Slow Windows XP

[Mr. Sushi]

okay when i first got my computer it was incredibly fast. then something weird happened with defragment. so we reinstalled windows. and the problem was gone. but my computer is really really slow. like a lot slower then it should be. i have 1.8 ghz computer with P4. but things take an awful long to load. ie. applications, windows. does anyone know of a program or programs that can detect what is slowing down my comp or can increase my comp's speed? or if anyone knows anything else that would be helpful.

 

[Jewelzz]

Hi Mr Sushi:

You only need to post your question once, in one forum All other threads have been deleted.

 

[Mr. Sushi]

cant anyone help me?

 

[sdibias]

My first question to you is what kind of RAM does your P4 support? Some Motherboards support PC-100/133 SDRAM with the P4 and others may allow DDR or Rambus. If you're using SDRAM with a P4 it's almost pointless because the RAM chokes the life out of the processor. This most likely would not be the reason for your PC acting sluggish but it does play a factor.

Another question might be the software you're running on your computer. Are you using a software firewall or AntiVirus software? These tend to take up alot of resources when they are being used. Have you installed any freeware software lately?

Have you ran a virus scan lately? When I work on client computers I usually run an antivirus scan online at http://security.symantec.com/ssc/lu...ie&venid=sym&plfid=23&pkj=VQPJXIBVEMBQAUWZKTK

There is also a chance of you having a corrupted file system. Are you running FAT32 or NTFS? Open a command prompt and type chkdsk /f /r to scan your HDDs, you will have to run it on all of your hard drives (e.g. C:, D. chkdsk or checkdisk will scan your HDDs for errors and problems. The /f switch will fix any errors and the /r switch will report any bad sectors etc.

I recommend cleaning your computer up, defragging (preferrably speeddisk or diskkeepr) and running a virus scan. Hope this may help you.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Is it slow just at startup or all the time?

 

[sdibias]

You also may want to expand your pagefile or virtual memory. It's best to keep this off the boot partition and onto another drive (preferrably a different physical disk). A good rule of thumb is to keep your pagefile at least 1.5 or 2x the amount of physical memory you have installed.

Also use your task manager to see if you have a processor bottleneck, it's not uncommon. CTRL-ALT-DEL will get you there then click on the performance tab.

There are plenty of third party utils that can help but these are already at your fingertips. If you really want to get some specs you could run the performance monitor @ start-->RUN and type perfmon. I can't hold your hand on how it works, you should look it up on www.google.com and see if you can find out how it works. You may want to try the %proctime% and a few others though.