Re: Windows XP high-end machine is terribly slow

Tech Tip: Click here to run a free scan for Windows Errors and optimize PC performance

Great news Kunal. Delighted to hear you have greatly improved performance.

I am not keen on McAfee or Norton (both too heavy) and prefer AVG.

I am a but surprised you still need Client for MS Networks on your internet connection for remote work.

I also do some remote work and my internet connection is ONLY TCP/IP but my VPN connections include Client for MS Networks. My point being that Client for MS is not needed at boot time nor for ordinary internet access. Why not try this and report back??

Steve



Kunal Ashar wrote:
Thanks Steve! Some of your suggestions worked to improve the performance

1. The event logs didn't show anything useful.
2. I need client for MS networks because I regularly have to connect to remote networks, often over VPN, so I can't disable it.
3. Disabling McAfee helped *a lot* - the post-login performance visibly improved. 4. Disabling Windows Defender didn't make any difference.
5. Yes, I have NTFS. I degragged the harddisk and the pagefile, and ran a chkdsk. The HDD was badly fragmented, and the defrag ran for nearly 27 hours. 6. Chkdsk reported no hardware errors.
7. Dell reported no problems with the BIOS or with Win XP Pro that resembled the issues on my machine.
8. Windows had been managing my Wireless card; I installed the latest version of Intel's Proset Wireless management software and configured it to manage my Wireless card instead of Windows. *This seemed to speed up my boot time considerably*.

With 8, my bootup time has roughly halved to about 2-3 minutes.
With 3 and 5, my application startup time has improved visibly too.

I posted the issue on another group/forum too (Windows XP Help and Support, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support&tid=df354882-abe3-46e7-9e69-0dc5e127bc00&p=1&mid=0ee8101a-853a-47e3-8173-e4a67f8fa0d0) and some suggestions from there too worked, to improve performance.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions! Looks like I don't have to fling the machine out the window after all ;-)

"xxx" wrote:

Goodness this sounds a tough one. I hope none of what follows is telling my grandmother how to suck eggs!

Are the event logs showing anything? I get problems with my laptop every now and then when it cannot find the wireless network - some services take an age to start and some timeout completely. What happens if you boot without your internet being connected? Try disabling the wireless and then rebooting. What is performance like then:??

Also, make sure you are running only TCP/IP as a networking protocol. Things like Client for Microsoft Networks really does slow things down.

Uninstall / disable your AV program and Windows Defender (major resource hog). Does this make any difference? I get issues when I have done a major clean up and reboot. Windows Defender loses all its scan history and starts scanning immediately I logon. This really slows things down.

Also, set pagefile to a fixed size, download pagefile defrag from www.sysinterals.com and set it to defrag the registry and pagefile at next boot - then reboot. Does this improve things??

After this run chkdsk on next boot to see if there is a problem with the disk. Is it FAT32 or NTFS? I presume NTFS but if not try to run a convert as I find NTFS is more efficient than FAT32.

Have you updated your system BIOS? Checked DELL's site for updated drivers of any sort. Checked with DELL for any know issues running XP Pro??

Try replacing AV software with AVG free edition.

I found this on Google groups:-

If Windows is managing your wireless card and you have the Intel Proset
Wireless management software.
Switch to the Intel Proset Wireless management and your slow Bootup to
the Novell login screen is cured. Just be sure to re-enter your SSID
info into the Intel Proset Wireless management tool. It was taking up
to two minutes to get to the Novell Login screen before I figured this
one out. I haven't had any problems since.
Let us know know the results of the above when you can :-)

Good luck,


Steve

.

Relevant Pages

  • RE: New IE flaw and exploit sites/migration to non-MS browser
    ... privileges is doable today, especially for well-managed networks. ... community with that in the Linux and Unix communities. ... communities so much as I was comparing *installation processes*. ... Let's compare that with Windows XP. ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • Re: Windows XP high-end machine is terribly slow
    ... Disabling Windows Defender didn't make any difference. ... Switch to the Intel Proset Wireless management and your slow Bootup to ... when trying to open a folder containing either a large number ... I've not configured or mapped any network drives ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Windows servers dropping like flies!!
    ... CNN is advising that if you are running Windows 2000 you should immediately shut down your computer and wait for further instructions. ... Probably the worm got on the inside of these networks from laptops that people had connected to less secure networks at home or on the road. ... this just reaffirms what I've said previously about OS X's 'security by obscurity'. ... Macs in those applications have an even smaller percentage of marketshare, and consequently, are a statistically lower profile target. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • RE: NIC dropping data until IP is reset
    ... with the IP addresses describe overlapping networks. ... the secondary choice for Windows. ... I created a BAT file that contains two NETSH Interface IP Set Address ... which resets things on the server. ...
    (microsoft.public.win32.programmer.networks)
  • Re: hotspot finder
    ... "Netstumbler is the best known Windows tool for finding open ... had a wireless sniffer he could chat for free instead of phoning. ... parked and let windows look for available networks. ...
    (alt.os.windows-xp)