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Windows XP Pro runs slow on old system

Thump553

Thump553

Lifer
Here's the system (please don't laugh): Athlon XP 2400+ (std settings), 1 CB quality memory that passes memtest86, GEForce 6600GT, two internal HD, two external.

Previously this system ran fine under Win2k. However my son got a Creative Zen whose program required XP. Clean install of XP Pro and all critical upgrades installed. The system runs noticeably slower now, with much grinding of the hard drive. Simple things like opening a new browser window take multiple seconds and game performance (even oldies like Diablo 2) is pathetic.

So far I've cranked down the video settings to medium (16 bit), changed every setting to performance over quality that I can find, and let Windows optimize the memory usage.

I don't want to overclock the CPU if I can avoid it-the room is not air-conditioned, the computer is on 24/7 and as is the CPU gets into the low 50s in the summer (currently 45 degrees).

Any suggestions or is this mediocre performance merely something I have to live with?

PS: running Folding@Home in the background as a service.
 
your system is at 2.0Ghz should be fast on XP. Try kill some processes that you don't need (check with google search for system processes tweak) and turn off indexing. on my rig I only have 33 processes and it is fast enough for me but it runs on A64 x2 4800+
 
Are you using nvidia's drivers? That should make a good difference in speed. How about Anti-virus, is that going? If it is Norton or Mcaffee that might be your slowdown. What type of harddrives are you using? 1 GB in XP should be enough and you should have a lot of swaping going on, it is recommened that if you have multiple hard drive that you put the swap on the one you use the least.

Hope some of these sujestions help.
 
I'm using nvidia's drivers (latest non-beta). Using McAfee suite that comes free with my comcast cable (used same thing when the box was running Win2k). Internal hard drives are regular IDE (not SATA), one's a Seagate, the other Western Digital. I think one is 160 GB, the other 200 or 250. External HD are through USB.

There were no hardware changes when I switched from Win2k to XP Pro, but it was a clean install.

Thanks for the tip on services, I'll look into that.

EDIT: Also POS Soyo motherboard (KM7VE if I recall correctly) and M-Audio Revolution audio card.
 
heck my main box at home I'm upgrading now is a 2800 with 1gb and a 6600gt and it runs nice. You might try running a checkdisk or some vendor HD diags too in case you have hard drive issues (bad sectors, etc)

I'd also check running process, spyware scan, etc.
 
Hehe, when I clicked on the thread I was expecting to read about XP running poorly on a PIII with 128MB of RAM 😛

That PC is actually decent enough, and XP should fly on that thing.

Are all the drivers installed and up to date? Is the machine spyware / virus free?

Are you running any bloated security suites?
 
I would check for proper motherboard/chipset drivers. If you installed the video drivers before the motherboard drivers and DirectX, this can also result in the video drivers getting all confused and not properly using hardware acceleration. Checking for any spyware/malware/viruses (if you didn't install XP+SP2 and you're not behind a firewall, you could have picked something up off the net) is also a good idea.

A clean install on that hardware should run VERY well. WinXP is essentially Win2K with a different GUI frontend by default. It can run well with onboard video, a ~1.5Ghz CPU, and 512MB of RAM if you don't load lots of crap.
 
The system I use pretty much have the same specs that you mentioned and it runs very fast with XP. Check the svchost.exe and in the task manager (under the processes tab) and see if that is the culprit. It may be taking up most of your CPU.
 
Did you upgrade the Microsoft Direct X to at least 9 and then get the drivers update for video?
Did you download the Chipset Drivers and install after the XP Install?

I have seen marked improvement with newer drivers after upgrading MS Direct X

I run a Celeron 1.2 Gig Tulatin Core (PIII) with 512 Megs of RAM and XP runs fast on my system.
 
I think I found the solution. This is a discontinued motherboard and apparently Soyo doesn't bother to update their drivers. Soyo's site says the ViaHyperion4in1 version 4.51 (from 1/04) was the current driver. When I went to Via's website, they had version 5.10A from 02/07.

It looks like I was missing the IDE Bus Master driver. So far at least the system is now finally running decently.

Of course, it probably took me five hours of putzing around to do this five minute fix.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
 
looks like you're on your way, do this to to get back the no bloat win2k GUI:
"Proformance Increase through My Computer"
Start > Right Click on My Computer and select properties.
2: Click on the "Advanced" tab
3: See the "Perfomance" section? Click "Settings"

and disable the crap

 
that's a nice system. I have a 1.86GHz Centrio laptop and XP fly's on my system.

If I were you I would do a Clean install. Make sure you download and install every last update. Install a virus scanner and spyware scanner. And make sure automatic updates are turned on. Any time you install a new program you can type msconfig in start->run to disable it's process from running on startup if you don't need them too.

To me it sounds like you have a lot of unneed processes running, some spyware and a few viruses learking around.


go get Active Virus Shield by AOL

its free and this is how it measured up with others http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/default.asp?id=82&mnu=82

if you want to spend cash then maybe Nod32, it has good heuristics
 
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