about IE or internet
download. Just local apps. Lauching any window is slow and slow to
redraw windows brought to the front.

I know 264 Meg RAM is not that much, but this computer ran very fast
last year. msconfig startup tab only has 3 items in it.

 

[Daave]

<quote>
I repair computers for my friends. I receive a lot of computers that
my friends say are “slow”. It used to be that a cleanup of Spyware and
startup programs would speed things up. But more often lately this
does not work. I have had 3 computers in the last month that are slow,
that is when you press the start button it takes a long time to draw
the start options and switching between windows is slow, you can
literality watch the windows being redrawn.
After re-installing XP on 2 of the computers, things worked fine and
they were MUCH speedier. This slowness has nothing to do with
networking, local programs are slow. I am working on a 3rd computer
now with same issue,

I have checked all of the following and have nothing else left to
check and I am almost ready to re-install XP again:
Ad-aware is up to date and runs clean
Spybot S&D is up to date and runs clean
Norton AV is up to date and runs clean
80 gig HD, 40 gig free
HD is not fragmented
Removed all not needed programs out of startup via msconfig
No errors in error logs
Scan disk runs clean
Indexing is off and set to manual
256 meg RAM
(one of the other PCs with same issue only had 256 and after XP re-
install it was fine)
XP sp2 installed and up to date on all XP updates
Only one FW enabled, that is Sygate personal FW
Pentium 4 CPU
taskmanger shows CPU is not over worked, 70-90% idle

I am getting tired of re-installing XP to fix this issue, any ideas,
please HELP!!!

I am suspecting that in these cases maybe the registry has grown too
big over the years.
</quote>

That's not happening.

<quote>
But I do not trust registry cleaners, I’ve had bad
luck with them in the past.
</quote>

There are different types of registry cleaners. The bad ones are
actually a type of malware. The better ones often cause more harm than
good. So, it's good you don't trust them.

It's possible a read error caused the hard drive access to change from
Ultra DMA to PIO mode, reset it:

http://technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

 

[Leonard Grey]

Everybody thinks their computer is slow. I haven't met anyone who thinks
their computer is fast enough.

Obviously, a clean install of Windows 'feels' quicker. Then you add OS
updates, security software, other software that runs in the background,
bloated apps that run slowly - to say nothing of the way some people
like to screw around with their computers - and of course your computer
is going to slow down.

 

[Daave]

(Re-send in case previous post was difficult to read. Comments inline.)

I repair computers for my friends. I receive a lot of computers that
my friends say are “slow”. It used to be that a cleanup of Spyware and
startup programs would speed things up. But more often lately this
does not work. I have had 3 computers in the last month that are slow,
that is when you press the start button it takes a long time to draw
the start options and switching between windows is slow, you can
literality watch the windows being redrawn.
After re-installing XP on 2 of the computers, things worked fine and
they were MUCH speedier. This slowness has nothing to do with
networking, local programs are slow. I am working on a 3rd computer
now with same issue,

I have checked all of the following and have nothing else left to
check and I am almost ready to re-install XP again:
Ad-aware is up to date and runs clean
Spybot S&D is up to date and runs clean
Norton AV is up to date and runs clean
80 gig HD, 40 gig free
HD is not fragmented
Removed all not needed programs out of startup via msconfig
No errors in error logs
Scan disk runs clean
Indexing is off and set to manual
256 meg RAM
(one of the other PCs with same issue only had 256 and after XP re-
install it was fine)
XP sp2 installed and up to date on all XP updates
Only one FW enabled, that is Sygate personal FW
Pentium 4 CPU
taskmanger shows CPU is not over worked, 70-90% idle

I am getting tired of re-installing XP to fix this issue, any ideas,
please HELP!!!

I am suspecting that in these cases maybe the registry has grown too
big over the years.

That's not happening.

But I do not trust registry cleaners, I’ve had bad
luck with them in the past.

There are different types of registry cleaners. The bad ones are
actually a type of malware. The better ones often cause more harm than
good. So, it's good you don't trust them.

It's possible a read error caused the hard drive access to change from
Ultra DMA to PIO mode, reset it:

http://technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

Otherwise, I would imagine the sluggishness is a combination of the
resource hog Norton and the low amount of RAM installed (256 MB).

 

[SteveH]

I suggest you remove Norton (using their system removal tool if you cannot
remove it in the normal way), double up on your RAM and try this:

www.iolo.com/sm

Steve

 

[Anteaus]

Check the UDMA mode that the disk interface is working in, under Control
Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager

If there have been a number of occasional disk errors over a long period of
time it may have reverted to non-DMA operation, and that will make the
computer very slow. An issue here is that there is apparently a disk-error
counter, but is it never reset, so a series of very infrequent errors (which
are of no great significance) can trigger a downgrade of the disk performance.

 

[microman]

There is one way of speeding up the computer which no one here seems to have
mentioned. Disabling useless services.

To do this click Start>Run type in "services.msc"
To stop a service right click on it click "properties" and in the "startup
type" dropdown menu select "disabled". If the service you want to disable is
running you should click "stop" before disabling it.
Here is a list of services that are not needed and waste memory my system
works fine. I only have 256 MB ram running XP SP2 fine.

Alerter: Disabled
Application Layer Gateway Service: Disabled
Application Management: Disabled
ASP.NET State Service: Disabled
Automatic Updates: Disabled
Background Intelligent Transfer Service: Disabled
Clip Book: Disabled
COM+ Event System: Disabled
COM+ System Application: Disabled
Computer Browser: Disabled
Cryptographic Services: Disabled, unless you are planning to install a new SP
DCOM Servcer Process Launcher: Automatic
DHCP Client: Automatic
Distributed Link Tracking Client: Disabled
Distributed Transaction Coordinator: Disabled
DNS Client: Automatic
Error Reporting Service: Disabled
Event Log: Disabled
Fast User Switching Compatability: Disabled
Help and Support: Disabled
HTTP SSL: Manual
Human Interface Device Access: Disabled
IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service: Disabled
Indexing Service: Disabled
ISPEC Services: Disabled
Local Disk Manager: Disabled
Local Disk Manager Administrative Service: Disabled
Messenger: Disabled
MS Software Shadow Copy Provider: Disabled
Net Logon: Disabled
NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing: Disabled
Network Connections: Manual
Network DDE: Disabled
Network DDE DSDM: Disabled
Network Location Awareness (NLA): Disabled
Network Provisioning Service: Manual
NT LM Security Support Provider: Disabled
NVIDIA Display Driver Service: Automatic
Performance Logs and Alerts: Disabled
Plug and Play: Automatic
Portable Media Serial Number Service: Automatic
Print Spooler: Disabled only if you don't use or need a printer
Protected Storage: Disabled
QOS RSVP: Disabled
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager: Manual
Remote Access Connection Manager: Manual
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager: Disabled
Remote Procedure Call (RPC): Automatic
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locater: Disabled
Removable Storage: Disabled
Routing and Remote Access: Disabled
Secondary Logon: Disabled
Security Account Manager: Disabled
Security Center: Disabled
Server: Disabled
Shell Hardware Detection: Automatic
Smart Card: Disabled
SSDP Discovery Service: Disabled
System Event Notification: Disabled
System Restore Service: Automatic Would not recommend disabling EVER
Task Scheduler: Disabled
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper: Disabled
Telephony: Disabled
Terminal Services: Disabled
Themes: Disabled, Note I have a blank Background you should do the same
Uninterruptible Power Supply: Disabled
Universal Plug and Play Device Host: Manual
Volume Shadow Copy: Manual
Web Client: Disabled
Windows Audio: Automatic
Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS): Disabled, Don't complain
just do it and install an anti virus like AVG Free
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA): Disabled
Windows Installer: Automatic, unless you don't ever plan to install anything
Windows Management Instrumentation: Automatic
Windows Service Pack Installer update service: Disabled, unless you plan to
update your SP soon
Windows Time: Disabled
Windows Zero Configuration: Disabled
WMI Performance Adapter: Disabled
Workstation: Disabled

Note only do a few at a time to see if everything still works properly,
although I believe it will work fine. If something does go wrong you can
narrow it down to the last 5 or so services you just disabled, so that you
can re-enable them.

Also if you would like to provide me a list of programs that run at startup
so I can check if anything is slowing you down, Start>Run msconfig.exe click
the startup tab and post back with the results.

Hope this is useful to you,
Chris

 

[Leonard Grey]

There are good reasons why no one has suggested "Disabling useless
services".

1- Everyone has their own opinion of what is a "useless" service.
2- When months from now your computer crashes or your software doesn't
work it turns out that the service you disabled is not so "useless"
after all.
3- It doesn't make a noticeable difference (except inside your head.)

 

[DesPrado363]

If you are going to go to all that trouble and budget a full day to the
process, it seems to me that you would be better off reformatting the hard
drive and starting from scratch. Also a full day process, but you'd have a
nice clean slate with no worries about left over garbage from the uninstalled
programs.

Just my seldom humble opinion