XP is sloooowww...

[NTB]

This is bizzare - I'm re-building a computer that's been sitting around my house for a while so that my brother can use it. I can get XP installed; that goes without a hitch. But as soon as I actually try to use the computer, everything slows to a crawl. It takes a couple of minutes to boot, and it takes probably 15-20 seconds, if not more, to do anything: open windows, start even small programs, anything. I can't figure this out; I'm well within the minimum spec for XP, as far as I know:

Epox EP8-KTA3 mainboard (10/19/01 BIOS)
AMD Duron 750
192MB PC100 RAM
40GB 5400RPM HDD (partitioned into two drives: ~3GB for the OS, the rest for other programs and storage; both are FAT32)
Nvidia Geforce 2MX video
Soundblaster Audigy soundcard
Linksys LNE100TX network card
TEAC Floppy drive
Phillips CDRW
BCD 40XJ CD-ROM

All on a 300W Powerman PS (came w/ the inwin case)

Any ideas?

Nate

 

[zigCorsair]

If it's of relevance, I administer my P200mmx remotely via Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services renamed) over the network. It's a bit slow, but it was satisfactory for what I was doing.

Also, I have a Duron 700 with 128, upgraded to 256 meg RAM. IT MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Even adding 64 to my PII 400 laptop (128) made a huge difference. Go all the way to 256, if not more . Also, I run PC133, but I don't know if that really matters.

Also, I would guess that NTFS is faster than FAT32, which as you probably know, is old technology.

I've heard the SB Live takes up a heap of processor speed. Perhaps the Audigy as well?

oooo - I want a CDRW, well, actually, a DVD-RAM, but I'd settle anyway....

Hope this helps!
David

 

[ugh]

That's odd. I installed XP Pro on a PIII 550 with 128MB RAM. No doubt it was a tad slow, but it wasn't as slow as you said. Once I added another 128MB, the system was rather responsive. The only thing slow is the installation. And the hard disk I'm using is only a 5GB ATA33

Edit: Did you turn off System Restore (or wazzit System Backup) for all the drives? Heard it slows down the system.

 

[mastertech01]

You might want to run bootvis, it can speed up things alot. Ill see if I can find a link for you.

 

[Abzstrak]

ok, bootvis only helps boot speed, so forget that. Also, RAM will help, but NOT very much over 192.... 192 should not be nearly as slow as your stating.

There must be a driver or something tring to initialize in the background. go through the system and application logs and look for weird entries, also, just open up task mangler and see what processes are eating alot of cpu cycles, or a ton of ram.

 

[Abzstrak]

Also a thought, go into the bios and make sure all the entries make sense, if U dont know what they mean then set them back to defaults