Slow XP

[macfreeman7]

Hello everyone. I haven't posted here in years, but I remember how incredibly helpful you guys were in helping me deal with a major issue. I couldn't even remember the name of this site! I had to google my own user name.

So I've been dealing with my old desktop for the past few weeks. I was getting a bluescreen upon booting, and after much failed troubleshooting, I had to reinstall windows. I've been on the phone with Dell a lot, trying to work through everything, including the installation (drivers were giving me a hard time).

I have a fresh new copy of XP installed, and just recently went through updates for SP2 and SP3. The strangest thing is - my computer is actually SLOWER than my previous installation. My CPU spikes to 100, and even when things are closed I'm still up to 30-50%. I googled setting up your system processes so that they don't run until they are needed, but I'm a little hesitant to mess with anything.

Do you need a hijack this log or something?

Thank you so much!

[Pete_C]

I suggest running PC decrapifier to remove any of the bundled trial offers included in the recovery. This often helps a lot; but I suspect that the problem may be a jammed updater. Is it by any chance an instance of Svchost.exe that is using all the CPU cycles? If so it is almost certain that it is an automatic updater for one of your applications that has jammed on an out of sequence update or cannot connect to or log off from the update server (generally because you are using an older out of date version of the application which has an old out of date updater).

[macfreeman7]

Thanks for responding.

There actually isn't much trail software with this installation. Maybe it's because I didn't have all the CD's that came with the computer and had to add a lot of stuff manually.

Yes, I definitely have way too many svchost processes running. I looked into that actually - and read online about what you are saying. The site basically said that was an issue before Microsoft released a new update for XP that should take care of it. I have been using windows update a lot, and it says everything is current, and yet my CPU is still overrun by svchost...

Suggestions?

[macfreeman7]

Does anyone know how to reduce these svchost processes?

[macfreeman7]

I contacted Dell with this issue and they helped me remotely. They said there is nothing more they can do. My computer still runs way too slow for a brand new installation of windows. There are still plenty of system processes causing my CPU to spike. I turned off all automatic updates for both Windows and AVG but still have plenty of svchost.exe's. Any thoughts?

[TheTerrorist_75]

Open Task Manager and click the Processes tab. Click on the CPU tab in the window and list the program files that are using the largest percentage of the CPU.

[macfreeman7]

Gladly! How about a screenshot instead? I whited out my name, so that's why you've got some strange blotches under the user name tab. It's attached.

I will update you on the Dell support - they have still been unable to figure things out. Tonight we tried uninstalling SP3 to see if that might have been slowing things down. We also tried disconnecting my wireless. I turned off any automatic updates from going on in the background, since I read somewhere that multiple svchost.exe's can mean that you've got automatic updates stuck in a loop. Still, my CPU spikes for no apparent reason, even when not a single program is running (unlike what's in the screenshot).

[macfreeman7]

?

[isteve]

The only thing that is really using any CPU is the task manager. Task manager is what you took a screen shot of. What exactly is slow about your computer?

[TheTerrorist_75]

Your list is normal. Reenable your updaters. How much memory does the computer have? In fact how old is this computer and what is the model number?

[Pete_C]

System Idle Process is a place holder that shows how much of the time your CPU is sitting idle doing absolutely nothing.

So 74% of the time your CPU has nothing to do., meaning it has plenty of free power to do things .

If this is a laptop, check the power settings. Try changing everything to desktop/ always on. Most laptops these days have a variable speed processor which runs slower to conserve power unless there is an actual demand for its full power. So yours may be running at 1/4 speed because it knows it has 74% idle time.

(There may also be a bios setting ot disable variable speed, but since you mention a clean install I would suspect the power settings .)

[macfreeman7]

The only thing that is really using any CPU is the task manager. Task manager is what you took a screen shot of. What exactly is slow about your computer?

Everything has a delay, including when I click on the start menu, I have to wait for the programs to appear. Whenever I am scrolling, whether online or in a word document for example, the screen has to "catch up." Any sort of video is very laggy; youtube is out of the question all together.

Your list is normal. Reenable your updaters. How much memory does the computer have? In fact how old is this computer and what is the model number?

I've got one gig of memory in there; even though this is an eight year old desktop (Dell Dimension Desktop 4550) I have never experienced this before. It has never been this slow in all the years I have had it.

If this is a laptop, check the power settings.

This is not a laptop, so I suppose that wouldn't be the issue? One thing I have definitely noticed is an increase in the number of svchost.exe's, but people continue to say that's normal. I will say that my video card drivers have rolled back , as the ATI drivers I used to use are not available any more, and so now I am using the default ones from Microsoft Corporation. Could this be contributing to the laggy programs and laggy video?

[TheTerrorist_75]

Video drivers can cause a lag especially crappy Microsoft drivers. What ATI video card do you have? As for the delay in the Start menu and etc. I would boot into Safe mode then run Disk Cleanup and defrag the drive.

[macfreeman7]

Well, my system information says "Radeon 9500 Pro/ 9700 Family (Microsoft Corporation)" however, when I customized my purchase years ago I remember it was one of those (either 9500 or 9700) but it wasn't a PRO. Also, I definitely know that title has changed since I updated the drivers and rolled back since ATI doesn't support it any more. It never used to say Microsoft Corporation.

[TheTerrorist_75]

AMD now owns ATI. For help on identifying your card check the videos at the bottom of the page Support & Drivers

Here is that latest driver for ATI 9xxx cards ATI Catalyst™ Display Driver 10.2

For the older drivers click on Previous Drivers and Software in the list at the right.

[macfreeman7]

Wow, whatever driver you found worked very nicely. I no longer lag when watching videos, scrolling is not slow, and everything is running much smoother. My start menu even loads faster. I thought the driver I installed was the only one available - for some reason I couldn't find the Catalyst Driver that I used to have. In order to get it to work, however, I had to download .NET framework 2.0.

Thank you everyone all for all your help and suggestions! I'm so happy to have my computer back to normal.