Why is my computer so slow?

I installed XP Pro on my Windows box a couple of weeks ago. I’ve managed to de-uglify it but my main problem is that my machine, which ran perfectly quickly under Win2K, now crawls. It’s not the newest machine in the world (Athlon 1.4/768MB RAM) but it should be able to handle XP … I would have thought so anyway.

Word hangs for a couple of seconds every few minutes, Eudora takes an age to process mail, I’m starting to thnk that I’m going to have to go back to Win2K just to get some work done. Any ideas on what might be up with the thing gratefully accepted …

10 Comments

wally January 1, 2001 Reply

I don’t really use XP much, (get Linux mate 😉 ) but as far as I know, XP only requires a 1ghz + with 64mb + RAM, which you have. Have you tried disabling things such as ‘VDU Shadowing’ in the BIOS setup? or tried removing Hardware and putting it back in bit by bit? It’s possibly just a nasty IRQ conflict or something. Aslo, have you tried (it’s tedious mind) getting the latest XP patches?

Rachel January 1, 2001 Reply

There’s a Linux box sat to my left (Debian GNU/Linux + KDE) which I use for about 50% of the desktop stuff I do, unfortunately there is still enough stuff that I need workwise that only runs on doze for me to need a reasonable doze box 🙁

I have all the XP patches … it made it worse if anything!

tomjleeds January 1, 2001 Reply

I run XP Pro on both a P3/1Ghz/384MBSD and a P2/400Mhz/64MBSD. The 400 runs it slowly, but it’s usable. I did use Win2K on the 400, but after a bad driver install and a lost Win2K CD, this was my only option. I’ll probably sort it out in the longrun.

However, on the 1Ghz it runs fine, being significantly faster than it was with WinME, and yet I have more programs and more services running.

Why your installation isn’t working is beyond me!

Pete January 1, 2001 Reply

Per-chance, have you installed the dreaded “Service Pack 1” as part of the WinXP installation process? There’s a bug in the update that causes some programs to run up to 10x slower (believe it or not), so this might be the culprit. Try the patch available from here;

http://crawlclick.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146

Erwin January 1, 2001 Reply

That’s strange..
I’ve never experienced anything like this and I have a 1.7Ghtz Athalon. The one thing I’m having troubles with is my USB 2.0 connections. Anytime I add a hardware (external drive etc..) and want to update, windows xp does not recognize it anywhere and tells me to replace the product.

-eek!
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http://www.canarta.com

Fefu January 1, 2001 Reply

XP SUCKS!!!!! I USED TO RUN WINME WITH MI P3 AND IT WAS THE FASTEST THING ON EARTH. NOW XP HAS TURN MI PC INTO A TURTLE!
FUCK YOU XP!

Lyle January 1, 2001 Reply

I had win2k on an amd tbird 800mhz w/ 256kb on cache, with 256mb sd-133 ram, and a 133mb/sec HDD running at 66mb/sec do to the old Bois. I just upgraded to a new athalon board and now I’m running a 2 × 256mb pc 3200 DDR, a 2500+ AMD Barton 512kb cache, and the hard drive is running at 133mb/sec and a fresh XP home edition format/fdisk/install. The Unreal Tournament 2003 bench used to be low 6fps, average 13, and max of 36. Now min 22 fps and average of 35 with max over 100… but I SWEAR, desktop wise its half as fast! It takes SOOOO long to install software, and I think It just took 15 minutes to unistall a 1.8gb game… granted thats big, but 15 minutes… whats the deal? I know my old system on Win2k was twice as fast at simple desktop procedures like word, installs, opening I. explores, new windows etc…. Does anyone know if XP is is logging the install where 2k didn’t? is there a way to turn it off?

JAV January 1, 2001 Reply

I have 560mb of ram, XP runs great

job January 1, 2001 Reply

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mbaraga alexander ndiku January 1, 2001 Reply

have tried to run my comptuter with xp pro but over a sudden the system slows down. have even deframented but nothing: am running on 256 Ram but still holds b ack like a pentium 2 what is happenning??

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