Painfully Slow Win XP Laptop - Any Help?

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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
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My gf's Dell Latitude 600m (Pentium 3 1.4ghz, 1.5gb ddr) has become horribly slow over the last six months. It takes about 5 minutes to fully boot and opening programs is slow.

At first I tried the basics: Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag. Not surprisingly that did nothing. So then I did a thorough scan for viruses, cleared a few but didn't help. So then I moved on and installed trial "Ad-Aware" and ran a scan. It pulled up a bunch of stuff but that didn't seem to help much. So as a last ditch effort I told her more ram would solve the problem so she went from 512mb to 1.5gb and STILL SO SLOW.

I'm lost. I reformat my computer about once a year, lol, so I don't ever have to deal with an old Windows XP OS. Is this what happens over time? She has all the Service packs and updates etc. It seems like McAfee takes the longest to open at startup, but I have that same problem on my dual core Intel at 2.6ghz so I doubt it is McAfee running down the whole system.

Any ideas or hints? I can't likely convince her to reformat but I'm honestly worried it could be the HDD slowing down or having lots of errors. I haven't noticed any obvious HDD related issues but this could be one answer right?

Any help?
 
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robisbell

Banned
Oct 27, 2007
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first adaware does not have a trial version, where did you get it from?

second get a prgram called "CCleaner", install it and run both the cleaner and registry option multiple time till no errors are reported.

third go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com and have it scan all the files and folders on her HDD.

report back the results from running CCleaner and housecall. do those after we've determined where you got the "trial" version of adaware from.
 
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law9933

Senior member
Sep 11, 2006
394
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0
It sounds like what Norton Suite did to my mom's PC. Does it run normally in Safe Mode?
Has only one active AV, AS, firewall. Free space on the HD.
Run free programs-SuperAntispyware, a-squared, AVG Antispyware.
Too many programs automatically starting.
If nothing else works, maybe have HJT log checked.
 
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dclive

Elite Member
Oct 23, 2003
5,626
2
81
Originally posted by: bmwme
My gf's Dell Latitude 600m (Pentium 3 1.4ghz, 1.5gb ddr) has become horribly slow over the last six months. It takes about 5 minutes to fully boot and opening programs is slow.

At first I tried the basics: Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag. Not surprisingly that did nothing. So then I did a thorough scan for viruses, cleared a few but didn't help. So then I moved on and installed trial "Ad-Aware" and ran a scan. It pulled up a bunch of stuff but that didn't seem to help much. So as a last ditch effort I told her more ram would solve the problem so she went from 512mb to 1.5gb and STILL SO SLOW.

I'm lost. I reformat my computer about once a year, lol, so I don't ever have to deal with an old Windows XP OS. Is this what happens over time? She has all the Service packs and updates etc. It seems like McAfee takes the longest to open at startup, but I have that same problem on my dual core Intel at 2.6ghz so I doubt it is McAfee running down the whole system.

Any ideas or hints? I can't likely convince her to reformat but I'm honestly worried it could be the HDD slowing down or having lots of errors. I haven't noticed any obvious HDD related issues but this could be one answer right?

Any help?
Click to expand...

Run Task Manager or (much! better) -> Process Explorer (Sysinternals.com) and look and see what's taking CPU time (if it's a CPU-slowdown issue) or tell us it's a disk issue and the drive is constantly spinning. And while you're doing that, run MPSReports and e-mail the results and we can look and see if you have disk issues or other errors in the event logs.

All sorts of things to look at. :)
 
xgsound

xgsound

Golden Member
Jan 22, 2002
1,374
8
81
For initial troubleshooting I've found Startup Control Panel from http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml to be invaluable. I use the .exe standalone version. It provides a checkoff list for startups in the registry and startup folder. Uncheck questionable items until you find the machine boots better and uses less resources, then have a faster machine to look for the offending problem. If you uncheck something required, just recheck it. (Many malware programs disable msconfig)

Superantispyware is excellent and is especially thorough in safe mode.


Jim
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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0
I ran CCleaner and it grabbed a bunch of junk which is good. But overall still slow. If I get some time tonight I'll run the registry scan thing so you guys can tell me if there is a deeper problem with her OS.

Thanks
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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Yup, wierd though huh? It "fixes" all the errors then you run it again 5 seconds later and there are more...
 
daveybrat

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
5,805
1,018
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http://winhlp.com/node/10

This is more than likely the solution to your problem. On most desktops and laptops that take as long to load as your describe, it's usually the hard drive changing from DMA to PIO mode. This link has a resetdma.vbs download you can run that will change it back to DMA mode. Reboot your pc and you'll probably be fine.

Let us know how it works out. :)
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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0
Originally posted by: daveybrat
http://winhlp.com/node/10

This is more than likely the solution to your problem. On most desktops and laptops that take as long to load as your describe, it's usually the hard drive changing from DMA to PIO mode. This link has a resetdma.vbs download you can run that will change it back to DMA mode. Reboot your pc and you'll probably be fine.

Let us know how it works out. :)
Click to expand...

Not trying to be a d*ck but could someone else back up this claim? I don't want to run a regedit script without knowing it is safe.

Also what is the command for "Process Explorer"?
 
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dclive

Elite Member
Oct 23, 2003
5,626
2
81
Download it from the link shown above (sysinternals - now a redirect to MS) and you can see what's taking up your CPU time. Tell us, and we can then help.

I wouldn't do anything in the registry until you've had a chance to look around.
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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0
Originally posted by: dclive
Download it from the link shown above (sysinternals - now a redirect to MS) and you can see what's taking up your CPU time. Tell us, and we can then help.

I wouldn't do anything in the registry until you've had a chance to look around.
Click to expand...

OK I installed process explorer and it looks like system idle is using about 90%...normal I think. I downloaded and ran MPSRpts...what files should I send you?
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
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0
Well it happens when windows first loads...so I don't know if I'll be able to load the process explorer at that time
 
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lenjack

Platinum Member
Oct 10, 1999
2,706
7
81
What worked for me in a similar situation, was getting all the Dell updates for my laptop. Dell probably has a package of them for your model.
 
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dclive

Elite Member
Oct 23, 2003
5,626
2
81
Originally posted by: bmwme
Well it happens when windows first loads...so I don't know if I'll be able to load the process explorer at that time
Click to expand...

So during initial bootup it's v.slow, and then aside from that time it's fine?

Send me the computername.cab mpsreports file. If you can't find it, just run the downloaded exe again.
 
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dclive

Elite Member
Oct 23, 2003
5,626
2
81
Other things to try:
In safe mode is it faster?
If you disable your AV is it faster, testing in both safe and normal mode?
 
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bmwme

Senior member
May 10, 2001
345
0
0
Originally posted by: dclive
Originally posted by: bmwme
Well it happens when windows first loads...so I don't know if I'll be able to load the process explorer at that time
Click to expand...

So during initial bootup it's v.slow, and then aside from that time it's fine?

Send me the computername.cab mpsreports file. If you can't find it, just run the downloaded exe again.
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much just at boot up. Once you see the desktop it still takes a couple minutes before anything is usable. Mcafee is the last thing to load. After that it is ok...

I can't find a "systemname".cab I can find a lot of "systemname.txt" but thats about it. Point me in the right direction :)
 
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