Windows Xp Sluggish

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

I currently have Windows XP and its extremely sluggish at startup. It takes about 5 minutes for the desktop to be ready. Can you give me some tips to speeden up startup.

 

[hennessy1]

type msconfig into the run box and then go into startup and deselect things that you dont need same can be said for the services tab.

 

[dealmaster00]

reformat. trust me. it's worth it.

 

[Oifish]

Download CCleaner, and hijackthis, and SpyBot. Run CCleaner to clear out a ton of junk and the registry as well. Use SpyBot to get the details on many startup processes and programs. Then use hijackthis and check your log with: http://www.hijackthis.de/
You can also follow this guide to eliminate many useless XP processes: http://www.techtree.com/techtr...le_id=70112&cat_id=584

 

[zig3695]

people are still using xp?

 

[Oifish]

I have no reason to waste money on Vista, my comp runs perfectly for what I need it for.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Oifish
I have no reason to waste money on Vista, my comp runs perfectly for what I need it for.

Not to mention that Vista would run a bit slower on that box (AXP, 1GB DDR1, 80GB, etc) than a clean copy of XP. Vista doesn't truly shine until 2gb+, dual-core cpu, etc.

 

[zig3695]

yeah on oilfish's it wouldnt be the quickest but it would be OK. im running a media center box with nearly identical specs, its not laggy until you start multitasking, anything... but for watching and recording tv its great... readyboost helps alot in the 1gb system ram configuration.

 

[zig3695]

Originally posted by: Oifish
I have no reason to waste money on Vista, my comp runs perfectly for what I need it for.

how about this, sell that X-Fi card while you can still get about $100 for it, and use that money to buy vista premium OEM. no money lost, and no sound quality lost either, vista's internal audio is as good if not better then xfi cards. you wont get hardware acceleration of course but on your system you wont notice it.

because the way vista handles audio now, i see the creative cards about to take a dive in value. it simply doesnt make a lot of sense to run pci audio cards with the new OS.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: zig3695

Originally posted by: Oifish
I have no reason to waste money on Vista, my comp runs perfectly for what I need it for.

how about this, sell that X-Fi card while you can still get about $100 for it, and use that money to buy vista premium OEM. no money lost, and no sound quality lost either, vista's internal audio is as good if not better then xfi cards. you wont get hardware acceleration of course but on your system you wont notice it.

because the way vista handles audio now, i see the creative cards about to take a dive in value. it simply doesnt make a lot of sense to run pci audio cards with the new OS.

Your advice doesn't make sense at all. Oifish has a nForce2-based motherboard, and as there are no nForce2 drivers available for Vista he will likely run into issues if he tries to upgrade. Removing the X-Fi card only compounds the problem, because there are no Vista drivers available for his onboard sound chip.

I'm not sure what you mean by "vista's internal audio"; audio quality is just as dependent on the sound hardware in Vista as it was in XP.

 

[zig3695]

Originally posted by: MrChad


I'm not sure what you mean by "vista's internal audio"; audio quality is just as dependent on the sound hardware in Vista as it was in XP.

uhh... no. or were not speaking of the same thing


but i didnt know that nforce2 was unsupported. thats hard to believe. surely they will have drivers soon? those boards are perfectly capable of running vista...

what i was meaning was the DSP of vista, its leaps and bounds better then XP. couple that with all the options to configue, and you really do get a high-end audio processor at the expense of maybe 5% cpu. but you also get better latencies since you dont have to go through the pci bus. as far as the onboard hardware goes, as long as it can produce a clean signal, vista will take care of the rest. but to make things more sure-fire, microsoft will start testing audio chipsets in july for compatibility and output quality with the vista audio engine. likely they wont be testing any creative cards, as microsoft's sole focus is onboard audio rather then any type of pci card.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: zig3695

Originally posted by: MrChad


I'm not sure what you mean by "vista's internal audio"; audio quality is just as dependent on the sound hardware in Vista as it was in XP.

uhh... no. or were not speaking of the same thing

My guess is that you're speaking about the removal of the audio hardware layer described here. That issue has nothing to do with sound quality; it simply changes the way software running on Vista can utilize hardware routines to perform 3D sound positioning. Sound quality is still very much dependent on the quality of your sound card's components as well as your speaker/amplification setup.

 

[zig3695]

have you even heard an vista box using oboard audio? on good speakers/amplifier i mean? im not arguing or anything, i never like onboard audio at all before vista, so i know where youre comming from. as soon as i installed it on my HTPC with my surround theather system, i was blown away. the clarity, depth and accuracy absolutely KILLS my audigy2zs, and also better then the montegoddl. my surround system has come to life, its a night and day difference from when i was using XP.