XP Pro Suddenly SLOW!

How much ram do you have?, upgrade ram or buy new computer! As cheap computers have become, that would be better course to take.

It is maxed out on Ram, (Do not remember how much off hand tho. but do remember it is maxed out) In addition, why would it be slow after ten years of flawless service suddenly? Ya know?

Joe

Under "properties" you can see what your computer works with. I have a old dell computer too and with XP I could only have 1 Gb ram. XP is running towards it end and has plenty of updates, that make your system slow down.

That same dell now can run with 4 Gb once you install e.g windows 7 32 bits version.

($46 to $72 christmas gift to your wife?)

Windows 7 probably will see only 3.5, but it works. If you want more (up to 16 Gb) you can install windows 7 64 bit version.

Right now, I would run Emsisoft for malware, and CCleaner, bot have free versions.

You will see considerable changes.

Also, switch only the programs on that you use. Skype and others deplete your needed ram.

I had a ram chip go bad a couple of years ago, and all kinds of bad things started happening...including extremely slow running.

There was no way for me to figure it out at home. I had to take it to the Geek Squad. My computer was showing that ram was good.

If your wife just uses this as a basic computer, I got to poking around on the internet and found a Sears site that sells refurbs cheap...Kmart too.

http://www.kmart.com/computers-desktops-all-desktops/b-1231504201?keywordSearch=false&keyword=refurbished

@10 years I'd say you got your nickles worth time to shop sales run C cleaner 1st

It sounds like you have application program running in the background.....This could be a virus or maintenance procedure or possibly a software conflict.....So first I would run a virus scan, then check for maintenance programs that may be running, then run a complete maintenance with registry update...This should resolve the issue if it is software related.....

Don't know if this will help or not. Like a racer told me once, I just drive 'em, I don't work on "em.

Glacial PC

Good advice here, but I never got mine to speed up.

Good luck!

Additional Info:

When I start it up in "Safe Mode" operations are quick.

Joe

fast when in safe mode suggests a corrupt driver or DLL.

Some times the best solution is to reinstall XP. Do not make a full complete reinstall then XP will reload all drivers and DLLs from disc. Be prepared to go through 150 updates and you should be faster and close to where you were last week.

The reload as opposed to the reinstall should leave all your data intact but remember the old saw BACKUP.

You MAY have to reinstall devices not in the XP driver list; stuff that came out fairly recently. ALSO reinstall a fresh version of your antivirus.

This computer has a facility to delete unwanted files. One simply clicks on "properties", then a right-click brings it up.

Just dumped 243MB of, well, crilge, basically.

Norton (usual disclaimer) also has a facility to do this under "tune-up". It found 1.2GB. All gone!

Just repaired a friends e-machine with exactly the same issues. AMD, 1GB, XP-sp3, ~8 years old, and Windoze started to C R A W L!

Used a Linux Live OS CD to boot and diagnose. All seemed good until I requested a hard drive S.M.A.R.T. report. Hard drive had dozens of bad sectors. Some of those were causing Windoze to go slow or crash. New hard drive, OS reload, ALL GOOD!

I have no Idea why, but I fixed it.

This is what happened. The computer has been slower than mine. that I am using right now. They are twins exactly same bought at the same time.

But her's was slightly slower than mine. So she did some scans,

AVG

spybot, avg tune up etc. and all found nothing,

so I have also all those and one more. called Malware-bytes.

been using it for geez ten years? anyway a LONG time and it always finds stuff the others mentioned do not find. So I suggested to her to try it. hey it's free,

she did, and thats when it went deadlike. it found like 380 things,, wow.

anyway I uninstalled it just now and she is back to working,, soo odd that that happened.

Joe

It probably was a software conflict between spybot and malware-bytes or any other two anti-virus programs, they keep trying to disable each other and it takes up nearly all the resources....thus slowing everything else to a crawl....

This happens with my mothers laptop with XP-Pro regularly. I usually fix it by running a malware-bytes full system scan. Then I search through the installed software and browser add-ons and processes for anything that looks suspicious. I do research on my computer to see if they are legit and get rid of any that are not. Some require a bit of effort but the Malware-bytes website is pretty helpful.

Usually she has some malicious SW that loaded itself (she says) that is running some process continually. I do not let her keep multiple anti-virus running concurrently, but the McAfee she gets for free from the ISP is not adequate.

Conspiracy Theory:

The last Microsoft XP update makes it run slower, and then slower, and slower...

The last Microsoft XP update makes it run slower, and then slower, and slower...

That's a well-documented feature of XP. Or any other Microsoft OS.

How do we recognize the last update? How do we remove it?

That's the rub. They did not come in order.

It was the first installation of XP that made the computer slow...

...just sayin'

Lots of good advice here, but resist renewing XP as there may be problems in obtaining all the needed updates from Micro-Soft. Though I believe that there are other places where they can be obtained.

What I would do is the following:-

1) Defrag the disk (I use the free version of "Wise 365" and defrag and optimize, it will take a long time)

2) Let Wise 365 run its memory utility optimisation all the time.

3) Download MEMTEST86 for either a bootable CD or USB Stick (if your PC can boot from a stick! Some cannot!). Run MEMTEST86 and see if a) Your memory is as large as it should be and b) Any errors?

4) Let Windows CheckDisk have a good look at the disk and correct any errors

5) Is the disk full, clone it to a newer bigger one, that will be faster anyway than the old one. Is the old one NTFS? If yes = Good. A new disk should have an NTFS format at all costs...

Not necessarily in that order.

In fact I would probably take the disk out of the PC, connect it to a "good" PC via a USB interface and do the Defrag from the better PC...let MEMTEST boot and run while no hard disk is installed....in parallel.

Do not do a reinstall of XP if at all possible.....better to buy a new PC, then save all your data to it, before losing it all with an install.....Then re-install the XP.

All software I mentioned except XP is free to download and use.

Check windows task manager, in processes/svchost.exe.

If it is reading 100% cpu there are some pointers to correct this problem.

http://www.wikihow.com/Solve-the-Svchost.Exe-100%25-CPU-Utilization-Problem

http://www.technibble.com/how-to-fix-svchost-using-100-cpu-memory-leak/

difficulty is getting there with everything running so slow.

I give mine, also XP, a cleanup once a month--call it an enema. This includes: remove old files (I use 1 year for letters and such), virus updates & scans, defrag, disc cleanup, CCleaner, Malwarebytes, etc. Remove temp files and cookies. I have a list (recipe) if you want it. My hard drive is around 50% full; try to have as much RAM as your computer will handle (I think it's 3 GB for XP.)

For virus scanners, AVG has a free one (and paid too if you want it.) Don't have 2 virus scanners active at the same time, but Malwarebytes does seem to get along with another one. Avoid McAfee and Norton as I have not heard good about them. I have also heard that Microsoft Security Essentials is not so good anymore.

Do you have a computer support group near you? If so, I suggest you join. You can check for a local group on the national group I think--APCUG. One guy in my local group suggests that you turn off all the things in the startup menu (what shows in the tray) EXCEPT the virus scanner. (Start > run > msconfig > startup tab.)

I turn my computer totally off every night, but you might want to leave it running for the first defrag after you remove a bunch of stuff.

You can't hurry its startup. I get things turned on and started, then it seems best to go away for at least 10 minutes before trying to do anything.

Cnet and get the periform tools . install turn off your page-file sys and run Reg cleanser you will probably have lots and lots of sys restore points to delete The clue is in the time to delete a file it has to sort that back to when it was created.

Then do a de-frag a long one not a short one. turn your Page-file sys back on

you should notice the improvement

s

There is a very craftily hidden virus which even the normal anti-malware can miss.
(avg and many others failed to notice it, on my pc.)

It affects a file which propagates slowly little viruses throughout your system, making
it go progressively slower until it's too late, the pc is in a mess. (been there done this)

It is so insidious that malware (http://www.malwarebytes.org/) have brought out a
beta file called mbar. I have tried this, and think it works ok, but being beta it can
mess up your monitor driver, so your view is affected. (another pain, but correctable.)

I believe, but I'm not certain of this, the virus is in an "update your drivers" download.

What I do know is whoever writes these bugs should be hung by their "lower parts" for
about 12 months (or maybe a lot longer than it takes us to remove them?) for the hassle?

jt.

Hope this helps.

It is said..."There's nothing wrong with them that reincarnation won't cure."

Jack E. Leonard

Or, maybe it's this thing that just showed up in today's news:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/exponential-algorithm-making-windows-xp-miserable-could-be-fixed/

BandAid, upon BandAid, upon BandAid...