[Closed] computer speed and performance issues

Remove everything [ [b]especially Windows[/b] ]format & re-install

I'd guess a scheduled virus scan, Windows Defender or an indexing process causing the problem at midday.

A complete Windows re-install every year or two isn't a bad idea either.

And if you can afford it, get windows 7. Massively quicker than XP.

Most people recommend using a registry cleaner to stop all the background tasks you neither want nor need (safari update checker etc) but when I look at it, I'm just convinced I'll remove the one process that will stop the thing ever booting up again, so I think about it for half an hour (and that's another half an hour valuable STW browsing time gone forever) then leave it all as it was.

I agree that most virus checkers slow the whole thing down, and there will be people coming here letting you know which free ones work well. Other than that, a good defrag makes you feel better.

ooh, just read this...

[i]It only had 768MB of RAM so I have ordered another 2gb and will install that with the existing 512mb in the 3rd slot to give 2.5gb[/i]

I would recommend lobbing the old ram and just sticking the new 2G in. You could have all sorts of issues with leaving the old stuff in.
Take the hit, just put the new 2G in and leave it at that.

Remove everything [ especially Windows ]format & re-install

Don't think I have the original Windows discs anymore though, will need to check, it wasnt pre-installed as the computer was originally bought without an OS

I'd guess a scheduled virus scan, Windows Defender or an indexing process causing the problem at midday.

Its at midnight not midday and there is nothing scheduled that I can see but again will check, virus protection runs out in 9 days so will be removing and putting something else on, any free software recomendations would be welcome. I found Kapersky to be much less intrusive and didnt slow things down nearly as much as Norton etc

I would recommend lobbing the old ram and just sticking the new 2G in. You could have all sorts of issues with leaving the old stuff in.

Well Ram can run at differnet speeds and timinig which can cause problems. There may also be a limit to the amount / type of ram your MB can use.

Your biggest hit will be that the memory bus will probably run at the speed of the slowest memory chips, which will be your old stuff. A slightly smaller impact will be that the memory access will probably be made in single channel mode.

I might well work, but it will almost certainly have a performance hit. You could always experiment and see.

I guess you did check to make sure the ram you brought is supported by your MB?

Windows Boot Vis is a great little app will improve your boot time. Turn off all the graphics enhancements in XP, look in the startup tab of MSCONFIG and kill anything you dont need. Get a secondary HDD for your media and back up, then install UBUNTU. you wont look back.

ok cheers
I downloaded some checker software from Crucial that scanned the present system and seemed to indicate that different speeds would be supported etc
but no harm in experimenting
Is there a way of checking from the circuit boards what speed they all run at etc?

anjs - yes above did that too (I hope ;))

Well you can probably check on line if you know the MB model

Get SIW from here [url] http://www.gtopala.com/ [/url]

Run it and go down to the hardware/memory section, it will then show you wahat is currently installed in each slot, what speed it is and what speeds are supported.

Get SIW from here http://www.gtopala.com/

Run it and go down to the hardware/memory section, it will then show you what is currently installed in each slot, what speed it is and what speeds are supported.

that looks like an expansion to cover everything where the Crucial app did for the memory element - that recognised the motherboard model and the RAM that was in there at the moment, the speed and the supported speeds and made recommendations, which is what I bought. Hopefully they will be compatible.
Guess I will find out when it arrives!

the crucical memory check is normally pretty good

XP SP3 seems rather heavy on RAM, in my experience as long as you have at least 1Gb of RAM it'll run lots better.

First question - what antivirus is it? Norton I think it is has a known issue where it gets confused and totally trashes your system performance. This seems to happen inevitably in my experience.

molgrips -
I said in 1st post -
"Running Windows XP SP3 with Kapersky protection"
and later -
"I found Kapersky to be much less intrusive and didnt slow things down nearly as much as Norton etc"

After using Norton for a year I would never touch it again!

One thing it's worth check is the DMA status on the hard disk.

If it's an IDE disk, which judging from the CPU it probably is then you should check it (SATA disks don't need to be checked AFAIK).

Go to Start>Control Panel>System>Device Manager

Select IDE ATAPI CONTROLLERS, then on all the Primary and Secondary channels listed, double click and go to Advanced Settings. Any which come up with PIO MODE will grind your computer down to a halt every time they're accessed.

Windows disables DMA on devices after they've had 6 DMA errors IIRC, so over the lifetime of a drive its not uncommon for them to be marked as PIO only when in fact the drive is still functional.

Oh. It's been a long morning.. sorry 🙂

You tried using the task manager to see what's chewing up CPU?