Guest D. Kirkpatrick Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 This may have been answered here already but I have just joined this Usneet group for some help. I have an XP system here (HP personal system). It is actually my wife's and is used for school. I have 2 W2K machines myself. Here is the problem. Her system has cranked down to a standstill. It takes (literally) a full minute for any MS Word document to open even though I have a licensed copy of WORKS installed (OEM). Rebooting (hot or cold) can result in having to wait as much as 10 or more full minutes before the system is usable. During that time period the disk activity light is on full as if the disk is being polled or scanned. I have run various anti-spyware programs and also anti-virus programs and am presently using Grisoft's package (free version for now). It was suggested to me that the Norton Anti-Virus I was running might be the causation of the slow speed. It recently expired so I uninstalled it completely and rebooted then installed Grisoft's, which by the way is working nicely on my W2K machines. I have gone through the list of programs and have deleted anything we don't need or which is/was suspicious. I cannot find any zombies running and a lack of router LED or DSL LED modem action suggests that there is nothing running in the background that I missed. Grissoft kills off any tracking cookies daily and its AV reports the system is clean. Note this slow speed thing started way before I dumped Norton and added Grisoft so that is not the problem. The other day I ran a search for a file I could not locate and I watched as the search window painfully cranked through files like molasses. I'm concerned that there may be a hardware issue but before I go that route I want to be sure that I have done everything I can with respect to settings. I have cleaned out dead files using Disk Clean-up and also defrag'd the thing. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this. Its only a 20 GB drive but is about 1/2 full at this point with school documents, photos and music and the applications. I don't think this is enough data to cause it to slow down. What am I doing wrong and what do I need to check for settings? Thanks. DMK
Guest JS Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: Slow XP System for everything You need to find the specific process or application that's taking all the CPU resources and slowing down your PC. To do this try Process Explorer: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspx Once you have Process Explorer installed and running: In the taskbar select View and check 'Show Process Tree' and 'Show Lower Pane' options. (This will provide the detailed info you need) Next click on the CPU column to sort processes by %CPU usage. Then click on the process that's using most or all the CPU %, once it's highlighted, right click and from the options listed select: Search Online This should display what out there on the web about that process. Note: some entries like Explorer and svchost may need to be expanded to show the detail, (sub processes), in this case click on the + located to the left of the entry. Still another tool is What's Running http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx JS "D. Kirkpatrick" <sunclad@sunclad.com> wrote in message news:sunclad-28292A.12301620072007@news.verizon.net... > This may have been answered here already but I have just joined this > Usneet group for some help. > > I have an XP system here (HP personal system). It is actually my > wife's and is used for school. I have 2 W2K machines myself. > > Here is the problem. Her system has cranked down to a standstill. It > takes (literally) a full minute for any MS Word document to open even > though I have a licensed copy of WORKS installed (OEM). Rebooting > (hot or cold) can result in having to wait as much as 10 or more full > minutes before the system is usable. During that time period the disk > activity light is on full as if the disk is being polled or scanned. > > I have run various anti-spyware programs and also anti-virus programs > and am presently using Grisoft's package (free version for now). It > was suggested to me that the Norton Anti-Virus I was running might be > the causation of the slow speed. It recently expired so I uninstalled > it completely and rebooted then installed Grisoft's, which by the way > is working nicely on my W2K machines. > > I have gone through the list of programs and have deleted anything we > don't need or which is/was suspicious. I cannot find any zombies > running and a lack of router LED or DSL LED modem action suggests that > there is nothing running in the background that I missed. Grissoft > kills off any tracking cookies daily and its AV reports the system is > clean. > > Note this slow speed thing started way before I dumped Norton and > added Grisoft so that is not the problem. > > The other day I ran a search for a file I could not locate and I > watched as the search window painfully cranked through files like > molasses. > > I'm concerned that there may be a hardware issue but before I go that > route I want to be sure that I have done everything I can with respect > to settings. > > I have cleaned out dead files using Disk Clean-up and also defrag'd > the thing. > > I'm at a loss as to what is causing this. > > Its only a 20 GB drive but is about 1/2 full at this point with school > documents, photos and music and the applications. I don't think this > is enough data to cause it to slow down. > > What am I doing wrong and what do I need to check for settings? > > Thanks. > > DMK
Guest db ´¯`·.. > Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: Slow XP System for everything see if windows performs better in safemode, and safemode w/networking too and let us know... -- db ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>¸. ><)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º> .. "D. Kirkpatrick" <sunclad@sunclad.com> wrote in message news:sunclad-28292A.12301620072007@news.verizon.net... > This may have been answered here already but I have just joined this > Usneet group for some help. > > I have an XP system here (HP personal system). It is actually my > wife's and is used for school. I have 2 W2K machines myself. > > Here is the problem. Her system has cranked down to a standstill. It > takes (literally) a full minute for any MS Word document to open even > though I have a licensed copy of WORKS installed (OEM). Rebooting > (hot or cold) can result in having to wait as much as 10 or more full > minutes before the system is usable. During that time period the disk > activity light is on full as if the disk is being polled or scanned. > > I have run various anti-spyware programs and also anti-virus programs > and am presently using Grisoft's package (free version for now). It > was suggested to me that the Norton Anti-Virus I was running might be > the causation of the slow speed. It recently expired so I uninstalled > it completely and rebooted then installed Grisoft's, which by the way > is working nicely on my W2K machines. > > I have gone through the list of programs and have deleted anything we > don't need or which is/was suspicious. I cannot find any zombies > running and a lack of router LED or DSL LED modem action suggests that > there is nothing running in the background that I missed. Grissoft > kills off any tracking cookies daily and its AV reports the system is > clean. > > Note this slow speed thing started way before I dumped Norton and > added Grisoft so that is not the problem. > > The other day I ran a search for a file I could not locate and I > watched as the search window painfully cranked through files like > molasses. > > I'm concerned that there may be a hardware issue but before I go that > route I want to be sure that I have done everything I can with respect > to settings. > > I have cleaned out dead files using Disk Clean-up and also defrag'd > the thing. > > I'm at a loss as to what is causing this. > > Its only a 20 GB drive but is about 1/2 full at this point with school > documents, photos and music and the applications. I don't think this > is enough data to cause it to slow down. > > What am I doing wrong and what do I need to check for settings? > > Thanks. > > DMK
Guest C.Joseph Drayton Posted July 20, 2007 Posted July 20, 2007 Re: Slow XP System for everything D. Kirkpatrick wrote: > This may have been answered here already but I have just joined this > Usneet group for some help. > > I have an XP system here (HP personal system). It is actually my > wife's and is used for school. I have 2 W2K machines myself. > > Here is the problem. Her system has cranked down to a standstill. It > takes (literally) a full minute for any MS Word document to open even > though I have a licensed copy of WORKS installed (OEM). Rebooting > (hot or cold) can result in having to wait as much as 10 or more full > minutes before the system is usable. During that time period the disk > activity light is on full as if the disk is being polled or scanned. > > I have run various anti-spyware programs and also anti-virus programs > and am presently using Grisoft's package (free version for now). It > was suggested to me that the Norton Anti-Virus I was running might be > the causation of the slow speed. It recently expired so I uninstalled > it completely and rebooted then installed Grisoft's, which by the way > is working nicely on my W2K machines. > > I have gone through the list of programs and have deleted anything we > don't need or which is/was suspicious. I cannot find any zombies > running and a lack of router LED or DSL LED modem action suggests that > there is nothing running in the background that I missed. Grissoft > kills off any tracking cookies daily and its AV reports the system is > clean. > > Note this slow speed thing started way before I dumped Norton and > added Grisoft so that is not the problem. > > The other day I ran a search for a file I could not locate and I > watched as the search window painfully cranked through files like > molasses. > > I'm concerned that there may be a hardware issue but before I go that > route I want to be sure that I have done everything I can with respect > to settings. > > I have cleaned out dead files using Disk Clean-up and also defrag'd > the thing. > > I'm at a loss as to what is causing this. > > Its only a 20 GB drive but is about 1/2 full at this point with school > documents, photos and music and the applications. I don't think this > is enough data to cause it to slow down. > > What am I doing wrong and what do I need to check for settings? > > Thanks. > > DMK Hi DMK, Sometimes it is good to get back to basics. I would do the following in the order listed below. 1) Run a full scan with your AV software 2) Run a full scan with AdAware 3) Run a full scan with Spybot: Search & Destroy. 4) Run 'Disk Cleanup'. 5) Run 'PowerTweak' first Registry analyser than defragger. 6) Run 'Chkdsk /f' 7) Turn off the pagefile (in case it is fragmented 8) Run 'Defrag' actually the XP defragger is not very good. I would recommend JKDefrag. 9) Create a fixed size pagefile (2x the amount of RAM) by creating a fixed size pagefile, you will assure that it doesn't get fragmented as you use your machine. As to step 5, there are many who say that Registry compactors and such create more problems than they cure. With PowerTweak, you can tell it to ONLY delete the entries that it says can 'Safely be deleted'. If you don't know how to check entries, then leave the rest of them alone. As to the Registry Defragger, when you run it, it compacts as well as defrags, and I have done 'real-world' speed tests, and it does make a difference. One other thing I would recommend is turning off the 'indexing Service'. Just turning it off for the drive does not stop it from using processing cycles (I don't know why that it, but I can watch DTaskManager and see that that svchost object runs and uses processor cycles intermittently. Your machine should now being running faster. The next thing I would recommend is running a freeware program like StatBar so that you can see your processor use at all time. If your processor pegs out, then bring up the Task Manager and go to the 'Processes' tab and click on the 'CPU' header twice. This will tell you what program is pegging out your processor. You might be surprised at the results. There is a program I like called Weather Pulse. Every other day at different times it will peg out the processor. I haven't figured out why it does it, but it does. I kill the process and re-run the application. I am okay for another couple of days then it occurs again. I wrote the developer, but haven't heard back from them as to why this is occurring. Ciao . . . C.Joseph "A promise is nothing more than an attempt, to respond to an unreasonable request."
Recommended Posts