Maximising Performance

Stabshauptmann

Im running XP Professional servis pack2 on a dell latitude D600.
1.5 GHz processor, 512 RAM, 60GB hard drive.

Ive had the machine for 2.5 years now.
Frankly its performance has gone to **** and I need some pointers. Its TLC time, Im tight for cash so Id prefer solutions that will make windows operate faster before I fork out for parts.

Some of my problems are rediculously slow start up times
Frequent crashing when viewing image folders in tumbnail mode
MSN crashing my computer (MSN 7.5)
Crashing when multi tasking
When I try open task manager it often fails to load or crashes.
Slow to repond in general

What Ive done so far:
Used MSconfig to select only the essential processes for startup
Ran virus and spyware scans. (AVG and Spybot - both negative)
End and relaunch explorer.exe whenever it crashed badly
Uninstalled programs I dont use
Deleted unnessisary files. I now have 14% (of 20GB) free space on C drive and 8% (of 40GB) free space on D
Im about to defrag them both now,

But so far there has been no improvement in performance?
Any suggestions what I should do next, clean the registry perhaps?
Do I need a greater percentage of free HD space?
Have I done any unneccesary steps so far?

Is it possible my problems are hardware ones?

Thanks for your time

Ruu_Old

Would it be possible to get another stick of 512mb of memory? That would certainly speed things up a bit. Try ewido security suite also, it picked up a few things that Spybot and Ad-Aware couldn't. Use Regclean or CCleaner to tidy up the registry.
You could also try disabling the Index service in Windows XP (if you don't usually use the built-in Search feature). Open up My Computer then right-click on your hard drive and choose Properties. Uncheck the box at the bottom that reads Allow Indexing Service. Click OK, this may take a few minutes to complete.

melekalikimaka

i thinks a bit more free space and a clean install and maybe a clean inside the lappy would help no end and just install what ya need

Fanny Cradock

Maybe a fresh install (assuming you have the disks) may sort your issues.

I wouldn't just have spybot on your system. Try windows defender, adaware and ewido. I would also HIGHLY recommend downloading CCleaner. This handy little programme will free up space from any applications you may be running and it also will clean your registery (though not as indepth as some exclusive reg cleaning programmes that can be downloaded on a trial basis).

You should also defrag your Hard drive. I would recommend downloading a trial version of diskkeeper (Version 10 I think) and then using the inferior windows defrag tool after the trial period has run out.


:::Edit:::

Just realised I repeated everything Ruu said.

Stabshauptmann

melekalikimaka wrote:

i thinks a bit more free space and a clean install and maybe a clean inside the lappy would help no end and just install what ya need

a clean install, thats ILTG in UCD's answer to EVERYTHING. Performance, networking, spyware;
Yeah this happens a lot, call back later we've got to wipe the HD and give it a clean install

Is there an ideal percentage of your HD you should leave free. Im not very keen on the idea of cleaning inside the machine unless someone explains the clear benifits of doing this

Fanny Cradock

Not sure about an ideal percentage (google it), but I think there is a minimum percentage required for certain applications to function.

As for cleaning, I can't see much benifit on preformance other than possibly removing dust that may otherwise raise temps.

quaidox

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

a clean install, thats ILTG in UCD's answer to EVERYTHING. Performance, networking, spyware;
Yeah this happens a lot, call back later we've got to wipe the HD and give it a clean install

Is there an ideal percentage of your HD you should leave free. Im not very keen on the idea of cleaning inside the machine unless someone explains the clear benifits of doing this

you could spend weeks running all sorts of cleaning/defrag programs, and the results are minimal in terms of improving the speed of your laptop.
a fresh install will bring the machine back to it's original speed.
i work in i.t. it's the quickest and best solution to speeding up your laptop, imo.

Mutant_Fruit

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

a clean install, thats ILTG in UCD's answer to EVERYTHING. Performance, networking, spyware;
Yeah this happens a lot, call back later we've got to wipe the HD and give it a clean install

The reason being is that you can spend 3 hours clearing out spyware and misc crap and you're still not guaranteed to have fix the problem or you can do a 40 min automatic reinstall of windows (if you have a Ghost image you're talking 4 minute) and you are 100% guaranteed to have fixed the problem (unless it's hardware).

If you're dealing with several laptops a day, what option would you choose? I'd recommend a reinstall of windows at least once a year. It makes things so much faster.

As for cleaning inside the lappy... no real point unless it's overheating regularly

jesus_thats_gre

Format the HD and do a fresh install.. Works wonders.

Zillah

Windows gets ****ed up eventually. I've got a P3.2 with 2.5gig RAM and she's slowing down like a bitch. As said, format and fresh install. It'll work wonders.

edited by khannie: The swear filter is there for a reason. Don't circumvent it on this forum again.

mukki

Ruu wrote:

Would it be possible to get another stick of 512mb of memory? That would certainly speed things up a bit. Try ewido security suite also, it picked up a few things that Spybot and Ad-Aware couldn't. Use Regclean or CCleaner to tidy up the registry.
You could also try disabling the Index service in Windows XP (if you don't usually use the built-in Search feature). Open up My Computer then right-click on your hard drive and choose Properties. Uncheck the box at the bottom that reads Allow Indexing Service. Click OK, this may take a few minutes to complete.

I wouldn't too keen to adding more memory to a pc, its very rare the xp will use more them 300mb, (keep and eye on the third page of taskmanager "physical memory" if you don't believe me)

only time i see it going high is when burning dvd's, when its probably only caching stuff, incase the hard drive gets too busy


backup-format and fresh install, their is probably a million pointless files in the system32 folder that could do with being wiped

mukki

Zillah wrote:

Windows gets ****ed up eventually. I've got a P3.2 with 2.5gig RAM and she's slowing down like a bitch. As said, format and fresh install. It'll work wonders.

christ man, watch the language, their is children watching

Khannie

mukki wrote:

christ man, watch the language, their is children watching

Agreed. Like I said; The swear filter is there for a reason. Don't try to circumvent it on this forum again.

OP: I'd also recommend the fresh install. I used to do two a year when I used windows. Eventually I learned how to avoid needing one, but it's definitely the most painless way of getting back to original performance levels.

Stabshauptmann

how do you avoid needing one?

challengemaster

Use Linux

Ruu_Old

mukki wrote:

I wouldn't too keen to adding more memory to a pc, its very rare the xp will use more them 300mb, (keep and eye on the third page of taskmanager "physical memory" if you don't believe me)

only time i see it going high is when burning dvd's, when its probably only caching stuff, incase the hard drive gets too busy


backup-format and fresh install, their is probably a million pointless files in the system32 folder that could do with being wiped

Certainly won't do any harm to install another 512mb as that would be the the standard amount included in most system these days and is the minimum for comfort imo. All depends on its uses, Windows XP uses a fair bit and I have photo editing and design software running alot so it would be over 400mb for me.

It is very difficult to avoid the format and reinstall OP. It would take lots of cleaning and even any amount of system cleaning software won't get rid of everything. My laptop is about 2 1/2 years old and is due a format soon, even as much as I clean it (weekly) it is starting to be sluggish.

Khannie

challengemaster wrote:

Use Linux

Read the charter. One day ban.

Edit: Before people start calling me a nazi (:D) this is only a haha ban. We had a period of people being smart-holes about 6 months ago, and there was a bit of uproar over it, so we implemented the "one day ban for stupid / unhelpful replies".

padraig_f

Sounds like you could be running out of swap space, have you checked that? I had a problem a while back where my wireless card software had a memory leak and was swallowing up all the swap file. Similar things were happening, poor performance, random programs crashing. Process explorer helped me find the problem (you could see the program starting and exiting every few seconds). I fixed it by reinstalling the wireless card software.

I would be reluctant to buy more RAM, XP should run acceptably with 512 MB as long as you're not doing anything too heavy.

deadl0ck

You should also check services and disable any non-essential ones.

To get to services go to Start->Run, type "services.msc" and hit enter

DO a google on each of the running services and see if it's needed