Computer speed

It could be any number of things depending on your hardware, software and XP version. Have you tried to look at the Task Manager? In Processes, you should be able to determine what processes are chewing memory or CPU time (right click in the task bar and select Task Manager).

Thanks for the reply. I checked the task manager, 80-85 % of CPU is chewed up by System Idle Process. Can I end that process?

Well, those are the start-up applications/programs that open during the boot-up process. Go to Start, click Run and type "msconfig" on the prompt line and click OK or Enter. Click the Startup tab and "un-check" those applications/programs that you don't need or not necessarily needed at start-up (be cautious though that not all be un-check). You can still activate these applications later as needed. Click OK and Restart. Follow the prompt after Restart so that Windows will not ask you the same after another Restart.

Hope this helps.

Yes! That is a good suggestion. There is a file called backup.exe, in the Task Master- Processes that gets loaded up. 250/300 meg. Try deleting it. My trusted guru tells me you don't need it, and dumping it won't hurt anything. It solved the problem. Periodically check it. If anyone can enlighten me on what is dumping stuff into it- please let us know.

You might also want to empty your Windows "prefetch" in Windows XP. Click Start, Run, type prefetch on the prompt line. Overtime this folder gets filled-up with so many PF files. You can delete all its contents without any problem (be careful NOT TO DELETE the FOLDER). You will notice that the next time you boot Windows XP or open applications seem to be a little slow but you will experience a speed boost after that.

You might need to do "system re-conditioning". Software installation/un-installation leaves remnants of files, clutters on hard drives and make your system slow. Try Norton SystemWorks run on CD (not always the best but it works...you may have other software that does the same) with WinDoctor scan and fix.

Good Lick!!!

Defrag, and clean up unused stuff on your hardrive first.. You could have a lot of spyware and a few virus' messing wity you. Also, if you have a lot of icons on your desktop, that will slow your startup time down.

hi guy, the simplest way is that you could reinstall windows XP

DON'T BE IN A HURRY!!!

Re-installing Windows XP is not that simple as you think... For instance you will need to back-up all your important files, and after re-installation; update the OS, also re-install this... and that...and so on and so forth....

hi friend,

re-installing is not so complex as you thought, at least, in my experience.

sometimes, re-installing is the best way to enhance computer speed rather than any other methods

haha

WELL... I've done that several times myself. BUT... that's not the ONLY solution to a SIMPLE problem, like a computer SLOW DOWN. Try to save TIME!!!

"that's not the ONLY solution to a SIMPLE problem"

i fully agree what you said, but for a computer slow down, in my experience, i don't think it's a simple problem, a computer slow down could have many resasons,

of course, if you have enough computer technology, you could analysis the reasons, but if not, , it will be a big trouble...

Please refer to my post #2. You might want to give it a try OR with something similar, if that's what you're comfortable with. It won't take much of your precious time and will save you a day's work.

"a computer slow down could have many reasons"

YES! Even a well conditioned one can become SLOW after opening so MANY applications at a time.

I am using a simple utility called TClockEx to monitor my memory resources. At least I can see the size of available memory on my system and NOT to think that my computer is SLOW because of a "PROBLEM".

At least I can quote 3Doug's signature again. "It isn't what you have that counts, it's what you do with it!"

haha, come down, friend,

re-installing is just a suggestion,

of course, we have many methods to solve the problem, and re-installing also should be the last try, but i have to say again "it is the best way to solve the problem of computer slown down"

Go ahead if you HAVE all the TIME!!!

CHEERS!!!

I agree with both of you, but re-loading is always my last option. The updates and patches add up to hours of hair pulling and cursing microsoft. Run your virus checkers "adaware" Spybot" Norton" whatever you have. Delete all your temps with a good disk cleanup and then defrag.

I don't know if you had any thing important to save --- I did, backup and reinstall took easily five hours of dedicated effort. I would recommend avoiding doing this if it at all possible. --

There are some very good responses here that I would try before doing anything as extreme as reinstalling the OS.

First try defraging your hard disk. Then open task manager and find out what processes are eating up your CPUs time.

By the way, System Idle is not eating CPU time. It's just saying that your CPU's not doing anything at the moment. The time to check Task Manager is when the computer slows down. Then you'll be able to check what's using most of your resources.

My anti-virus software usually starts a scan at around 6pm. When it starts, my computer slows down noticeably. I have to put up with it since it's doing something that I consider important.

There was one time when I had to send my CD drive to the shop. My computer took about three or four minutes to boot up after I dismounted the drive. With the drive in place, boot up took less than a minute. I never tried finding out why since the CD drive came back after only a few days and I'm not that impatient .

Hi every one. Thank you all for trying to solve my problem. The good news is that after I followed the Campbel Lighting's suggestion and deleted some unused programs from my hard drive, everything went back to normal and now the speed is perfect.

That's great --- a regular checkup --- I call it a Tune Up --- will help in the future. Good call Campbell

Many of the suggestions others are making are great for generalized poor performance - e.g. slow boots, taking a log time to load an app or to bring it to the foreground if it's running but you've not used it for a while.

What you're describing, however, I think is a different problem. I, too, experience an apparent 'non response' from Windows (I use XP) when I hit a key. Sometimes it'll take many seconds before I see the cursor respond to my input. I mostly have noticed this in MS Outlook and Dev Studio (I use VS.Net 2005), but I've also seen it happen in Wordpad and other apps.

Sadly, I've not found a solution to the problem and cynically I've just written it off as "just one of those things Windows does."

Less cynically, however, here's an exploration of some of the factors that may, and others that most likely do not, contribute to the problem:

• Keyboard input ultimately goes through a keyboard driver, which in turn requires the use of an interrupt. Since I'm not actually losing characters (but am just experiencing a delay in them showing up on the screen) we can rule out device driver interactions, conflicting interrupt priorities, etc. (any of which would cause the input to be dropped, not delayed).
• Text showing up on the screen is an application's responsibility.
• The application may simply not be getting any CPU time. Since you are seeing most CPU time in the system idle process, this is unlikely to be the root cause.
• The application may be waiting on some (driver-bound) activity, and is unable to respond to windows messages (which would tell it to respond to the key press). This is the most likely cause for the delayed screen update in response to keyboard input.

Assuming that my last point above is correct, then we would need to know what the app is doing (and why it is doing it), to be able to alter the behavior.

• Regarding the 'why' - two reasons come to mind: (1) something happened in the system that the app is programmed to respond to (perhaps it has a file watcher that gets fired); (2) something the user did has a non-obvious pre-requisite that must be fulfilled. Either way, the app has been designed without (sufficient) multi-threading to allow the long-duration other task to complete without blocking simple actions such as editing a doc and updating the UI accordingly.
• Regarding the 'what' - all I can suggest is that you pay close attention to what you were doing just before the system hung on you, to see if you can notice any pattern that could show you what to do to prevent the problem in the future.

Alternatively, I hear that the Mac doesn't suffer this sort of problem.

Sorry I couldn't be any more help.

Chris

My wife put an interesting program called mem turbo on her computer it defragrags and recover ram mem as reallocating cpu and sppeeds the XP ten fold . I think she got it a fresco off the net. Check it out it sure worked for us as we are way out in the boonies and on dial up least I don't fall asleep between pages anymore.........

Before you do anything else, how about a few simple questions...

1. Do you have a network connection? If yes, what type?
2. Do you stay logged in all the time?
3. Do you run a bunch of little gadgets? Weather Bug, that sort of thing.
4. Are there a lot of little icons on the bottom right of your screen?
5. Do you run any software (virus scanner, pop-up blocker, etc.) that may start running on a scheduled basis. In this case, while you're using your computer.
6. Do you run any software that likes to go out and get updates on a regular basis?
7. What's your hardware configuration? Including mouse and keyboard -Wireless?
8. When was the last time you defragged your hard drive?
9. Do you have access to software to repair Window's Registry? Such as Registry Mechanic.

They had a news segment on CBS evening news about computers slowing down due to spyware. That people go out and buy newer faster microprocessors thinking that the new software they are using demands it.

If you use the internet, especially using microsoft explorer, your computer sucks up spyware programs that keep your microprocessor busy doing what other people want it to do.

So, the first thing to try is your spyware tools, the trick is they like to give warnings about how the particular program under question is really needed. So its a good idea to check your spyware out on a daily or weekly basis, see if anything new pops up around the time your computer slows down.

This is a totally valid point. The thing is I've yet to find and anti-spyware program that can catch everything. I've fun as many as four different anti-spyware programs on my system all at the same time. Each one caught something that the other three didn't. Woof!!!