Slooow XP Pro Machine (XP Pro SP3)

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I have a machine that just works so slowly that it causes a lot of frustration.

It is an Acer, about 18 months old with 1 Gb of RAM (and an appropriate motherboard, but cant remember the specs on it)

I have done all the usual stuff to clean it up and make it faster like:
Maxxed out the Virtual Memory
Deleted old and unnnecessary programs
Cleared temp files and caches
Run all the anti yuk ware scans
Defragged
Chkdisk’d
Cleaned the registry of unnecessary startups
Cleared System Restores
Patched everything in sight

and it is still as slow as waiting for the drought to break!

We use a Smartclient front end (that needs version 3 of the .net framework) to access a remote database and this is especially slow. This database should only be as slow as the internet connection dictates, but on this machine it is painful.

I’m thinking of blowing it away and starting again, but thought that someone may have a less drastic idea that I could use.

Johanna

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Does the Processes tab of Task Manager show anything that is using a lot of processor capacity?

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Hi Hans,

No it doesn’t, that’s one of the other mysteries.

I should also mention that I reseated the RAM modules as well, just in case.

Johanna

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Do you mean slow booting up? Slow loading an application? Slow running an application? All of these? What happens on an application like web browsing or e-mail that may be more familiar to us? Depending on how many applications you have running simultaneously, 1 GB RAM could be an issue. More information about the PC specs would be helpful. In Windows Explorer, check Tools | Folder Options | View and make sure that “Automatically search for network folders and printers” is NOT checked.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Joe,

Yes, slow to all of the above. Browsing and email are not too bad. I will check that network setting and get back to you.

Johanna

Edited later: That network setting was ticked, so it is now unticked. We will wait and see. (It is possible that no-one will use that machine today – who would want to??)
And it is a Celeron 2.8GHz to go with the 1 Gb RAM.

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Celeron processors are noticeably slow on a system with any decent amount of I/O. Even though 1 GB RAM is usually more than enough for XP in your situation more RAM might help. You’ll still notice slow boot times, & slow program loading. You’ll have less disk activity with the swap file though.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi Joe,

I had thought about that and the implications when we bought the machines, but most of them have been fine and have coped well with the workload demanded of them.

But I have just had word that taking the tick out of that box abotu network shares and printers has given the machine a new lease on life!

Thank you. I will add that little item to my ‘armoury’ list

Johanna

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You’re quite welcome. Thanks for posting back. And the good news. Hope it is sufficient to keep the lease new for quite a while.

Joe

--Joe

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I don’t do much of it anymore (my retired condition!) but since you and Joe were talking about shares… Keep an eye out for drive mapping also because when I was at work, folks used to absolutely need to map several shares to drive letters and that would slow the machine down, sometimes significantly. Of course, all of this was back in Win98 days. I don’t know how well XP or Vista handle mappings.

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Any problem with drive mapping isn’t so much number of drives mapped as what happens when a mapped drive is inaccessible. That leads to the same sort of network issues as being discussed. Windows Explorer just waits for some timeout to expire before proceeding. I don’t know how long the timeout is. I know it seems as though it is forever when you have to wait.

Joe

--Joe

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