rvanbel

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:cry: My system consists of ASUS A8N-SLI Mobo, AMD Athlon 64 3200 Venice CPU, 2gb RAM, 1- 80gb HD, 2- 200gb HD's & 2- 7600 GT Nvidia Vid's & OCZ ModStream Pwr Sply. Operating on XP Pro with Zone alram firewall & Norton Anti-Virus and I have adaware, spybot & windows defender. I also have Stardock Object Desktop, AutoCAD 2006, Adobe CS2 & Corel Painter installed on the system. I have only made the most necessary items work on startup but the system still seems to run very slow on startup. Once the system is finished with startup it runs pretty good. My question is what can I do to upgrade the performance on startup. I have heard alot about the Norton creating a performance problem. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks
 

rvanbel

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There is a program I use called The Ultimate Troubleshooter that costs $29. Among other things it lets you see all the programs and processes that are running and prevent them from loading. It will advise you as to whether or not you need them and if so, for what. Not only does it speed up startup, it keeps a bunch of unneeded stuff from running. Worth a look
http://www.answersthatwork.com/TUT_pages/TUT_information.htm

I have error nuker, adaware, spybot and windows defender, so I figured that covers quite a bit. I have configured the msconfig on startup and that did help alot. I swear it has a lot to do with Norton. Last night I installed Zone Alarm antivirus, so I think I should see an improvement.
 

g-paw

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Norton definitely hogs resources although I've read the latest version isn't quite as bad. TUT is really a more elaborate msconfig, it's really a Utility rather than Security software meant to speed things up. I believe there is a trial version that might be worthwhile just to see what processes are running you don't need.
 

rvanbel

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Norton definitely hogs resources although I've read the latest version isn't quite as bad. TUT is really a more elaborate msconfig, it's really a Utility rather than Security software meant to speed things up. I believe there is a trial version that might be worthwhile just to see what processes are running you don't need.

Hmm, ok I should check that out today. I tell you with my whole setup I figured I shouldn't have a problem on startup. I have the anti-virus, firewall and startdock apps on startup along with the most necessary items. I am considering to upgrade my RAM to 4gb at this point to add a little more.
 

g-paw

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I found useful was more the number of processes running that weren't necessary rather than programs. I'm not suggesting a blazing increase in speed but every little bit helps
 

rvanbel

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I found useful was more the number of processes running that weren't necessary rather than programs. I'm not suggesting a blazing increase in speed but every little bit helps

Well I did shut down quite a bit of processes, because before there were just way too many.
 

g-paw

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I didn't know what a lot of the processes were and if they were safe to shutdown. If you're pretty knowledgeable, then TUT wouldn't be of much value
 

rvanbel

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I didn't know what a lot of the processes were and if they were safe to shutdown. If you're pretty knowledgeable, then TUT wouldn't be of much value

Ya I think I am, basiclly I go one item at a time and re-boot. I have read a manual on that. plus I look up every process and its definition. I know it can be a bit difficult, but after a while it's not so hard.
 

g-paw

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Guess I'm lazy :D I put TUT in the same category as Partition Magic and another utility called Power Desk, programs that aren't that expensive and make my life easier
 

rvanbel

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I think we need to start a new post regarding performance utilities since there are so many different programs. I can't seem to find a really good one. I have tweakXP which I use on occasion. For the most part I use error nuker, adaware, spybot, windows defender and msconfig
 

g-paw

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I think we need to start a new post regarding performance utilities since there are so many different programs. I can't seem to find a really good one. I have tweakXP which I use on occasion. For the most part I use error nuker, adaware, spybot, windows defender and msconfig

Starting a Utilities post is a good idea. I know there is a section somewhere on this Forum for free programs but some I use are not free but I find very useful like the ones I mentioned above as well as one called GoodSync that I use for data backup. Just downloaded nuker, hadn't heard of it, looks interesting.
 

rvanbel

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I think we need to start a new post regarding performance utilities since there are so many different programs. I can't seem to find a really good one. I have tweakXP which I use on occasion. For the most part I use error nuker, adaware, spybot, windows defender and msconfig

Starting a Utilities post is a good idea. I know there is a section somewhere on this Forum for free programs but some I use are not free but I find very useful like the ones I mentioned above as well as one called GoodSync that I use for data backup. Just downloaded nuker, hadn't heard of it, looks interesting.

It's an excellent reg cleaner. I found it on cnet.com last year, but since then the price has gone up. It was 9.99 per download and only good on one pc.

Can you give me the link for the utility post, I am curious to see whatelse is out there? Thanks