XP is getting to excruciatingly slow !!

[db]

there are many reasons why a computer
can become slow.

one way to double check performance is
to boot into the safe modes.

if the system is zippy quick in the safe
modes,

then you have eliminated 50 percent of
the possible problems that are causing
poor system performance.

--
db·´¯`·...¸>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>

"Penang" wrote in message
news:67aab408-0982-4c05-93ce-775c295d7948@h14g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>
> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>
> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
> that's all.
>
> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU with
> 4GB of RAM ?

 

[HeyBub]

M wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>> Penang wrote:
>>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
>>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>>>
>>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
>>> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>>>
>>> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
>>> that's all.
>>>
>>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
>>> with 4GB of RAM ?
>>
>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will not
>> improve efficiency.
>
> It makes XP boot faster.
>

I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it, in turn,
then loads everything it needs for subsequent access. Everything.

 

[HeyBub]

db wrote:
> there are many reasons why a computer
> can become slow.
>
> one way to double check performance is
> to boot into the safe modes.
>
> if the system is zippy quick in the safe
> modes,
>
> then you have eliminated 50 percent of
> the possible problems that are causing
> poor system performance.
>

Inasmuch as ONE of the culprits could be an attempt to network-connect to an
impossible device, don't neglect "Safe mode with no networking" in the
diagnostic protocol.

 

[M]

HeyBub wrote:
> M wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>> Penang wrote:
>>>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
>>>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>>>>
>>>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
>>>> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>>>>
>>>> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
>>>> that's all.
>>>>
>>>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
>>>> with 4GB of RAM ?
>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will not
>>> improve efficiency.
>> It makes XP boot faster.
>>
>
> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it, in turn,
> then loads everything it needs for subsequent access. Everything.
>
>

I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.

M

 

[Daave]

M wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>> M wrote:
>>> HeyBub wrote:

>>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will
>>>> not improve efficiency.

>>> It makes XP boot faster.

>> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it,
>> in turn, then loads everything it needs for subsequent access.
>> Everything.

> I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.

Out of curiosity, how much faster did these machines boot?

 

[chrisv]

Penang wrote:
> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>
> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>
> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
> that's all.
>
> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU with
> 4GB of RAM ?

So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh install.
Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin your wheels.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:37:09 -0700, "chrisv"
wrote:

> Penang wrote:
> > Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
> > everything back in shape, ready to be used.
> >
> > I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
> > registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
> >
> > Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
> > that's all.
> >
> > What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU with
> > 4GB of RAM ?
>
> So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh install.
> Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin your wheels.



My view is that that's terrible advice. It *might* be the best thing
to do, but certainly not without having any idea of what's causing the
problem.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

 

[M]

Daave wrote:
> M wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>> M wrote:
>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>
>>>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will
>>>>> not improve efficiency.
>
>>>> It makes XP boot faster.
>
>>> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it,
>>> in turn, then loads everything it needs for subsequent access.
>>> Everything.
>
>> I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.
>
> Out of curiosity, how much faster did these machines boot?
>
>

That depended on how badly fragmented it was which could mean up to a
minute less boot time.

M

 

[relic]

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:37:09 -0700, "chrisv"
> wrote:
>
>> Penang wrote:
>>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
>>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>>>
>>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
>>> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>>>
>>> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
>>> that's all.
>>>
>>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
>>> with 4GB of RAM ?
>>
>> So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh
>> install. Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin
>> your wheels.
>
>
>
> My view is that that's terrible advice. It *might* be the best thing
> to do, but certainly not without having any idea of what's causing the
> problem.

It's XP. That's what XP does... get slower and slower.

 

[Daave]

M wrote:
> Daave wrote:
>> M wrote:
>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>> M wrote:
>>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>
>>>>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will
>>>>>> not improve efficiency.
>>
>>>>> It makes XP boot faster.
>>
>>>> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it,
>>>> in turn, then loads everything it needs for subsequent access.
>>>> Everything.
>>
>>> I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.
>>
>> Out of curiosity, how much faster did these machines boot?

> That depended on how badly fragmented it was which could mean up to a
> minute less boot time.

That's pretty significant!

 

[Daave]

relic wrote:
> Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:37:09 -0700, "chrisv"
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Penang wrote:
>>>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
>>>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>>>>
>>>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning"
>>>> the registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so
>>>> slow. Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office
>>>> thingy, that's all.
>>>>
>>>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
>>>> with 4GB of RAM ?
>>>
>>> So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh
>>> install. Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin
>>> your wheels.
>>
>>
>>
>> My view is that that's terrible advice. It *might* be the best thing
>> to do, but certainly not without having any idea of what's causing
>> the problem.
>
> It's XP. That's what XP does... get slower and slower.

Maybe in your case...

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:15:19 -0700, "relic" wrote:

> Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
> > On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:37:09 -0700, "chrisv"
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Penang wrote:
> >>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
> >>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
> >>>
> >>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
> >>> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
> >>>
> >>> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
> >>> that's all.
> >>>
> >>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
> >>> with 4GB of RAM ?
> >>
> >> So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh
> >> install. Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin
> >> your wheels.
> >
> >
> >
> > My view is that that's terrible advice. It *might* be the best thing
> > to do, but certainly not without having any idea of what's causing the
> > problem.
>
> It's XP. That's what XP does... get slower and slower.



You may believe whatever you want to believe. It's not my experience
at all, and I completely disagree with that statement. XP gets slower
and slower only on the computers of people who do everything with it
wrong.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

 

[Pennywise@DerryMaine.Gov]

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

>> It's XP. That's what XP does... get slower and slower.

>You may believe whatever you want to believe. It's not my experience
>at all, and I completely disagree with that statement. XP gets slower
>and slower only on the computers of people who do everything with it
>wrong.

I had XP Pro and Home dual booting for over 4.5 years, and kept them
humming along (Home was just a back door to Pro). Speed wasn't a
problem, some odd ball stuff was, like the boot.ini file would change
itself from.
WINDOWS="XP Pro E_Drive" /fastdetect /NoExecute=Optin to
WINDOWS="XP Pro E_Drive" /fastdetect=Optout
Never could figure/trace that one down (not malware, or a rootkit)
there's just so many times you can use ERUNT or repair installs.

I finally formatted the two partitions, the restore disks didn't work
for home (too old?), so I dual booted slipstreamed XPSP3's - things
aren't working right any more - and one of the two is slower than it
should be.

I plan on reformatting that Partition, then install XP, SP1, SP2, and
maybe SP3.

Just saying even after 4.5 years of operation (with SP3), I was
operating faster and with fewer problems, than after a clean install.
(and all drivers have been installed).

Note: I reinstalled as my Best Buy network card quit working, and I
thought it was windows Pro. I had the internal one disabled with
autoruns - thus my warning about autoruns in my post above.


--

Find Waldo
http://tinyurl.com/yj8ds74

 

[John John - MVP]

Daave wrote:
> M wrote:
>> Daave wrote:
>>> M wrote:
>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>>> M wrote:
>>>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>>>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will
>>>>>>> not improve efficiency.
>>>>>> It makes XP boot faster.
>>>>> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it,
>>>>> in turn, then loads everything it needs for subsequent access.
>>>>> Everything.
>>>> I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.
>>> Out of curiosity, how much faster did these machines boot?
>
>> That depended on how badly fragmented it was which could mean up to a
>> minute less boot time.
>
> That's pretty significant!

With the Prefetch mechanism in the picture it seems pretty specious to me...

John

 

[M]

Daave wrote:
> M wrote:
>> Daave wrote:
>>> M wrote:
>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>>> M wrote:
>>>>>> HeyBub wrote:
>>>>>>> Defragmenting the hard drive, even a heavily fragmented one, will
>>>>>>> not improve efficiency.
>>>>>> It makes XP boot faster.
>>>>> I don't think so. The second thing that has to load is NTFS and it,
>>>>> in turn, then loads everything it needs for subsequent access.
>>>>> Everything.
>>>> I've timed it numerous times on many machines and it boots faster.
>>> Out of curiosity, how much faster did these machines boot?
>
>> That depended on how badly fragmented it was which could mean up to a
>> minute less boot time.
>
> That's pretty significant!
>
>

The machine in question was so badly fragmented that you couldn't see
any blue in the defrag app, just red and it had over 15,000 fragmented
files. Even the defrag recommended defragging it. It took about 25
passes with the XP scrolling bar before it went to the Welcome screen.
After defragmenting, it went down to six passes.

Most machines only see 5 to 10 second improvements.

M

 

[S∩∪hw0ζƒ]

Pennywise@DerryMaine.Gov wrote:
[...]
>
> I finally formatted the two partitions, the restore disks didn't work
> for home (too old?), so I dual booted slipstreamed XPSP3's - things
> aren't working right any more - and one of the two is slower than it
> should be.
>
> I plan on reformatting that Partition, then install XP, SP1, SP2, and
> maybe SP3.
>
> Just saying even after 4.5 years of operation (with SP3), I was
> operating faster and with fewer problems, than after a clean install.
> (and all drivers have been installed).
>
> Note: I reinstalled as my Best Buy network card quit working, and I
> thought it was windows Pro. I had the internal one disabled with
> autoruns - thus my warning about autoruns in my post above.
>
Check out BlackVipers website and turn off all the unnecessary services.
The list is pretty comprehensive.

HTH

 

[Shiva]

relic wrote:

> Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:37:09 -0700, "chrisv"
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Penang wrote:
>>>> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
>>>> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>>>>
>>>> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
>>>> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>>>>
>>>> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
>>>> that's all.
>>>>
>>>> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU
>>>> with 4GB of RAM ?
>>>
>>> So far, two have advised you to Format and start over with a fresh
>>> install. Let me be the third one. All the other crap will just spin
>>> your wheels.
>>
>>
>>
>> My view is that that's terrible advice. It *might* be the best thing
>> to do, but certainly not without having any idea of what's causing the
>> problem.
>
> It's XP. That's what XP does... get slower and slower.

You better use linux. Never had these problems with Debian.

 

[Pennywise@DerryMaine.Gov]

S??hw0?Æ’ wrote:

>> Just saying even after 4.5 years of operation (with SP3), I was
>> operating faster and with fewer problems, than after a clean install.
>> (and all drivers have been installed).

>Check out BlackVipers website and turn off all the unnecessary services.
>The list is pretty comprehensive.


I have see BLackvipers site, there's another I use and used to link to
http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecess...s_on_windows_xp
It's changed, not as informative, and a log-in site now as well.

BlackViper says to turn a service to manual, if it's needed it will
start, not for me. It's either enabled (auto) or disabled, manual is a
disable switch on my system before the clean install and after - Try
this on the spooler service.

Oh ya, I'm very fimilar with which services don't need to be running.

One of the very first things I do after an install of XP is to disable
the Themes service, I get an automatic CPU increase (it's claimed 1/3
of the CPU cycles are used by the themes service (no reference)) DNS
client service cause I have a large HOSTS file, and quite a few other
services.

I have the Automatic updates service disabled, and I'm getting
automatic update install request, (latest install), I've never had the
WGA service installed on any OS, it's sure trying to get in now. Avast
warns me when the update file is uploaded to my temp directory (I
don't have activeX installed) and I delete it. (Comodo firewall won't
stop microsoft incoming (built in trusted site?).

I'm going back to zone alarm 5.5.094.
--

During the equinox, the sunlight casts long shadows across Saturn's rings,
highlighting previously known phenomena and revealing a few never-before
seen images.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/s...at_equinox.html

 

[Bob I]

I would suggest checking to see if harddrive access is still running in
DMA mode. (Device manager, IDE controller, R-click on Primary Channel,
select Properties, then Advanced setting) Is it running DMA or POI?

Penang wrote:
> Even on cold boot it takes more than 5 minutes for XP to get
> everything back in shape, ready to be used.
>
> I have tried everything, from defragmenting the HD to "cleaning" the
> registry to even defragmenting the registry, and it's STILL so slow.
>
> Software wise, I don't use too many. Just the typical office thingy,
> that's all.
>
> What else should I do to speed up my XP machine --- a 4-core CPU with
> 4GB of RAM ?

 

[§nühw¤£f]

Pennywise@DerryMaine.Gov wrote in
news:brdpd51bqmb8jfl8h9dnn66r8aomp82u0u@4ax.com:

> S??hw0?Æ’ wrote:
>
>>> Just saying even after 4.5 years of operation (with SP3), I was
>>> operating faster and with fewer problems, than after a clean install.
>>> (and all drivers have been installed).
>
>>Check out BlackVipers website and turn off all the unnecessary
services.
>>The list is pretty comprehensive.
>
>
> I have see BLackvipers site, there's another I use and used to link to
> http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnecess...s_on_windows_xp
> It's changed, not as informative, and a log-in site now as well.
>
Try "BugMeNot"? to seeif theres been a login created for it?

> BlackViper says to turn a service to manual, if it's needed it will
> start, not for me.

You'll notice some lost funtionality and then yu get to play "guess whats
necessary".

> It's either enabled (auto) or disabled, manual is a
> disable switch on my system before the clean install and after - Try
> this on the spooler service.
>
Print spoolers safe to leave to auto.

> Oh ya, I'm very fimilar with which services don't need to be running.
>

> One of the very first things I do after an install of XP is to disable
> the Themes service,

I likes it pretty though...

> I get an automatic CPU increase (it's claimed 1/3
> of the CPU cycles are used by the themes service (no reference)) DNS
> client service cause I have a large HOSTS file, and quite a few other
> services.
>
Hosts can slow down loading of pages in FF. I'd rather go with NoScript.

> I have the Automatic updates service disabled, and I'm getting
> automatic update install request, (latest install), I've never had the
> WGA service installed on any OS, it's sure trying to get in now.

Thats easily killed from the services snap-in.

> Avast
> warns me when the update file is uploaded to my temp directory (I
> don't have activeX installed) and I delete it. (Comodo firewall won't
> stop microsoft incoming (built in trusted site?).
>
I dont use that one

Prolly a way to blacklst what you want tho...

> I'm going back to zone alarm 5.5.094.

Heh.