Windows XP running very slow.

[joey_rjm5]

I am having roblems with xp running very slow. It seen=ms like I am back on my old k6-2 350. I don't understand because I am pretty sure my system can handle it.

Could it be something like a bios setting or a setting in windows? Anyone have any ideas? I am really getting po'ed at xp. I liked it at first but it is just going way too darn slow.

I am switching back to 2000 unless I get this solved. I don't want to just give up. I wanna figure out what's going on.

Any ideas?

[KaHNZa]

I ended up going back to Win2000 because XP was giving me all sorts of network problems. I am much happier now. I would say switch back over to 2000. You'll be much happier.

[pcgirl]

I agree, Win2000 will give you less problems, but if you want to keep XP, you can try to hit ctrl-alt-del and make sure there's not any unnecessary programs running in the background. If there are, close them and see if that helps any....

[David]

My friend had that problem - we never did figure that out. He hit ctrl-alt-del and it took 40s for the task manager to come up.

[Foo BK]

Hi guys it's my first post here and I hope this helps. I installed XP a few weeks ago. I've have had pretty good luck with it so far. I too had a slow down after a few days using XP. So I did a "Restore" I picked a few days earlier and bang it was fine again. So I started retracing my steps until I got the slow down again. I had been going to all the XP tips and tricks sites and had found a tip I liked. I'm sure you have the annoying "Windows Messenger" popup when you open IE6 in XP. I hated that thing. So when I read a way to stop the popup, I went for it. Turns out that by shutting off Windows Messenger my machine started crawling. I reversed the trick and boom back to normal. THe trick had you go into "run" then GPedit.msc and drill down to a point telling you how to shut Messenger down. I'm not sure if that will help you guys but the Restore feature worked flawlessly, which I find comforting.:beer:

[Yodums]

Close everything and open the task manager, check the CPU Usage it shouldn't even be over 10%.

Do some memory benchmarks and see if your ram is up to par.

Switching back to Win2K would definitely be a good choice which I would recommend.

[bdf24]

Tried XP as well. Was way to sluggish on my system. Went back to Win 2K and everything works great. XP's just to bloated! It's fine for the average home user who does'nt game or do any multitasking. But for myself there's just to many system slowdown's.

[DnA_DragoN]

I have a duron 800 @ 848mhz and 128 mb sdram @ 141mhz... XP works perfectly on my system! But if u have a intel 350 u should be running something else.... like win2k.... I use XP to play games and use different kinds of programs... I havent used any faster OS! I'we tried win 95B, win 98, win 98SE, win ME, win 2k, win XP! And XP is the best!!

[Yodums]

Originally posted by DnA_DragoN
I have a duron 800 @ 848mhz and 128 mb sdram @ 141mhz... XP works perfectly on my system! But if u have a intel 350 u should be running something else.... like win2k.... I use XP to play games and use different kinds of programs... I havent used any faster OS! I'we tried win 95B, win 98, win 98SE, win ME, win 2k, win XP! And XP is the best!!

Well if it runs good for you use it, although you should add more ram and you'll see a bigger difference.

[Kamikaze]

I agree with DnA DragoN. By far the the fastest gaming rig OS I have ever used, and I've used them all from 98se up. Allowed me to jump 12 mhz on the FSB switching to xp from ME and also an extra 135 mhz. My memory benches with Sandra were already way above cas2 pc2100 running at 2.5 and with xp I'm a breath away from pc600 rdram. I don't think I could have had a better experience switching to XP. My only gripe is I can't find any raid drivers to work on my KG-7 with win xp installed.

[DnA_DragoN]

im gonna install more memory next month.... 256mb.... But my memory are really fast!! :burn: :) :burn:

[David]

Originally posted by Foo BK
Hi guys it's my first post here and I hope this helps. I installed XP a few weeks ago. I've have had pretty good luck with it so far. I too had a slow down after a few days using XP. So I did a "Restore" I picked a few days earlier and bang it was fine again. So I started retracing my steps until I got the slow down again. I had been going to all the XP tips and tricks sites and had found a tip I liked. I'm sure you have the annoying "Windows Messenger" popup when you open IE6 in XP. I hated that thing. So when I read a way to stop the popup, I went for it. Turns out that by shutting off Windows Messenger my machine started crawling. I reversed the trick and boom back to normal. THe trick had you go into "run" then GPedit.msc and drill down to a point telling you how to shut Messenger down. I'm not sure if that will help you guys but the Restore feature worked flawlessly, which I find comforting.:beer:

aaaahhh - I had to turn off most startup items to get the viavoice to work - I seee.....

[joey_rjm5]

Sorry for not paying much attention to my own post. I had forgotten I had posted it. I have been extremely busy lately.

I know that I would probably be happy with 2000 but I liked xp and I just want to figure out what it was that made it run slow. I want to SOLVE the problem, not avoid it.

I never disabled msn messenger because I use it alot and it doesn't bother me.

My memory is 256 mb of pc2100 and at default setting I get like 500-600 in sisoft.

I doubt that any of my hardware is slowing me down.

Any more ideas?

And thanks for all of those that have been thrown out thus far.

[Yodums]

Originally posted by joey_rjm5
Sorry for not paying much attention to my own post. I had forgotten I had posted it. I have been extremely busy lately.

I know that I would probably be happy with 2000 but I liked xp and I just want to figure out what it was that made it run slow. I want to SOLVE the problem, not avoid it.

I never disabled msn messenger because I use it alot and it doesn't bother me.

My memory is 256 mb of pc2100 and at default setting I get like 500-600 in sisoft.

I doubt that any of my hardware is slowing me down.

Any more ideas?

And thanks for all of those that have been thrown out thus far.


Tweaking helped me alot.
http://www.xp-erience.org tweak everything and download all their tweak patches.

[joey_rjm5]

Thanks for the link; I'll check it out

[Malakai]

did u do a clean install? i upgraded from 2Kpro and it was pretty lagy. but i backed stuff up and did a clean install and everything is nice and speedy. got almost 600 more points in 3dmark2001 w/XP over 2K.
-Malakai

[joey_rjm5]

Yes I did a clean install. I reformatted and everything.

[jay_stealth]

well my pc runs better than it ever has done using xp. there are certain things that slow it down (appz wise) you can change this by doing start,run,msconfig then go to services and uncheck workstation. for more info on tweaking,hacking,skinning xp and the like visit http://xp.modrica.com/forum

[joey_rjm5]

Alright cool, thanks for the links you guys.

I will put all this together and try to get xp running fast.

Here's some more info. I check to see my cpu utilizations and it went up alot...like to 100% just when performing regular things. :confused:

[turd]

well one thing that will slow the entire system down could be a botched page file , and xp is setting up a temp pagefile each time u boot, you need to delete and setup a new pagefile, but u cannot do this while the temp one xp creates to boot exists. you need to do this to get out of this

a )reformat and reinstal or
b) boot into your xp cd RC, which is boot to recovery console option prompt

type "cd C:\winnt32" or wherever your xp page file is, check and note

then in this new directory you wil not see your pagefile. sys but it is there, so to make it visible to th RC you need to overwrite it with the contents of another file. this is important so u can then delete so just rename and copy a .txt file over it like:

copy help.txt pagefile.sys

now you want to delete your now visible pagefile. sys

delete pagefile.sys


then type Exit and the system will reboot, when xp reboots it will recognize that pagefile.sys is missing and create a new, good one

so to rehash---from the RC type

cd C:\winnt32
copy help.txt pagefile.sys
delete pagefile.sys
Exit

this may not be your prob, butlike isaid a badpage file will give you a slow system

[Genn]

I installed xp a little while ago and never had any problems with it, but one thing i did do was go into msconfig and disable all the extra stuff like AOL(argh i hate it) and stuff. And for those of you who want to get rid of all the annoying pop ups(hopefully everyone) goto cnet(www.cnet.com) and search for powertoys and you should find one for xp, it lets do a ton of very helpful stuff, like getting rid of the popups.

Another way I can think of to speed it up is to go to the control panel and system, the advance tab. Then click the top settings button(near performance). You can click best persormance and it should disable all the little extra stuff that makes it look better but slows it down. Then click the advanced tab and make sure programs are selected on both, I don't know why they wouldn't but doesn't hurt to check.

And BTW if you want to start reclaming the fancy settings you should time something opening with them all off(and assuming there is a difference) click one and go open that program again and time it and keep doing it till the time it takes to open it goes up. BTW it should be a program that takes a little while to open(AOL comes to mind, ARGH) so you can more acurately time it.

[Malakai]

what would u all recommend the page file size to be set to?
min/max sizes