From: Chris Mitchell on 21 Feb 2010 02:51 My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down. I have improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process Explorer. However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's a family PC with 4 accounts. How can I tell what is going on after I have logged into my account? There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything. TIA. Chris.
From: db on 21 Feb 2010 10:20 you can delete the files in the "prefetch" system folder. deleting them (except for the ini file) can help with the issue. after deleting them, windows will rebuild them on an as needed basis. another thing you can try is to set the custom size of the "virtual memory" i.e. page file. if it is set to automatic then it may be trying to resize itself to accommodate the needs to the system. the resizing may be what is also slowing down the startup after you Google the above quoted search criterions, you can use these measurements for the custom/fixed virtual memory size. firstly, be sure you have only 1 page file. sometimes there are more than secondly, set the initial size of the page file to 2 set the maximum page file size to 1.5 x (size of your ram) for example if your system has 1 gigabyte of ram installed then set the maximum size of the page file to 1500. then reboot. -- db���`�...�><)))�> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional - Systems Analyst - Database Developer - Accountancy - Veteran of the Armed Forces - @Hotmail.com - nntp Postologist ~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > "Chris Mitchell" <chris.a.mitchell(a)NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote in message news:ehdpwqssKHA.5976(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down. I have > improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up > programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process > Explorer. > > However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's > a family PC with 4 accounts. How can I tell what is going on after I have > logged into my account? There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it > takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything. > > TIA. > > Chris. >
From: Jose on 21 Feb 2010 14:12 On Feb 21, 2:51 am, "Chris Mitchell" <chris.a.mitch...(a)NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote: > My Win XP SP3 PC is showing signs of its age and is slowing down. I have > improved things to some extent using msconfig to sort out start-up > programmes and processes etc, and have tweaked things further with Process > Explorer. > > However things are still extremely slow once the user has logged on, it's a > family PC with 4 accounts. How can I tell what is going on after I have > logged into my account? There's lots of chatter from the drive, but it > takes and age before I see my desktop in full and am able to do anything. > > TIA. > > Chris. There is no guessing, probably, maybe, might be or trial and error. Nothing should defy reasonable explanation and suggestions for such things or making changes without knowing more information is at best, a guess. We need three things: System configuration Task Manager Startup items Click Start, Run and in the box enter: msinfo32 Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste back here. There would be some personal information (like System Name and User Name) or whatever appears to be only your business that you can delete from the paste. Right click the Taskbar, choose Task Manager and select the Processes tab. Notice in the TM example below, the Virtual Memory column display has been enabled in TM. This is very good information for troublehooting and understanding. To do that: Click View, Select Columns, check the box that says: Virtual Memory Size. Expand the width of the Task Manager box so you can see all the columns and processes. Double click a column heading in TM to sort by the column. For example, sort Task Manager by the CPU column. Take a screenshot of what you see and upload the screenshot to one of several free picture hosting WWW sites. Download CCleaner, install it, run it, click Tools, Startup and drag the columns around so all the Startup items are easy to see. CCleaner is good for this since it shows more information in a bigger display and has other useful functions. You can uninstall it later if you don't use it. Make a screenshot of the CCleancer Startup information. Get CCleaner here: http://www.ccleaner.com/ When you are done, we will be able to see what you are seeing. To create and post a screenshots: Press the Print Scrn button to copy your entire screen to the Windows clipboard. Press Alt Print Scrn to copy just the active window to the Windows clipboard. Open MS Paint: Start, Program Accessories, Paint When Paint opens, press CTRL-V to paste the clipboard, save the new Paint file to your desktop or someplace you can remember. JPG files take up less hard disk space than BMP files and just as readable. Make as many screenshots as you need. Practice makes perfect. Be careful your screenshot does not contain any personal information. Practice viewing your images before you upload them to be sure they are okay. Some sites (like bleepingcomputer) will let you attach a file directly to your post. If the site has some kind of attachment/upload function it is usually easiest just to use it. If there is no such function in your message board to upload files, then use a free third party image hosting WWW site. Create a free account on some free picture hosting web site. You can always remove your account later if you want. Here are some free image hosting sites: http://www.imageshack.us/ http://photobucket.com/ Using your free account, upload your screenshot(s) (the JPG or BMP files) to the site and it will return to you a URL web address (a Direct Link) for your new image(s) which you can paste the Direct Link in a message post, email, etc. When you are done, what you post for others to use should look something like this: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6428/taskmanagerr.jpg <- Task Manager http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6969/ccleanerstartup.jpg <- CCleaner Startup
From: Bill in Co. on 21 Feb 2010 15:48 db wrote: > you can delete the files in the > "prefetch" system folder. > > deleting them (except for the > ini file) can help with the issue. I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it wasn't really true.
From: Jose on 22 Feb 2010 09:47 On Feb 21, 3:48 pm, "Bill in Co." <not_really_h...(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > db wrote: > > you can delete the files in the > > "prefetch" system folder. > > > deleting them (except for the > > ini file) can help with the issue. > > I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it wasn't > really true. Microsoft discourage emptying the Prefetch folder: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-the-prefetch-folder Other readings refer to the advice as "bogus". Ryan Myers, a developer on Microsoft's Windows Client Performance Team says: XP systems have a Prefetch directory underneath the windows root directory, full of .pf files -- these are lists of pages to load. The file names are generated from hashing the EXE to load -- whenever you load the EXE, we hash, see if there's a matching (exename)-(hash).pf file in the prefetch directory, and if so we load those pages. (If it doesn't exist, we track what pages it loads, create that file, and pick a handful of them to save to it.) So, first off, it is a bad idea to periodically clean out that folder as some tech sites suggest. For one thing, XP will just re-create that data anyways; secondly, it trims the files anyways if there's ever more than 128 of them so that it doesn't needlessly consume space. So not only is deleting the directory totally unnecessary, but you're also putting a temporary dent in your PC's performance.
|
Next
|
Last
Pages: 1 2 Prev: .NET Framework Update: Is it needed? Next: Unable to get the volume Icon onto the Taskbar |