Re: Puzzled by strange behavior
- From: "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:49:39 -0500
Wes Groleau wrote:
In my house now are three Pentium towers.
Comp. A: 1.5 GHz, 32 MB RAM, 40 GB HD
Comp. B: 1.5 GHz, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HD
Comp. C: 551 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 200 GB HD
A & B are identical except for memory. C is earlier model, same
mfg.
A & B had XP Home, C had XP Pro.
About the time I bought C, an inexperienced widow asked me to update
A & B as it had not been done since her husband died.
Windows update choked and damaged a file. Since the owner
did not know where her husband had put the CDs and product keys,
I decided to try to replace the file by mounting the HD as slave
in the good system. Unfortunately, due to the similarities of the
three machines, I confused which was which and made things worse.
Add bad advice from Microsoft Tech support, and other screwups best
skipped over for brevity, I ended up with one HD unable to even
get safe mode and two that would boot but weren't legal.
Finally, the lady found her CDs and product keys. I had no personal
stuff yet on my new machine, so I reinstalled the correct version of
Windows on each machine.
A & B have since been through four or five windows update cycles
to bring them up-to-date. During the update processes, I frequently
defragmented. (Windows Update creates MAJOR fragmentation!)
C took only two as it already had service pack two. I then
defragmented, then installed Office, activated and upgraded that.
Defragged, then installed SQL Express and Visual Studio Express.
Defragged, then installed FireFox and Opera. Defragged again
and went through update cycles until no more updates were available.
I only had one ethernet port available on the router, so all
installs and updates used the same connection. The router's
firewall is at max paranoia--port scans from outside find
absolutely nothing.
A & B, despite the difference in memory both check for and download
updates at about the same (normal) speed. C did at first, but
somewhere along the way it got very slow. Now checking for
available updates takes longer than I can endure watching.
No mail apps ever opened, no ISP logins, nothing downloaded except
from windows update.
What might cause this slowdown? 266 MHz machines on dialup
are faster than this thing!
I have to ask... Are you sure about those specifications?
Comp. A: 1.5 GHz, 32 MB RAM, 40 GB HD
Comp. B: 1.5 GHz, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HD
Comp. C: 551 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 200 GB HD
First - the ram is crippling every one of them.
Second - the slowest computer has an unusually (and likely unsupported)
large hard drive.
For Windows XP - I recommend 512MB+ memory. 256MB minimum really. Sure -
it'll install on less, but run like a crippled wet yak.
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
.
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