poor xp performance

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I am experiencing very poor performance on xp, after upgrading from win98.
I installed xp over win98, and I ain't going back. Forwards only!
Let me see now, I'll tell you all I've done.

Installed xp over 98 about 2 weeks ago.
Converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
Ran CHKDSK (often) - all OK.
Ran defragmenter (often) - all OK.
Ran Scan disk (often) - all OK.
Ran virusscan (often) - all OK.
Ran spyware/adware "deleter" (often) - all OK.
Disabled all non essential services (including virus scan etc.).
Took off all xp's, as you Americans might say, "eye candy".
Updated every driver.
Obviously I have rebooted a million times, so all the prefetch stuff should
have been built.

It still it takes at least 10-15 sec to load any program, be it solitaire or
a resource gobbler like fritz8 (chess program).
Things seem to run OK once they are loaded.
However, when I close a window it can take 15 seconds! - I see the window
gradually clear, from top to bottom, painfully slowly.

Now, when I tell you this, you'll all go - YOU NEED MORE MEMORY!!! Well,
that may or may not be the case, but I want ot be dead sure before adding.

I'm running a PII 450Mhz with 128Mb of RAM - Bill said that would be plenty.
My pagefile.sys has run to a maximum of 111Mb.
That, for some of you, should indicate whether adding RAM will make a
performance difference or not.

It's easy to say - add more memory, that'll cure you, but please, if you
wish to help, you have to convince me, with your superior knowledge that it
will work.

Alternative suggestions/answers will of course be appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
exasperated.....

http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/kevin_mayo/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

This tool may help to uncover your system bottlenecks:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/sag_mpchecklist.mspx


Good Luck!


---
How to optimize Windows XP, 2000, ME
for the best performance (Step-by-step Visual Guide):
http://www.fixyourwindows.com





"sealpup" wrote:

> I am experiencing very poor performance on xp, after upgrading from win98.
> I installed xp over win98, and I ain't going back. Forwards only!
> Let me see now, I'll tell you all I've done.
>
> Installed xp over 98 about 2 weeks ago.
> Converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
> Ran CHKDSK (often) - all OK.
> Ran defragmenter (often) - all OK.
> Ran Scan disk (often) - all OK.
> Ran virusscan (often) - all OK.
> Ran spyware/adware "deleter" (often) - all OK.
> Disabled all non essential services (including virus scan etc.).
> Took off all xp's, as you Americans might say, "eye candy".
> Updated every driver.
> Obviously I have rebooted a million times, so all the prefetch stuff should
> have been built.
>
> It still it takes at least 10-15 sec to load any program, be it solitaire or
> a resource gobbler like fritz8 (chess program).
> Things seem to run OK once they are loaded.
> However, when I close a window it can take 15 seconds! - I see the window
> gradually clear, from top to bottom, painfully slowly.
>
> Now, when I tell you this, you'll all go - YOU NEED MORE MEMORY!!! Well,
> that may or may not be the case, but I want ot be dead sure before adding.
>
> I'm running a PII 450Mhz with 128Mb of RAM - Bill said that would be plenty.
> My pagefile.sys has run to a maximum of 111Mb.
> That, for some of you, should indicate whether adding RAM will make a
> performance difference or not.
>
> It's easy to say - add more memory, that'll cure you, but please, if you
> wish to help, you have to convince me, with your superior knowledge that it
> will work.
>
> Alternative suggestions/answers will of course be appreciated.
>
> Thank you in advance,
> exasperated.....
>
> http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/kevin_mayo/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"I'm running a PII 450Mhz with 128Mb of RAM"

That's your problem.

The minimums stated for XP are sufficient to make XP work. But the minimums
won't give you acceptable performance. To get reasonable performance with
Windows XP, you need 512MB of RAM, a fast processor, a fast hard disk and a
fast video card.

You would be much better served by saving your money and putting it toward a
computer that has the hardware for XP.

Virus scan is a non-essential service?

Ted Zieglar

"sealpup" <sealpup@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:CF59B814-61C7-4380-94DA-ACD4D3BA409E@microsoft.com...
>I am experiencing very poor performance on xp, after upgrading from win98.
> I installed xp over win98, and I ain't going back. Forwards only!
> Let me see now, I'll tell you all I've done.
>
> Installed xp over 98 about 2 weeks ago.
> Converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
> Ran CHKDSK (often) - all OK.
> Ran defragmenter (often) - all OK.
> Ran Scan disk (often) - all OK.
> Ran virusscan (often) - all OK.
> Ran spyware/adware "deleter" (often) - all OK.
> Disabled all non essential services (including virus scan etc.).
> Took off all xp's, as you Americans might say, "eye candy".
> Updated every driver.
> Obviously I have rebooted a million times, so all the prefetch stuff
> should
> have been built.
>
> It still it takes at least 10-15 sec to load any program, be it solitaire
> or
> a resource gobbler like fritz8 (chess program).
> Things seem to run OK once they are loaded.
> However, when I close a window it can take 15 seconds! - I see the window
> gradually clear, from top to bottom, painfully slowly.
>
> Now, when I tell you this, you'll all go - YOU NEED MORE MEMORY!!! Well,
> that may or may not be the case, but I want ot be dead sure before adding.
>
> I'm running a PII 450Mhz with 128Mb of RAM - Bill said that would be
> plenty.
> My pagefile.sys has run to a maximum of 111Mb.
> That, for some of you, should indicate whether adding RAM will make a
> performance difference or not.
>
> It's easy to say - add more memory, that'll cure you, but please, if you
> wish to help, you have to convince me, with your superior knowledge that
> it
> will work.
>
> Alternative suggestions/answers will of course be appreciated.
>
> Thank you in advance,
> exasperated.....
>
> http://www.scottishmusiccentre.com/kevin_mayo/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"sealpup" <sealpup@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I am experiencing very poor performance on xp, after upgrading from win98.
>I installed xp over win98, and I ain't going back. Forwards only!
>Let me see now, I'll tell you all I've done.
>
>Installed xp over 98 about 2 weeks ago.
>Converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
>Ran CHKDSK (often) - all OK.
>Ran defragmenter (often) - all OK.
>Ran Scan disk (often) - all OK.
>Ran virusscan (often) - all OK.
>Ran spyware/adware "deleter" (often) - all OK.
>Disabled all non essential services (including virus scan etc.).
>Took off all xp's, as you Americans might say, "eye candy".
>Updated every driver.
>Obviously I have rebooted a million times, so all the prefetch stuff should
>have been built.
>


You have one definite and one possible problem.

Your definite problem is that you do not have enough RAM. You need at
least 256 mb of RAM in order to run most application programs and with
your slow CPU I would prefer to see at least 512 mb of RAM.

Microsoft did say that "at least 128 mb" of RAM was recommended for
running Windows XP and so long as all you want to do is to run Windows
- no application programs - that may be a reasonable amount. But you
do want to run application programs in addition to Windows and
therefore you do need more RAM.

The possible problem has to do with your conversion of the hard drive
to NTFS. If you ran the NTFS converter than comes with Windows XP
without first using a utility to align the partition boundary
correctly then it is a virtual certainty that your NTFS conversion
resulted in a 512 byte cluster size for the NTFS drive instead of the
default 4K. This eight-fold increase in the number of clusters will
have a detrimental effect on performance.

To confirm the potential value of a RAM upgrade download the free page
file monitor utility by MVP Bill James from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/ and run it to check on
how much actual memory content has been moved from RAM to the paging
file so as to allow that RAM to be used for other, currently more
important activities.

If the utility reports more than 40 mb of actual page file usage on a
regular basis then that is indicative of substantial paging activity
and more RAM (at least equal to the maximum amount of page file usage
reported) will reduce or perhaps eliminate this, thereby improving
performance.

Good luck




Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Thanks for info....

pagefile.sys averages about 70Mb

Unfortunately I am now the proud owner of a lovely NTFS formatted disk, with
512 byte cluster size....bah!

Is there any way to change this without reformatting the disk? - which will
obviously mean reinstalling everything on my PC (I don't fancy that too
much...)


"Ron Martell" wrote:

> "sealpup" <sealpup@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >I am experiencing very poor performance on xp, after upgrading from win98.
> >I installed xp over win98, and I ain't going back. Forwards only!
> >Let me see now, I'll tell you all I've done.
> >
> >Installed xp over 98 about 2 weeks ago.
> >Converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
> >Ran CHKDSK (often) - all OK.
> >Ran defragmenter (often) - all OK.
> >Ran Scan disk (often) - all OK.
> >Ran virusscan (often) - all OK.
> >Ran spyware/adware "deleter" (often) - all OK.
> >Disabled all non essential services (including virus scan etc.).
> >Took off all xp's, as you Americans might say, "eye candy".
> >Updated every driver.
> >Obviously I have rebooted a million times, so all the prefetch stuff should
> >have been built.
> >
>
>
> You have one definite and one possible problem.
>
> Your definite problem is that you do not have enough RAM. You need at
> least 256 mb of RAM in order to run most application programs and with
> your slow CPU I would prefer to see at least 512 mb of RAM.
>
> Microsoft did say that "at least 128 mb" of RAM was recommended for
> running Windows XP and so long as all you want to do is to run Windows
> - no application programs - that may be a reasonable amount. But you
> do want to run application programs in addition to Windows and
> therefore you do need more RAM.
>
> The possible problem has to do with your conversion of the hard drive
> to NTFS. If you ran the NTFS converter than comes with Windows XP
> without first using a utility to align the partition boundary
> correctly then it is a virtual certainty that your NTFS conversion
> resulted in a 512 byte cluster size for the NTFS drive instead of the
> default 4K. This eight-fold increase in the number of clusters will
> have a detrimental effect on performance.
>
> To confirm the potential value of a RAM upgrade download the free page
> file monitor utility by MVP Bill James from
> http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
> http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/ and run it to check on
> how much actual memory content has been moved from RAM to the paging
> file so as to allow that RAM to be used for other, currently more
> important activities.
>
> If the utility reports more than 40 mb of actual page file usage on a
> regular basis then that is indicative of substantial paging activity
> and more RAM (at least equal to the maximum amount of page file usage
> reported) will reduce or perhaps eliminate this, thereby improving
> performance.
>
> Good luck
>
>
>
>
> Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
> --
> Microsoft MVP
> On-Line Help Computer Service
> http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
>
> "The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"sealpup" <sealpup@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Thanks for info....
>
>pagefile.sys averages about 70Mb
>
>Unfortunately I am now the proud owner of a lovely NTFS formatted disk, with
>512 byte cluster size....bah!
>
>Is there any way to change this without reformatting the disk? - which will
>obviously mean reinstalling everything on my PC (I don't fancy that too
>much...)
>

Try upgrading the RAM first and then see what the performance is like.

I am not sure about aligning the partition boundary and then changing
the cluster size of an existing NTFS partition. Partition Magic can
do this on a FAT32 drive prior to conversion but I am not sure about
doing it when the drive is already NTFS.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."