SK said:
This is one of those questions that I don't think anyone has an
answer to. The programs on my xp machine are very slow to load ie
outlook takes 3 minutes. The loading time keep getting longer and
longer over time. I did all the standard stuff, defragged, ran three
spyware programs, three registry cleanup programs, ran windows
update, limited the number of startup programs, ran disk cleanup and
etc. I have 2 gig or ram and half of my 200g hard drive is empty. It
just keeps slowing down over the months.
Sadly, I think that this is just standard windows behaviour that we
have come to accept and live with. Is there any real fix that anyone
is aware of that actually works to retstore performance besides
reformatting? Thank you.
Here are the usual causes of sluggishness:
1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware
2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware programs
available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast, and Avira).
3. Too many of certain types of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge. (Then again, many programs
that run in the background have trivial consequences.)
To determine every program and process you are currently running, use
the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You should
be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good ideas which
ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down the names of
all the processes for future detective work (or take a snapshot and
print it out).
Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!
If you do wish to use msconfig, it may be accessed this way:
Start | Run | type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) | Enter (or
OK)
4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.
The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm
5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:
http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/
and
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
___________________________________________________
I did notice your other post, SK. Assuming you have no malware (but it
still needs to be definitively ruled out!), I would start off with
Number 5. It's possible the hard drive's access mode changed to the
slower PIO mode. If that checks out, configure a Clean Boot:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353
Hopefully this will temporarily end your sluggishness. Then you can
systematically add back programs/processes until you can determine which
one is responsible for your sluggishness.
As others said, what you are experiencing is not typical. There is an
exception, though. Is your problem only occurring when you first boot
up? If so, how long does it take until all your programs are "loaded"?
That is, once your booting is complete and everything is finished
"settling down," what is your performance like? If it never improves,
definitely try out my advice. Otherwise, just assume your anitivirus
program is updating and scanning. If it's five minutes, you can live
with that. If you'r rather not live with that, either change its
settings or use another AV program.
