Re: Slow performance

Gerry: WOW- You are full of info; Appreciate the time you put into your
answer:
Re: System is Dell Dimension 2350, originally only 256 RAM but I installed
512 awhile back. I expected to see a difference in performance then, but I
didn't notice any improvement. But I really wasn't having any trouble before
that. I just decided to update since a lot of the new programs require a
minimum of 512.

I realize that the pagefile usage is excessive and I need to reduce memory
usage, but I can't figure out what is using up so much memory, or why. The
programs that I have running should not be using that much.

I don't restart puter every 24 hrs. but I do restart it fairly often. Maybe
3 times a week or so. VOIP is no problem, it just takes awhile for
everything to load back up again.

Re: Windows Live One Care - I just don't get it. As I mentioned, I have
used it for years with good results and little problems. What is it about
the program that makes you think it is "poor"? I have tried a number of
other security systems and just about went crazy trying to decipher them. I
use Time Warner Road Runner Broadband and they offer CA (Computer Associates)
Security Suite software for free. What do you know about their program?

My disk drive is pretty full right now, mainly due to fact that I just
returned from a 10 day vacation out west and took a ton of digital photos and
video which I am going through and culling out the bad ones. That's also the
reason the recycle bin is so full. I usually keep it emptied out better than
that. When I get my photos and videos the way I want them, I will be moving
them to CD storage.

Temporary Internet Files allocation is set at the recommended minimum of 50 MB
History is set at 10 days
Default allocation for recycle bin is already set at 5%.
All uninstall folders in Windows are already compressed.
Dr. Watson did have the check in the "Append to" box, so I fixed that.

EVENT VIEWER:- WOW - When I went in to reset the maximum size settings for
each log from 512 to 128 per your suggestion, I found the maximum setting for
the MSFWSVC log was set at 15360 K. Don't know how that got set that way.
I've never messed with those settings before.

I use the Systems Tools/Disk Clean Up frequently between the Live One Care
scheduled clean ups

I'll get the recycle bin emptied and run the clean up and de frag and let
you know if it makes any difference. If you get any further ideas based on
the above, please let me know.


"Gerry" wrote:

Magsmom

The system is heavily reliant on using the pagefile, which will result
in poor system performance. This is obvious as both the Total and the
Peak are greatly in excess of the installed RAM. You need to add RAM and
/ or reduce memory usage.

What is your computer make and model?

pctsSvc.exe = Spyware Doctor

MsMpEng.exe =Windows Defender a component of Windows LiveOneCare.

IncMail.exe = Incredimail

Leaving your computer on 24/7 means that if any programme has a memory
leak the memory does not get released even if the programme is closed.
This could be a significant cause of your problem. I do not know what
affect restarting your computer would have on VOIP. It is the act of
restarting your computer that releases memory. Thus you only need your
computer to be shutdown for a minute or two every 24 hours.

Norton and McAfee both have a major impact on system. However, just
because you have chosen to follow your friends example is hardly
justification for picking another example of poor software.

The Disk Defragmenter report shows you have minimal free disk space.
Ideally you should 20% to 25% free. You most likely can improve the
situation but eventually you should consider adding a further drive to
increase capacity.

The default allocation to System Restore is 12% on your C partition
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click your My
Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore. Place the cursor
on your C drive select Settings but this time find the slider and drag
it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the
Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary internet
files, especially if you do not store offline copies on disk. The
default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to offline
copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer select
Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files, Settings to
make the change. At the same time look at the number of days history is
held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

If your drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises with
your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory of
your C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in your Windows
folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and $NtUninstallKB282010$
etc. These files may be compressed or not compressed. If compressed
the text of the folder name appears in blue characters. If not
compressed you can compress them. Right click on each folder and
select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box before Compress
contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you can see the amount
gained by deducting the size on disk from the size. Folder
compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive / partition.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Information, Tools, Dr Watson and verify that the box before "Append to
existing log" is NOT checked. This means the next time the log is
written it will overwrite rather than add to the existing file.

The default maximum size setting for Event Viewer logs is too large.
Reset the maximum for each log from 512 kb to 128 kb and set it to
overwrite.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us


Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

Please let me know whether these suggestions help reduce the Total and
Peak fures in Task Manager. If not you we need to explore further ideas.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Magsmom wrote:
CPU is Pentium 4 - 2.20 Ghz
Ram is 512 MB

Commit charge is:- Total 940,028 - Limit 1,263,628 - Peak 1,210,880

Here are the top 6 Memory using processes:
Peak VM size
iexplore.exe 167,184 49,308
Svchost.exe 164,568 25,914
pctsSvc.exe 164,108 178,220
MsMpEng.exe 153,692 91,694
IncMail.exe 64,612 35,692
iexplore.exe 59,472 48,528

Yes, I leave my computer on 24/7 due to having VOIP

Re: Windows Live One Care:- I have been using it for a number of
years and I love it. Never had these slow performance problems until
recently. In fact, although my computer is older and has a slower
process, my computer functions much faster than my friends computer,
which is the same brand, but she uses Norton. Also, Windows Live One
Care does not include a registry cleaner. However, they do have a
registry cleaning function in the Windows Live One Safety Scanner, so
you may have the two confused.

I also have Spybot and Spyware Doctor programs, but I do not let them
run automatically. Only when I manually run a scan.

Here is my Defrag analyse report:-
Volume (C:)
Volume size = 55.84 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 46.78 GB
Free space = 9.06 GB
Percent free space = 16 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 4 %
File fragmentation = 7 %
Free space fragmentation = 1 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 168,177
Average file size = 436 KB
Total fragmented files = 1,982
Total excess fragments = 12,374
Average fragments per file = 1.07

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 755 MB
Total fragments = 4

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 18,081
Fragmented folders = 72
Excess folder fragments = 178

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 201 MB
MFT record count = 187,280
Percent MFT in use = 90 %
Total MFT fragments = 3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
584 42 MB \Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\rt.jar
378 1.16 GB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\My Documents\My Videos\Sony video clips\Cheeko\Cheeko 6.avi
364 43 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1339\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
280 43 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1336\snapshot\_REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE
273 17 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\65FJ70GT\scnAVavbase14500000[1].cab
182 736 KB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Application Data\Move Networks\BlackBox
177 11 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1344\A0174276.exe
177 11 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1339\A0174029.exe
177 11 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1339\A0174122.exe
177 11 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1338\A0173757.exe
157 10 MB
\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\DataColl\CollectedData_22947.xml
122 7 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\LNBTV4ME\scnAVasbase14500000[1].cab
119 476 KB
\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-1132940392-1673125147-3913084170-1006\INFO2
114 99 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Application
Data\IM\Identities\{8FB9562A-FB63-4AE5-B51A-AB42C467ABCC}\Message
Store\Inbox.imm
108 1 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Application Data\HP\Digital Imaging\cache2\8.DB
105 24 KB \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE.LOG
91 6 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1343\A0174230.rbf
91 11 MB \Documents and Settings\All
Users\Application
Data\Walgreens\Styles\wg-leapbooks\shared\pagedesigns\blueyellow-1\background.jpg
76 145 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Application
Data\IM\Identities\{8FB9562A-FB63-4AE5-B51A-AB42C467ABCC}\Message
Store\Deleted Items.imm
70 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1339\A0173905.exe
64 348 KB
\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-1132940392-1673125147-3913084170-1006\Dc32.db
63 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1344\A0174254.rbf
61 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1339\A0173889.dll
59 6 MB \Documents and Settings\Love
Goddess\Local Settings\Application
Data\IM\Identities\{8FB9562A-FB63-4AE5-B51A-AB42C467ABCC}\Message
Store\Attachments\56601-MrsHughes.wmv
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1335\A0173673.dll
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1345\A0174320.dll
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1344\A0174293.dll
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1337\A0173709.dll
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1341\A0174170.dll
58 4 MB \System Volume
Information\_restore{B37680B2-BA0A-4E5D-BF30-83E44C588624}\RP1336\A0173686.dll

I guess I covered all your questions. What do you think?



"Gerry" wrote:

What is the CPU speed?

How much RAM?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the
boxes before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the
figures for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Many do not rate Windows Live One Care very highly. It includes a
Registry Cleaner, which many here think provides negligible benefits
and potentially can seriously damage the system. It also takes a lot
of resources to run, which may go some way to explaining your
disappointing system performance. You can use Windows Defender, a
component of Windows Live One Care, as a standalone. Are you using
any other anti-virus and anti-spyware software?

I would be interested in seeing a Disk Defragmenter report . Open
Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select View Report and
click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeD.txt in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as
it is more informative.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Magsmom wrote:
In the past, my computer would occasionally experience a slow down
in performance which would be easily corrected by doing a clean
up/tune up. I use several methods to do this. I am running XP,
sp3 with Windows Live One Care which includes regular tune ups.
Somoetimes, if I have been doing a lot of web surfing, I just do a
manual cleanup using my IE tools, and occasionally I use Speed Up
My PC, which does a great job of optimizing.

But recently I started having problems that don't respond to these
methods. I have run several virus/spyware scans and can't find
anything. I notice that I frequently get the message that "Virtual
Memory Is low". I started watching my Task Manager Performance and
.

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