Windows Xp PRO Problems

[bradlesliect]

Hi Guys,

The age old problem with Windows XP.

I am running XP Pro with Service Pack and am having huge problems with it. Its become EXREMELY slow

I have tried the following:

- Basic Housekeeping ( Clear temp files, scandisk, defrag)
- Checked for viruses and spyware( ADware 2008 and AVG)
- Disabled unecessary items in startup menu( MSCONFIG)
- Checked registry for illegal entries( \LOCAL\SOFTWARE\MS\Windows\Current\RUN)
- Removed all unwanted software
- Checked hardware for problems.
- SP3 and all updates installed
- IE7 updated and patched
- Services all running
- Nothing out of the ordinary in the event log

After all of this ...NOTHING! Windows is still as slow as ever. Brings back memories of running win95 on a 486 PC ...very annoying and frustrating

what the heck could the problem be? I dont know what else to do....

Please help .... ;(

[cross]

Since its XP, you tried a repair? Also, how long has it been going on? When it first started, did you try a system restore back to before the issue began?

Could be hardware related also, do you have any extra ram to swap and test with? If not, you can try pulling 1 stick out at a time to see if that makes any difference.

What does performance monitor show when its going slow? How much ram free, how much processor free, etc?

[morganlefay]

My first thought is failing harddrive or corrupted profile.

I would be backing up data asap...just incase its the harddrive.

Create another profile and see if it still happens???

How much memory do you have in the system??

Do you have any errors in the event logs??

What about in task manager...hows the performance in there??

anything chewing cpu\memory??

MLF

[Slartarama]

Try running CCleaner as well, it removes temp files and such, but I have also seen it fix profile issues and problems with leftover applications, via running the registry cleaner.

Malwarebytes is really solid for picking up things that Adaware might miss.

Also, check the size of your profile, a large profile can make XP run really slow.

If you have slow load times for apps, look for a dead shortcut on the Desktop, that could really cause speed issues as well.

You might want to turn off indexing, right click on the HDD>properties uncheck it and then when prompted, ignore all. That helps speed up a little.

How much RAM you got? If it's 512 or lower, you should add more.

Maybe put your install disk in and the run "sfc /scannow" to repair system files.

[westin]

How old of an install are you running? I think XP needs to be reinstalled at least once a year. :P

What hardware are you running it on?

For a small performance boost, you can shut of indexing from your drive properties screen. I am not sure how much this will help, but I have heard that it will help some.

Is your page file managed by Windows, or set to a fixed size?

You may want to run a scan with Spybot, I have seen it pick up several things that AVG and AdAware miss.

Is it slow to start?
slow to open apps?
slow while browsing?
slow to switch between programs?
all of the above?

Not sure that any of this will help... hopefully it will

edit: When I started typing this, no one had posted, I went and did a few other things, finished typing it up, and posted it... and 3 people had squeezed in before me!

[bradlesliect]

Thank you for the responses.

I am running it on a notebook. I did a clean install a few months ago.

I was thinking it might be hardware too but I doubt it...but then again the notebook is about 3yrs old.

I don't have extra RAM chips to try out. I was thinking of running extra tests on the hardware - any suggestions of good utils to use for testing? I have heard of Malware Bytes and will try that too.

System restore is turned off. I dont like to use it cos you get mem resident viruses. Running multiple profiles and created a new profile to see if anything changes and its the same in all profiles.

Any other ideas? Going to back up and try clean install again....it will prolly take away the problem but does explain what caused it and how to prevent it from happening again.

[bradlesliect]

Westin - I have done all apart from Spybot.

I know and have heard that windowsxp needs to be reinstalled quite often. The page file is managed by windows - i dont like messing with it myself.

......and the problem and saga continues....

using it on a notebook....

[cross]

Malwarebytes is a great program, give it a go. I found it a few weeks back, and absolutely love it!

Try Memtest:
http://www.memtest86.com/
Its free, download and burn the bootable image
It will test your Ram

[morganlefay]

My Laptop is almost 2 years old...doesnt need a reinstall. I think it really depends on what you install\uninstall on it..as alot of apps leave crap in the registry.

Did you try a different profile??

I have seen a failing harddrive cause those symptoms also.

MLF

[cross]

Depending on the manufacturer, there should be some diagnostic tools loaded on a partition that you can run when booting. Try f12 when booting. Hopefully theres a test for hard drives. I know our Dell desktops all have a hard drive diag test, and it finds failing drives like a champ.