Increased RAM but speed didn’t change much

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Hi, I’ve got a fully patched XP, sp3 and use IE8. It had 512MB RAM and was pretty slow. I removed the old 512, and put in 4GB. I expected a day to night difference in speed, but I don’t see it. Are there possibly some memory related settings that I may have made when I was limping along with 512, that I should now change to gain full advantage of my new RAM? Thanks.

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Are there possibly some memory related settings that I may have made when I was limping along with 512, that I should now change to gain full advantage of my new RAM?

shelquis,
Hello… You can start by checking that your OS actually “Sees” the new RAM on the “Performance Options >Advanced..Check that you see the maximum number allowed for a 32 bit OS Approx 3.5 GB… also you can look at your BIOS settings (when booting up) and make sure that the new “Sticks” are showing up…If your not sure how to do this post back..:cheers:Regards Fred

PS: There is a Free program that will check your installed RAM Speccy

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Hi Fred. I checked Performance Options as suggested, and mine shows Total paging file size of 3074MB (v. your 3326MB). Is that OK? I also checked System Info and got the following:
Total Phsical Memory 4096.00MB
Available Physical Memory 2.26GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.0GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96GB
Page File Space 5.84GB
Do these all look appropriate? Any other thoughts on any way I could improve performance now that I have a full load of RAM? Thanks.

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Do these all look appropriate? Any other thoughts on any way I could improve performance now that I have a full load of RAM? Thanks.

shelquis,
Hello… they seem different than mine ..I have XP Pro SP-3 and running a Dual core CPU , but don’t think your settings are the problem .. My XP OS runs like a “Scalded Cat” .Performance depends on what your doing and your equipment …For the everyday stuff on my XP …Internet , downloading , and testing various software, it’s better than my other 32 bit OS’s… Although it “load up” time is very slow compared to my Vista and “7”.. The advice given is good to “Clean up” things a bit….and see whats running at startup. One other thing comes to mind is when you “Right Click” My Computer and select “Disk Cleanup” Is there a selection for “Compress old Files” ? and if it’s checked or not?:cheers: Regards Fred

PS: The Lounge has a “Resident XP Guru ” ( Doctor Who ) maybe he will join in on this thread and give us all some advice… I have only recently been “fooling with XP” and still learning … Great little OS i might add

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Hi Fred. I gather you think it’s just my system that is so slow, and not anything I can change. Right? FWIW, I’m on a 2005 vintage, Dell Dimension 4700, Pentium 4 CPU, 3.0GHz. I’ve struggled with slow speeds for so long that I’ve learned to keep my system pretty clean and defragged all the time. I typically clean with CCleaner at least once a week, if not more often. I defrag at least monthly, if not more often. Loadup and shutdown times seem OK to me, my real performance concerns are with things like scans. For example, when I run Secunia’s OSI, it says on the website that a default scan might take 5 – 40 seconds. I takes me 15 – 30 minutes. When windows automatic update kicks in, it practically shuts me down, the system just drags. I do a weekly Microsoft Security Essentials scan, and it has always taken about 4 hours, though I notice that after my RAM inrease, it’s down to about 3 and a half hours (and that’s with allowing 100% cpu use).

I did download DrWho’s XPCleanup.bat and it removed 7356 files. I’ve got an 80G HDD which is about half full. You asked about whether disk cleanup had selected Compress old files. The answer is no, because of problems I had back with (I think) Win 95. It’s probably safe to let that go, huh? Do most people these days routinely compress old files? It seems that with the amount of available disk space, it wouldn’t really be done much. Just seems like a hassle to have to uncompress any which you may need to use.

OK, that’s my story. Any last thoughts? Or should I just resign myself to crummy performance because it’s an old, unsupported OS? Thanks for your help.

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Hi Fred. I gather you think it’s just my system that is so slow, and not anything I can change. Right?

Do most people these days routinely compress old files? It seems that with the amount of available disk space, it wouldn’t really be done much. Just seems like a hassle to have to uncompress any which you may need to use.

OK, that’s my story. Any last thoughts? Or should I just resign myself to crummy performance because it’s an old, unsupported OS?

shelquis,

Hello.. No at this point i can’t say why your OS is slow… But it’s not because of XP…. My XP pro SP-3 runs fine (2007 HP Pavilion AMD 64X2)…Just slow to load. In my “Multi Boot” PC… Vista Home Premium is next followed by “7” which is the fastest to “load up”. Once up… XP is like lightning….and it’s (XP) still supported

As far as “Compress old files” … I do not have that one checked ( removed it with a “Registry tweak”) either ..and has been said that it eventually will slow down your OS. If this was always a problem ( slow performance) Then likely it’s your Hardware “combo” Things Like HD speed,GB’s Sec (Cache..16MB32MB) , CPU, RAM, motherboard, etc. I don’t have any experience with your setup, so can’t say for sure …If your one who likes to play around with your PC… Try as a first step “Googling” your PC setup, and see if it’s a common problem running XP.. IF the performance has changed over time …then some more investigating is in order…:cheers: Regards Fred
PS: As Ted has stated #5 it could also be a program thats consuming the CPU …Background (start up) and or security programs etc.

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…my real performance concerns are with things like scans. For example, when I run Secunia’s OSI, it says on the website that a default scan might take 5 – 40 seconds. I takes me 15 – 30 minutes. When windows automatic update kicks in, it practically shuts me down, the system just drags. I do a weekly Microsoft Security Essentials scan, and it has always taken about 4 hours

I wonder if your system is really slow? I don’t know about Windows update (but if you are letting it update automatically, then it will slow your system while it is busy replacing files), but who cares how long the Secunia or MSE scans take? I just let MSE run at night (although I had to find a batch file on the web to do it, its internal schedule never worked properly). I’d only be concerned if things I wanted done ‘now’ took too long.

However, you may want to check what else is starting up on your PC, and I recommend Autoruns (by Sysinternals).

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I have a 2002 era XPS running XP Pro 3. I am haphazard but every few months run a defrag, delete old apps, run CClean on the registry, use msconfig to cleanup the boot activity, check the task manager for background junk I don’t need, etc. Still the system was slower than I thought it should be – after all, I paid over $2K for the thing back in the day. so even though I have never messed around inside the box before I bought 2GB of memory from Dell and replaced the 1GB in the box. Instant noticeable improvement. My little memory meter utility was now showing memory usage in the 60% range consistently.

So I had the opposite experience of the person who started this thread. Makes me wonder if he/she got the memory from Dell following their recommendations or bought third party stuff that doesn’t really match correctly. Or maybe the person was right who said he’d seen systems slow down when they went to 4GB.

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Getting the PC from Dell was bad enough, but I’d not want to complicate things by getting anything else from them.
I’ve had way too many dealings with their products over the years to give them any credibility at all.

For the most reliable place to get replacement ram, I go right to http://www.crucial.com. They use only TOP Quality ram chips, from well known and trusete companies like “Micron” and warranty them for life. They never use seconds or refurbished ram like some other vendors I could mention. (but won’t)
You can take their ram test right from their web site and then they can tell you what you’ve got and what you can add, how much it will cost and you can even order the ram right there on their web page. I do this all the time at my customer’s homes and then go back a few days later and install the new ram. (always clean the edge connector, even on brand new ram sticks)
* Never touch a ram stick till you’ve touched the PC frame, to discharge any static that may be on your body.

If a PC is bogged down with garbage, both stored and running, just putting in more ram will seldom let you see a Huge increase in performance.
That doesn’t come till you (I) optimize the PC for best performance. Clean out the ‘Junk in the trunk’. :rolleyes:

Cheers mates!

The Doctor 😎

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I wonder if your system is really slow? I don’t know about Windows update (but if you are letting it update automatically, then it will slow your system while it is busy replacing files), but who cares how long the Secunia or MSE scans take? I just let MSE run at night (although I had to find a batch file on the web to do it, its internal schedule never worked properly). I’d only be concerned if things I wanted done ‘now’ took too long.

Really, my main complaint is poor performance during windows updates. Several times a day, for up to maybe an hour each time, my system performance just drags. When I check the task manager, the only thing running is usually wuauclt.exe (windows update) or Msmpeng.exe (MSE). I do schedule my MSE scans for overnight, but the updates are just so painfully slow, and make any other activity virtually impossible. I mentioned the Secunia scan only because it provides a reference to what the time should be for comparison to what my scan time actually is.

…… you may want to check what else is starting up on your PC, and I recommend Autoruns (by Sysinternals).

I do have Autoruns, and I’ve looked at it, but there are probably a hundred or so listings, and everything seems legitimate. I guess basically I just don’t know how to use it to speed up my system. If there were only a handful of entries, I could disable and observe the results, but with so many entries, that would seem to be an impossible task.

Thanks for your reply.

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Memory is not the only resource where you could be having a problem. With Windows/7, it is easier for normal people find where you have the problem (bottleneck). This item is more for an average PC user rather than advanced because I think these concepts are easy for average person to understand.

I’ll describe that in more detail but first, you believe the problem is windows update. On windows 7, it defaults to download and update at 3:00am every day. If it’s causing problems during the day, then something more than memory would need to be the problem. You could change the settings to a different time. In the worst case, you could set it to NEVER UPDATE to eliminate it as a problem (although I don’t think it’s the problem). Just remember to run it manually every couple of weeks. I personally have mine set to download updates and ask me if I want to install. I always wait a few weeks to install just in case some undiscovered bug exists.

I use the term BOTTLENECK. It refers to something that restricts (slows down your system). In your case, you believe that memory too small and was slowing your system down so you added more memory.

When trying to fix a bottleneck, always ask several people for possible solutions because there are many problems that are not obvious because they might not have seen it before or you might be using something that helps in one area but causes problems for you in another area. There are so many variations in software and hardware that getting that good balance in your environment is not always obvious. I’ll describe one of those situations below in the DISK section.

To find your system bottleneck, open TASK MANAGER. On the PERFORMANCE tab, click on RESOURCE MONITOR. Running the resource monitor will put extra load on your system but it allows you to see what is going on. It may also change the numbers somewhat but it should be close enough for you to find out where you are having the problem. You should shut it down after you are all done.

You should see a new display with 5 tabs and graphs to the right. The tabs are Overview, CPU, MEMORY, DISK and NETWORK and the graphs are visual displays over the last 60 seconds for resources related to the selected tab. A resource is where a bottleneck can occur.

Watching the graphs will probably give you the best idea of where you have problems and the displays help you figure out what programs are heavily using the resource that is having a bottleneck.

OVERVIEW tab is a good place to start. I suggest looking at it while the system is running well and when it is not running well so you don’t panic when you see some bad numbers. For instance, maximum frequency is always high but this is usually a good thing. OVERVIEW allows you to get an idea of where you might have a bottleneck. Watch the graphs for CPU, DISK, NETWORK and MEMORY. They are for 60 seconds and if you see something staying high, then this could be where you have a problem. For instance, the CPU green line should be bouncing up and down all the time which is really good. If it’s always at the top, then you should try to reduce the CPU workload.

On any of these tabs, you see the light blue lines, you can expand these by clicking on them. You can play around with these to get additional information. For example, the light blue CPU line in the OVERVIEW tab will show processes. Clicking on these lines will show some specific information (in the CPU case, it shows you programs that are running and information about those programs).

CPU tab shows a lot of CPU information. For example, the graphs show CPU total (total % cpu used for all cores – CPU 0, 1, 2 …), Service cpu (advanced information that I don’t want to explain), CPU 0, CPU 1, and … (Multi core processors – some older machines only have 1). Some programs are designed to only use a single core (e.g. CPU 1). In this case, you may see a lower total CPU % but one of the CPU’s always high. This occurs because you may have 2 or 4 CPU’s but those other CPU’s can’t run the problem process. Click on the blue PROCESSES line, so you can see specific programs running. Clicking on a header in this area will sort on that information (in this case, you could sort on CPU to see which processes are using the most CPU. Average CPU can be misleading because you may a really long running process that has a low average but high CPU for the last few seconds or minutes.

DISK tab shows you information about the disk. This can be a little misleading because there are a lot that is not obvious. Disks today are getting really large which can impact your system. The farther apart the data being used, the longer it takes to use the disk. Defrag does a really good job at fixing some of these problems because it tries to put a file into sequence in the same area of the disk. But it does not place heavily used files together. There’s not an easy solution to this problem. An good example is the system page file which is used when your memory is full and you have a program that loads lots of data from a file into memory. Memory starts getting low cause memory to be written to the system page file. This causes the disk to bouce between these and if they are far apart, it can slow things down. It is possible to artifically cause this problem by creating 2 drives (e.g. C: & D:) on a single drive. These are called partions and if you place them far enough apart and use files on both drives, then they will slow things down.

NETWORK tab shows your internet communications. Rarely will problems be obvious in this area. If you expand the blue TCP CONNECTIONS line, the PACKET LOSS and LATENCY columns might be interesting to watch. PACKET LOSS is where a packet of data is sent to the internet but for some reason doesn’t get received by the receiver. This could mean there a problem between your computer and the end computer. LATENCY is the amount of time it takes for a packet of data to be received by the end computer. This indicate various problems somewhere between you and the end computer. If most connections are seeing high numbers, then it’s likely the problem is with your internet provider (not always). If it’s with a single connection, then it’s likely to be with that end computer. If it’s mixed, then the problem is likely to be at a common router somewhere between you and those end computers.

MEMORY tab shows you what is happening with your systems memory. This is where you will find out if memory is a problem. You are looking for changes rather than spikes (as compared to CPU because CPU is either doing something or it is not doing anything where member is being used, sometime later freed or acquired.

I hope this helps to take some of the mystery out of what may be causing your problems but this is not meant to be the gospel on fixing your problems. There are many complicated theories on all these areas. This only gives you the area’s where you are likely to be successful in correctly fixing your problem rather than guessing at what is causing your problem (In this case, Windows update and memory being the cause). You could be correct but you could just as easily try fixing something that is not broken without looking at some of the basics.

Regards, Jon.

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With Windows/7, it is easier for normal people find where you have the problem (bottleneck).

Jon, thanks for your comments. That was a very thoughtful, and thorough discussion of a completely different approach than anyone else had suggested. I’ve printed out your reply and will save it for future reference. It’s been a while, but my original post shows I have WinXP, sp3, and as far as I can tell, does not have a resource meter. Thanks anyway.:)

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If you are using WinXP, then there are some free programs that might be useful. I did a quick search and here are a couple I would recommend trying. I’ve never tried these but they look like good alternatives although they may be a little more complicated than I would prefer for an average user. Don’t let details like DLL’s, threads, file handles and various other terms overwhelm you. You want to look at the general picture of your system and once you decide what your problem is, then figure out how to best relieve the problem. These other terms are only interesting to people who want to look at the internals of how things are running.

1. Microsoft has a free download for PROCESS EXPLORER that is available thru their sysinternals group at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653. I’ve never used this program so I don’t know it’s specifics. For average users, always look at the graphs during good and bad times to get a better feel for what is good or bad.

2. Cnet reviewed PRISM HUD which looks somewhat promising. http://download.cnet.com/Prism-HUD/3000-18512_4-10916984.html?tag=mncol;1

I found others but these looked to be the most promising.

Good luck, Jon.

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If you are using WinXP, then there are some free programs that might be useful……..
I found others but these looked to be the most promising.
Good luck, Jon.

Thanks Jon, I’ll give ’em a try.

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Really, my main complaint is poor performance during windows updates. Several times a day, for up to maybe an hour each time, my system performance just drags. When I check the task manager, the only thing running is usually wuauclt.exe (windows update) or Msmpeng.exe (MSE).

I can concur that my XP machine slows when MSE is being updated (or when it is scanning other MS updates – I can’t tell which it is). However, as Windows updates tend to appear in blocks about once a month, its not a problem I care to solve. However, if it happened several times a day I’d want to fix it.

As Steve notes below, there might be issues with your MSE update interval. First note that the regular Windows update cannot be set (via the GUI, anyway) for more often than once a day, and that ought to be enough, even for MSE. I found this link with some info on the MSE update interval, which suggests: You can turn off automatic signature updates by setting the HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftMicrosoft AntimalwareSignature UpdatesSignatureUpdateInterval dword value to “0”.

So I had a look in the registry, and found mine was set to (hex)18=24 (hours), which seems a sensible default. Perhaps yours has been set (somehow) to a lower value? It seems from the link to Technet that 24 is the maximum value.

Secondly, have you set the scheduled MSE scan to check for updates before running? If not, then turning that on might allow MSE to update prior to the the scan (at night), and thereby prevent it from trying to update during the day when you want to use the PC.

Good luck! I have found MSE to be mostly unobtrusive, but it has an annoying habit of (sometimes) scanning all items in my start menu folders as I try to navigate them, leading to painful delays (of up to 20sec) before the shortcuts will appear. I have confirmed with Sysinternals FileExplorer that it is actually opening and scanning the .exes the shortcuts point to (which seems pretty dumb to me), but I have not managed to elicit any help or even concurrence from the MSE support forum. I have found that, once scanned, a start menu folder behaves normally on subsequent accesses, but something makes MSE ‘forget’ the scan eventually (and turning its real-time protection off temporarily, say to perform a task I dont want MSE getting in the way of, and then turning it back on, results in full folder scanning).

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…You can turn off automatic signature updates by setting the HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftMicrosoft AntimalwareSignature UpdatesSignatureUpdateInterval dword value to “0”.

So I had a look in the registry, and found mine was set to (hex)18=24 (hours), which seems a sensible default. Perhaps yours has been set (somehow) to a lower value? It seems from the link to Technet that 24 is the maximum value.

I’ve checked, and MSE definition updates are in fact installed every 24 hours, generally (for some reason it occaionally changes schedule, but then maintans the 24 hour interval until something else changes it).

Secondly, have you set the scheduled MSE scan to check for updates before running?

Yes I do, and I’ve set it to run only if the computer is NOT being used (but that doesn’t seem to stop it from doing so). Thanks for your suggestions.

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I do have Autoruns, and I’ve looked at it, but there are probably a hundred or so listings, and everything seems legitimate. I guess basically I just don’t know how to use it to speed up my system. If there were only a handful of entries, I could disable and observe the results, but with so many entries, that would seem to be an impossible task.

Start with the entries under the Logon tab, since that’s where the problems usually are, and ignore all the other entries.

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Start with the entries under the Logon tab, since that’s where the problems usually are, and ignore all the other entries.

I think you meant to write “Start with the non-Windows/Microsoft entries … “

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4 GB for XP? I doubt you’d see very much improvement above about 1 GB!

Why did you expect it to run breathtakingly faster? You still have the same CPU and other hardware! All you’d be saving with more memory is some paging, which depends significantly on how many and which programs you tend to run simultaneously.

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Where you might see some differences is when multi-tasking in XP. For every day use for most users, with 32 Bit XP, you will not see huge differences I’m afraid. You might try to stop some apps running in the background. Use an app such as What’s In Startupand pair down many of the useless stuff running with Windows. This might help you speed more than the additional Ram.

27189-WhatsInStartup

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Have you cleaned out your machine lately, cookies and temp files etc. Also make sure only programs that need to run for the operation of you computer and its security are running at start-up? If you do not have CCleaner installed may be a good idea to install it and have it clean your machine. ( I am not suggesting using the Registry cleaner though)

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Hi, I’ve got a fully patched XP, sp3 and use IE8. It had 512MB RAM and was pretty slow. I removed the old 512, and put in 4GB. I expected a day to night difference in speed, but I don’t see it. Are there possibly some memory related settings that I may have made when I was limping along with 512, that I should now change to gain full advantage of my new RAM? Thanks.

A fresh clean install with some minor os level tweakswould most ddefinitely see a big difference .

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Thanks Fred,

I regularly get calls from customers with older XP machines that have gotten so loaded up with CRAP that they take over ten minutes just to boot up. Running programs is laboriously slow and so is shutdown, to the point that many users just ‘pull the plug’ to do a shutdown.

I wrote a batch file for jobs like those and put it up on my web page.
I run it with the owner/user sitting right there beside me, in their home, and I watch their expression change from pure dead-pan to one of excitement as my batch file deletes the junk. It counts all the files on the HD first, then deletes all the junk out of standard Windows hiding places. After the cleanup, it counts the files again and posts the difference on the screen. Recently my little XPCleanup batch file took over 100,000 junk files off of a customer’s PC. It does not look through every folder on the HD like AVG Tune-Up, Easy Cleaner 2 and some other cleanup programs, that I DO use. But it also won’t destroy your hard drive like CCleaner once did to me.

I can take an old XP machine with 512 megs of ram, an 80 gig HD and a single core CPU and effectively Double its speed.
I usually get boot times down to less than a minute and shutdown times down to 5 to 8 seconds.
However, the most effective level of ram for an XP PC is in the 2 gig range. (give or take a nibble or two)
Most older PC’s won’t take more than 2 gig’s anyway. XP was designed on year 2000 technology, so it should always run on one gig or less of ram memory. Beyond that, the performance depends to a large extent on the CPU and motherboard. Some motherboards are really high performance and some are dogs. My MSI motherboard and AMD, X2, dual core, 5200+ CPU make a fabulous performance pair.
To address and use over three gig’s of ram, you must be running a 64 bit OS. Four gig’s is a nice round number and fills out four ram slots very nicely, but your XP, 32 bit OS will never be able to use all of it. Sorry, I don’t make the rules! 🙂
If you’re using four ram sticks, make sure that they are “Matched Pairs” all of the same make, model and speed and even from the same Batch Number if possible. Many of your better ram companies, sell “Matched Pairs” of ram.
Any PC can run horribly with mis-matched ram sticks installed.

After all the hardware is maxed out, there still remains the horribly Bloated Windows. I can shut down as many as 24 background services on XP and improve performance and loose nothing in the bargain. Then tweaking the registry for better ram usage also can make a huge improvement in performance. Tweaking the registry to get it to load the Windows Kernel into ram on boot, creates an amazing boost in speed.

Most of the tweaks I use for both XP and Windows 7 are on my web page for quick and easy download.
Many of those things are not for rank amateurs, but should be used by someone with some PC technical experience.

I’ve tweaked up PC’s across the country for IT Specialists, using Team Viewer and they were amazed at how little time it took me to effectively double their performance.
Not bragging…. I’ve been doing this stuff for 30+ years now and I’ve pretty well got it down pat.

Someone please…. download my XPCleanup.bat program from my web site, run it on your XP machine and come back and tell us how many files it deleted. It doesn’t mess with your registry or system files at all, but it couldn’t hurt to do a registry backup before you run the batch file for the first time.

Enjoy!

The Doctor 😎 (retired, in Florida)

Please forgive any typo’s in the above post. I’m also watching a classic car auction as I’m typing this and there have been several Gorgeous classic cars sell for over 2 million dollars each. As of this week, I have 16 computers in my shop, that I now own. I wish they were all Classic Cars.

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As of this week, I have 16 computers in my shop, that I now own. I wish they were all Classic Cars.

Well, you can wish in one hand and, well, do something in the other and see which one gets filled first! 😉 …I have over 25 computers, 0 classic cars, so I got dibs on the wishing well.

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1st computer, kind of disappointing, only 16k some files removed…I’ll try harder on my next one!

…18,800 on second so a bit better…no homeruns yet.

…third one I had high hopes for but it was a bust, only 9,900 files cleaned out of half a million; like throwing a couple deck chairs off the QE2. Still, its almost 10k files.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Woohoo! finally got it over 100,000 files cleaned/removed. It took 10 systems and I was running out; had to borrow a family member’s system which came through big at 25,700. I remember running disk cleanup and defragging a couple systems recently so my count was way down on those, barely over a thousand. Finally it was a VM of XP that put me over the top.

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No, disk compression isn’t going to help you in the speed department. As Clint says, a reinstall, or factory recovery will bring an old wheezing computer back to life or an expert’s administrations to programs and process removal/disabling can go a long way without reinstalling.
Do you have reinstall media or a recovery partition on the hard disk?
Security programs are often the big culprit for slowing systems down, especially the likes of Norton and McAfee. Also don’t use any registry cleaners for general purpose cleanup. CCleaner’s is ok for other stuff, just don’t run the registry cleanup portion.

You definitely do not have to put up with crummy performance but it might take a little elbow grease to get there–I have many systems running quite happily on far less specs that you have, they aren’t fire-breathers by any means but they are still surprisingly competent.

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Hi Infinicore. Thanks for the comments. Yes, I have Dell’s OEM XP disk that came with the computer. You mention recovery partition on the hard disk. I think maybe I do, but I’m not sure. Would that have the same thing on it as the Dell XP disk? Is there any reason one approach is better than the other?

When I went to DrWho’s website, I noticed he listed the process for reinstalling XP without losing currently installed applications and settings. Would that be of ANY benefit at all? Maybe sort of a halfway approach. I’m really sort of ambivolent about doing a clean install, and having to get the programs and settings back again. I’d like to improve performance, but I haven’t convinced myself that it’s worth that much hassle. I think I’d rather keep that as an absolute last resort. Any thoughts? Am I unjustifiably afraid of a clean install? Would DrWho’s renstall be of any value? Thanks.

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There is such a thing as a repair install but I have a feeling that wouldn’t help you much with your system and I don’t even know if you can update an OEM disc and use it for that purpose.
It would just be slower using the OEM XP disc to install rather than do it from the hard drive, plus many times all the OEM XP disc does is put the recovery partition on the disk and it installs from there anyway.

You can always try the programs, services and processes removal/disable route, and it is a hassle to go thru a recovery install but that also gives you the opportunity, once all the programs you need are reinstalled and its all working top notch, to image that install partition and then that becomes your recovery source…in other words, your OS and all your programs are preserved so if ever needed again, the recovery process is almost exactly what you mentioned—a reinstall of XP without losing any applications or settings. Unfortunately you need to make the “master” install one time the hard way to be able to do that.

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OK, thanks Infinicore. Appreciate your response. How do I know if I have a recovery partition, and how do I use it when (if) I finally decide to bite the bullet? I guess I guess I don’t feel desperate enough to try a clean instal yetl. At least for the time being, I’ll just focus on removing/disabling programs and services. I assume that the main benefit of a clean install is to wipe out the registry and rebuild it anew. If that in fact is the case, then that repair install probably wouldn’t do anything for my registry, or would it? I notice that you cautioned not to use registry cleaners. I have used registry cleaners for years, probably about monthly, generally associated with thorough cleaning and defragging. Maybe that’s my main problem, i.e. I’ve hosed the registry with various cleaners and nothing short of a clean install will have any appreciable effect on my performance issues. Thanks for your comments.

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shelquis,
One other thing… I found this and you might have a look see at your settings…Regards Fred

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If you plan to continue to use Windows XP for the foreseeable future I highly recommend that you get your hands on a genuine
XP SP3 disk and slipstream it as much as possible. ebayTally and collect all of your running programs and drivers even if it means paying out for software you failed to properly back up.
Learn how to use drive imaging software in combination with other forms of data backup.

Do the work once, do it right, and you will not find yourself in a similar situation in the future.

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A PC with those specs running XP should have no performance issues and run most popular applications with ease. The Dimension 4700 offered good bang for the buck when it was released on the market, so I very much doubt it is a matter of mismatched hardware either. A clean install would certainly be a good option for starters.

It’s a pity hard drives are so costly at the moment, as a new drive would almost certainly be the easiest and safest way to reinstall XP. Then, in the event of anything going wrong, you can simply plug the old drive back in again. You also have the added benefit of easily being able to subjectively compare the performance with your existing installation.

IMHO the magic number for 32 bit XP, in terms of RAM, is 2GB (specifically 2X1GB matched modules in dual channel mode). I have worked on hundreds (yes, literally) of PCs running 32 bit XP and have yet to see one that shows a noticeable improvement in performance with more than 2GB of RAM – some actually show a decrease.

I recall you mention that your PC has always been a bit slow. Should a clean install not sort out your problems, check the Dell web site and ensure that you have the latest bios and driver updates installed. It is also possible that (usually one component of) your hardware is defective. The usual way to isolate the culprit is a process of elimination, which can be quite time consuming. I take it you are still using the onboard graphics? If so, start by borrowing a graphics card, fit it and check your comparative system performance. If, at this stage, you still have performance issues, it will probably be better to bite the bullet until you can buy a new system, as it will not be cost effective to replace the remaining suspects such as your mainboard and CPU.

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I regularly get called out to a new customer’s house, and the problem is usually that the PC is running so slow that it’s driving them crazy.

In that environment, I don’t have the luxury of installing new hardware or doing a Factory Restore or anything like that.
I have to work with what’s there, and just make it better and in less than three hours.
Some PC makers, only put enough ram into their new PC’s to get them out the door. But as soon as the new owner started installing programs, that ram became insufficient. One PC maker’s name that comes to mind is Dell. (there are others!)

I made myself a cheat-sheet on the steps I should take to clean up and tune up an old PC. I had to struggle to just get the steps printed out on an 8.5X11″ sheet of paper. Even when I’ve done it for other tech’s, they sit there with a very puzzled look on their face because they have never seen anyone do what I do to a PC.

Believe it or not….. I showed one tech, who runs his own Computer business, how I tune up a PC. Now hold on to something,,,,,he actually told me “I’d never do that. It would make the PC too reliable and my customers would never call me back.” Duh! That seems to be the feeling with many technicians, like the “Geek Squad”. They just do the bare minimum to get the PC working and then they take the money and run. That same bare minimum is expressed on most all internet help forums. Fix the immediate problem and do nothing for the overall health of the PC. That makes me shudder! I’ve never taken that tack in 48 years of doing service work.

If I were under the gun to do a 30 minute Tune-Up, there are two things I would definitely do.
One would be to clean out ALL the junk in the HD and leave the customer with my Weekly Maintenance routine on their desktop, which includes a shortcut to ‘Windows Defrag’.
I also put a shortcut to my XPCleanup batch file (without the file counter), in the Startup Folder, so the PC gets a free cleanup every time it’s rebooted.

The second thing I’d do is tweak the registry so windows would load it’s Kernel into ram on boot. Windows has to access its Kernel constantly while it runs programs and when that Kernel is on the old slow, loaded and fragmented HD, that can really make Windows drag and slog along.
So just getting it up into RAM which is many, many, many times faster than any HD, even an SSD, you can see an immediate JUMP in performance.
That tweak is on my web site.
I’ve committed all my tweaks and tune-up tips to batch files, registry scripts and VBScripts, for FAST install, when I’m in the field.

My original set of Registry tweaks would CRASH the Windows XP Media Center OS, so I spent one whole evening writing a special tune-up script just for Media Center.

Many of my Tune-Up scripts for Windows 7, come right out of XP. The two OS’s are more similar, under the hood, than most people think.
Vista was built on XP and 7 was built on top of Vista and 8 is actually built on top of 7.
So many things I do on XP also work equally well on Windows 8/DP.
The four OS’s I just mentioned are not identical siblings, but they are certainly Kissing Cousins.

I just spent some time with my install of Windows 8/DP, on a 2005 vintage Compaq Presario, verifying every registry location where I do tweaks and they are all the same as XP. That’s so neat! When I click my Quick Shutdown icon on Win-8, it shuts down in under 5 sec’s.

I’ve been squeezing OS’s for better performance since my Commodore 64 days, in the early 1980’s, so what I’m doing now is nothing new.
Same old stuff, different day!

I love this forum, because of the free exchange of ideas. Y’all keep up the good work now, Y’hear?

Me 😎

PS: Be aware, that for every tune-up tip or registry tweak, some self proclaimed Expert will say it’s no good or does nothing or even detracts from performance. 😡

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Doctor Who,

We all have our little “tweaks”. You spoke in generalities but gave no specific advice. What are your tweaks? Where are your scripts? Some of us may not know how to put the kernel into memory “right-off-the-bat”. While you responded to the post you didn’t really answer the question, did you? Did I miss something?

Regards…..

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Dr Who,

Your advice is well taken. I went over to your website to download yours tweaks. The only item I could get was your
XPCleanup batch file, all the rest came up as invalid torrent files. Am I missing something? Would really like to have that info.

Clarence

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Please, o’please post them cheat sheets – many an idjit (who *can* read/follow instructions) like m’self are in need…

be well,
John

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all the rest came up as invalid torrent files.

That’s on YOUR end buddy, :p , you can’t get an invalid torrent file message unless you have torrent software installed on your system, kapish?..

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I was going to say that, but admittedly I’m not a torrent user or torrent expert. One of my little failings I guess.
I do use “Internet Download Manager” (IDM) but that’s all.

But most of those files will download quickly and easily by just clicking on them. I use only Firefox and they all download easily for me.
They are either text files or batch files, etc., so you surely don’t need a torrent to download them. Most of them will download before you can get your finger off of the mouse button. You should have your download location set to your desktop, so you can see immediately what you’ve got, without digging through your HD to find the files.

When I give some info, based on over thirty years experience, it fries my taters when someone calls me a liar or an idiot.
I say nothing that’s not based on years and years of experience. I only talk about things that I know dam well WORKS.

However, tuning up a PC, or removing malware does not depend on any one program. It’s an EFFORT, demanding time and persistence, plus a battery of programs to clean up and tune up the PC. I’m sorry if at times I seem vague, in my posts, but this isn’t gardening. It’s a highly technical business, only exceeded by Rocket Science. Some days, Rocket Science would be easier. lol

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor 😎

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I showed one tech, who runs his own Computer business, how I tune up a PC. Now hold on to something,,,,,he actually told me “I’d never do that. It would make the PC too reliable and my customers would never call me back.”

Hope ya set him straight or is he just a hopelessly short-sighted idiot that never heard of the backbone of self proprietorship, REFERRALS!

PS: Be aware, that for every tune-up tip or registry tweak, some self proclaimed Expert will say it’s no good or does nothing or even detracts from performance.

Problem is that that is a two way street (self-proclaimed expert shootout at high noon!) and not applicable to everyone depending on usage or is situation dependent, but in general that’s right, Microsoft tunes things for maximum compatibility and general use to reduce support as much as possible, not so much for maximum efficiency for specific uses.

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Don’t know why all these files were downloading with the .torrent extension. Changed file names to .rtf all is fine. One is a .rar
file. Tried downloading other .torrent files they worked fine. Aren’t I glad I am a genius? You bet.

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Those old 80GB hard drives are slow compared to newer ones, and they seem to become slower over time. Using the free HD Tune speed test program I recently tested the daughter’s old Dell Dimension 4550 (it has Intel P4 2.53GHz cpu and 1GB of RAM). The original 80GB hard drive that came with the computer measured an average speed of just 44.2 MB/second. The newer 320GB hard drive we installed for her a year or two ago measured an average speed of 92.4 MB/second – more than twice as fast! The newer drive was intended just for her photos, music, videos, etc., but it’s so much faster that I created an 80GB partition on it and copied/cloned everything from the old slow 80GB drive onto the newer drive (using the free Easeus Partition Master Home Edition). Both drives are the older PATA/IDE type with the wide ribbon cable connector, not the modern type SATA drives.

So, download HD Tune free version (the Pro version costs $$$) and test your existing hard drive. If it measures an average speed of less than, say, 50MB/second then buy a new 7200 rpm drive, maybe Seagate or Western Digital brand. These usually measure somewhere around 88MB – 96MB/second. Samsung and Hitachi drives are good, too, but they tend to be 6MB – 10MB/second slower.

In HD Tune you can select different file size blocks for the speed test and maybe get faster results from choosing larger file sizes. As I recall, the default file size for the speed test is 64kb. You may wish to also test using 512kb or even 2MB file size. To select those, click on the little gears icon in top right corner of the HD Tune window, then click on Benchmark in the left side menu. That will bring you to the area where you can choose or change the file size.

Another point is that years of using aggressive registry cleaners can mess things up and make Windows sluggish. Although I’ve never had a problem with the excellent CCleaner, other more thorough (aggressive!) cleaners have caused me problems. Also, installing and uninstalling lots of programs, games, etc. over the years will bring Windows XP master file table near its limit of maximum size. In any case, a fresh install of Windows or maybe a nondestructive repair install would surely be a step in the right direction, especially if it’s on a new 7200 rpm drive.

Finally, have you tried removing one stick of RAM to see if the computer performs better or worse? Maybe try that for a day then substitute the other stick and try again. Usually, RAM either works or it doesn’t. However, I’ve seen one or two cases where a stick had mediocre performance and that slowed everything down; unlikely, but possible.

Regarding your Dell computer, they were building pretty good machines back in those days. We used our Dell Dimension 4550 many hours every day for about 8 years before passing it on to the daughter. It was fashionable to knock them at a number of tech forums (mostly by people who built their own computers) because they could not be overclocked, you couldn’t use a big powerful graphics card, and upgrades were very limited. So, if you are/were a dedicated tweaker, overclocker, or gamer then, yeah, look elsewhere. What those critics failed to appreciate is that the Dell had good design and solid construction. The motherboards were totally stable and reliable (with very few adjustments in the BIOS setup screen so that users couldn’t screw things up!). The power supply was not massive at 250 watts but it was very well made, even handling a bigger graphics card I installed for a couple of years which needed an extra power connector. The cpu was underclocked maybe 1% or 2% and it, too, was totally stable and reliable. The cooling/ventilation design was very clever; a passive heatsink with tall fins and a shroud over it which led directly to the rear exhaust fan. Air was sucked in under the shroud and up over the heatsink fins. The rear exhaust fan was a sturdy double-ballrace type that ran very quietly and efficiently, speeding itself up whenever the processor was working hard,; and it still runs that way now, ten years later!

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Using the free HD Tune speed test program I recently tested the daughter’s old Dell Dimension 4550 (it has Intel P4 2.53GHz cpu and 1GB of RAM). The original 80GB hard drive that came with the computer measured an average speed of just 44.2 MB/second.

Hi Marvin. I downloaded HDTuner and got basically the same results as you got for your daughter’s 80GB HDD. I got 43.1MB/s average. I didn’t bother to run other than the default 64 KB test. The HDD is a Seagate Serial ATA 7200 RPM. I’m satisfied that it’s adequate for what I’m doing, and I don’t think it’s responsible for my poor performance, but it has to be a contributor

Finally, have you tried removing one stick of RAM to see if the computer performs better or worse? Maybe try that for a day then substitute the other stick and try again. Usually, RAM either works or it doesn’t.

No, I’ve haven’t removed any memory. It’s not that my performance got worse after the upgrade, I just (perhaps erroneously) expected it to get MUCH better after I installed 2 sets of matched 2GB Crucial memory, thus filling up all 4 slots. I do see improvement compared to the performance it had with the original 512 MB. Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

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HD Tune may show that the 320GB disk is 2 times as fast as the 80GB disk but it is just a benchmark tool that may or may not be applicable. You should look at multiple benchmark results to get a better picture (hopefully).

A benchmark is a very specific event sequence to get numbers that compared (old saying: comparing apples to oranges). To put this into terms everyone can understand, compare 2 cars (Ferrari and Toyota Prius). If the Ferrari is 2 times as fast as the Prius then why does it take the same time to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles? An even better example: has your car ever had the same MPG as stated on the sales sticker? Not mine.

The uncached 80GB disk may actually perform better in some situations than the 320GB disk with 2MB cache. Disk cache: memory in the disk where the disk temporarily saves data during read and write to make the disk seem to be faster. If you are running mostly database writes, then database commit to disk ignores the cache and waits for the actual disk write. If you are running an Intel I3, I5 or I7 processor (runs 4 programs at the same time in parallel – I know “program” is the wrong word but I want to make this easier to understand), then the disk cache could be wasting time during reads. In this case, programs ask for some data which the disk reads but the disk continues reading more data into cache because programs will usually request the next few blocks of data so it is ready for the next read. With 4 programs reading the disk at the same time, the disk might releases the read ahead blocks because the cache is needed for another read.

The solution to the problem only changes the problem.

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Shelquis, I very strongly suggest you do something differently than almost everyone so far has suggested, in light of your new information:

Stop tweaking your computer immediately, and don’t follow any further general tweaking suggestions made here, no matter how persuasive the poster. If you do try any, try them after you have fixed the real problem, and then only one at a time, carefully backing up or settings a system restore point beforehand and testing your system well after each, for safety.

Why? Because your problem isn’t a slow computer. You didn’t state your specific problem[/I] in your original post, but now you have:

(2012-01-27 14:36) Really, my main complaint is poor performance during windows updates. Several times a day, for up to maybe an hour each time, my system performance just drags. When I check the task manager, the only thing running is usually wuauclt.exe (windows update) or Msmpeng.exe [Microsoft Security Essentials].

Solomon in the Bible stated, “The study of books is endless”. The study of tweaks is also practically endless. Some procedures stated to be tweaks aren’t really. Some will actually slow down your computer (e.g. cleaning the Prefetch drawer) or make it unreliable or even unstartable (e.g. aggressive registry cleaning). And all are just confusing the issue, now you’ve recognised your specific problem.

Since Windows Updates critical updates are only released generally once a fortnight, it’s clear that your slowdowns are due to Windows Update downloading the definitions updates for Microsoft Security Essentials. I don’t have MSE installed so I can’t tell you exactly how to do so, but it’s clear that to fix the problem you need to stop MSE updates downloading updates a number of times a day.

If you’re on dialup or other slow connection, and the slowdowns are specifically with browsing and general internet access speed, then it’s no wonder, since the MSE updates will be using up practically all your bandwidth. But even if you’re on fast broadband, you will see an improvement if you tame the MSE updates.

Have a look within MSE (systematically check all its options) to see if the frequency of updates can be set. Once a day is more than enough.

Failing that, try the following (tested on XP Pro though not specifically for MSE updates): Find Security Center in your start menu chain and run it. If you can’t find it, in the Run box in the Start menu, type wscui.cpl and hit the Enter key.

In Security Center you will see “Automatic Updates”. If you see ON next to it, you should change the setting as follows. Scroll down to the very bottom of the window and click “Automatic Updates” under “Manage security settings for”. A new, separate Automatic Updates window will pop up. Select “Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them”, and click OK. If you changed this setting, then downloading & installing Windows updates, including hopefully MSE definitions, has now become a controllable multi-step process for you. You will be notified via the taskbar when there are new updates available, but now you choose when to download them, and after they’re downloaded you are notified and choose when to install them (also handy since sometimes a reboot is prompted and you could be in the middle of something).

Hopefully this will solve your problem. If it doesn’t then I suggest you uninstall MSE and replace it with a freeware malware checker with which update frequency is configurable. (Avira Antivir Personal for instance, AVG would be probably be configurable too and I’m told has not-too-big a footprint).

Briefly, re system speed on XP after a RAM upgrade (which I’ve done on my highly-tweaked XP system so I’m not just theorising): If you’re running only say two or three smallish programs at a time, browsers and Office say, then it’s normal to not see a big improvement in speed, since XP already uses small amounts of RAM very efficiently, in fact better than Vista/Windows 7. If instead you’re a power user typically running dozens of programs at once, or using RAM-hungry applications such as video editing or Photoshop, you would see an improvement (unless there are major bottlenecks elsewhere on your system). If you don’t multitask much or use powerful programs yet, don’t worry, you will, so you didn’t waste your upgrade money – but don’t expect much apparent general speed improvement in the interim.

Asus N53SM & N53SN 64-bit laptops (Win7 Pro & Win10 Pro 64-bit multiboots), venerable HP Pavilion t760 32-bit desktop (XP & Win7 Pro multiboot), Oracle VirtualBox VM's: XP & Win7 32-bit, XP Mode, aged Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2019s (8" & 10.1"), Blu-ray burners, digital cameras, ext. HDDs (latest 5TB!), AnyDVD, Easeus ToDo Backup Home, Waterfox, more. Me: Aussie card-carrying Windows geek.

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Since Windows Updates critical updates are only released generally once a fortnight, it’s clear that your slowdowns are due to Windows Update downloading the definitions updates for Microsoft Security Essentials. I don’t have MSE installed so I can’t tell you exactly how to do so, but it’s clear that to fix the problem you need to stop MSE updates downloading updates a number of times a day.

Well, it’s clear you gave my problem some thought. I’ve checked and it appears that MSE downloads definition updates just once a day, and typically it’s at 24 hour intervals. Wuauclt.exe apparently checks for other things to update.

If you’re on dialup or other slow connection, and the slowdowns are specifically with browsing and general internet access speed, then it’s no wonder, since the MSE updates will be using up practically all your bandwidth. But even if you’re on fast broadband, you will see an improvement if you tame the MSE updates.

Well, I’m not on dialup, I do have “broadband”, but I’m not sure how broad my band is. I just ran a speedtest on DLRReports and it reported a 2500kb/s download speed. Just for the hell of it, I ran the same testimmediately after using a win7 computer, and it checked out at 4500kb/s (those are approximate averages of several tests on each). So clearly, my XP computer is much slower than the win7. I have no idea why.

Have a look within MSE (systematically check all its options) to see if the frequency of updates can be set.

As best I can tell, it is not.

In Security Center you will see “Automatic Updates”. If you see ON next to it, you should change the setting as follows. Scroll down to the very bottom of the window and click “Automatic Updates” under “Manage security settings for”. A new, separate Automatic Updates window will pop up. Select “Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them”, and click OK. If you changed this setting, then downloading & installing Windows updates, including hopefully MSE definitions, has now become a controllable multi-step process for you. You will be notified via the taskbar when there are new updates available, but now you choose when to download them, and after they’re downloaded you are notified and choose when to install them (also handy since sometimes a reboot is prompted and you could be in the middle of something).

I had previously already tried that. Didn’t help. The problem still is that wuauclt.exe does something anyway. This is a daily problem, not something related to the monthly critical patches.

then I suggest you uninstall MSE and replace it with a freeware malware checker

I know I could do that, but I was hoping there was some setting that I should have changed after installing the additional RAM.

Briefly, re system speed on XP after a RAM upgrade (which I’ve done on my highly-tweaked XP system so I’m not just theorising): If you’re running only say two or three smallish programs at a time, browsers and Office say, then it’s normal to not see a big improvement in speed, since XP already uses small amounts of RAM very efficiently, in fact better than Vista/Windows 7

I think you pretty much described my situation. And I think I’ve prtetty much resigned myself to living with the situation until I get so fed up I decide to do a clean instll of XP. Thanks for your input.

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HD Tune may show that the 320GB disk is 2 times as fast as the 80GB disk but it is just a benchmark tool that may or may not be applicable. You should look at multiple benchmark results to get a better picture (hopefully).

Of course it’s applicable. A hard drive that benchmarks twice as fast as another (slower) hard drive will boot up to the desktop ready to use faster, and it will open/launch large applications and games faster, and it will retrieve wanted data faster. On the other hand, it’s a pleasant and scenic drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so who wants to drive fast? 😀

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So, download HD Tune free version (the Pro version costs $$$) and test your existing hard drive. If it measures an average speed of less than, say, 50MB/second then buy a new 7200 rpm drive, maybe Seagate or Western Digital brand. These usually measure somewhere around 88MB – 96MB/second. Samsung and Hitachi drives are good, too, but they tend to be 6MB – 10MB/second slower.

I find that a rather surprising comment as the Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives have an excellent reputation when it comes to speed.

When I replaced a Maxtor (Seagate) drive in my PC with a Samsung there was a noticeable improvement in performance. You can see below the speeds reported by HDTune

29923-samsung

29924-spinner

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I find that a rather surprising comment as the Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives have an excellent reputation when it comes to speed.

When I replaced a Maxtor (Seagate) drive in my PC with a Samsung there was a noticeable improvement in performance. You can see below the speeds reported by HDTune…

Mmm, yes you are correct. I was actually referring to earlier Samsung models which did not achieve the same good performance as the Spinpoint F3s can muster. But, the big differences are really between hard drives of, say, 2000 to 2002 vintage versus the more modern designs which all seem to manage higher performance.

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If any computer was NOT slow when it was new, then it should not be slow now, , , that is to say, IF it were properly maintained since it was new, not allowing the garbage to just build up till it choked the PC.

Many of us have the bad habit of Collecting Programs like some would collect coins, or stamps, beer cans, etc.

I could be one of the worlds worse, about that. But many of the programs I download and install either don’t work as advertised or are duplicates of programs I do use.
So at least once a month, I go into my Windows Control Panel, the “Add/Remove Programs” app, and I remove every program that I don’t need or use anymore.
I keep all the downloaded program files on a separate HD partition, so they don’t load down my C: drive.

So, in short, any OS, properly maintained, should run forever, or till the PC itself dies. My own XP OS, has been running now for several years, without any degrading in speed or efficiency.

Most PC makers are getting a little better about putting enough RAM in a new PC. Thank Goodness, buying a new PC with only 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig IDE hard drive are things of the past.

I did just install a new Asus desktop PC that had a Toshiba Laptop drive in it.
I’d never seen that before. (a 2.5″ drive, mounted on spacers so it could be mounted in a 3.5″ drive bay.)
It should be common knowledge, that a laptop drive cannot perform as well as a real desktop drive. I’m just assuming that the current shortage of new 3.5″ drives prompted this shortcut and that it won’t become a common practice.

Y’all have a great day now, Y’hear?
Me, The Doctor 😎

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As long as the Windows Update service is NOT disabled MSE will use it to perform definition updates, generally every 24 hours as noted, regardless of the Automatic Updates setting. I have seen reports of MSE sometimes putting an extreme load for a long time on an XP system. I’ve never seen a conclusive resolution. Sometimes, an uninstall and reinstall has helped.

Joe

--Joe

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…… I have seen reports of MSE sometimes putting an extreme load for a long time on an XP system..

Well, I guess my complaint is another example.

I’ve never seen a conclusive resolution

Great:(

Sometimes, an uninstall and reinstall has helped

I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled MSE several times, hoping that something would change. Thanks for your input.

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There are reports where MSE runs a long time on various releases. It’s more prevalent with XP because it’s generally running on slower machines and would be much more noticable.

One situation is where the previous anti-virus software was not removed or was not completely removed. Another situation is where full scans were running. The third situation is where fixes needed to be applied but the last major one seems to be from a few years ago.

With MSE, Microsoft expects the following CPU peaks:

1. High CPU and disk usage for a few hours ONCE A WEEK (default but it can be changed in settings). This would be the disk scan. It defaults to a quick scan of disk. Quick scan read several files but it ignores many files it deems a very low risk of infection. If this was changed to FULL, then it will take much longer because it processes every file. Many users complained about full scan taking too long, so they made quick scan the default. To make this more tolerable, a CPU limit of 50% can be changed to decrease it’s impact or increase it’s speed.

2. High CPU for a few minutes once a day to Download of new virus definitions and antimalware programs.

3. High CPU for a short period of time at various times during the day to check if new definitions or programs are available. Since Microsoft only updates these files once a day, this should be the normal occurance. It should be very short but it seems this is where your system is hanging.

4. CPU varies according to need while monitoring internet connections. Since you say Windows update is using a lot of CPU, this in not likely where the problem is occurring.

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Well, I guess my complaint is another example.
Great:(
I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled MSE several times, hoping that something would change. Thanks for your input.

Why not uninstall MSE and try another good, free anti-virus/malware program instead? AVG Free is very good, and the fastest one we’ve found for our PCs is Avast free edition. Good protection, small footprint, etc. Worth a try!

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You keep mentioning AFTER INCREASING RAM and activating it. It’s in place and is what it is. It will reduce PF usage if you are paging much. Is there something about it that you have not mentioned?

Did you successfully uninstall all other antivirus / antimalware programs before installing MSE? If not, uninstall it because they are not compatible with MSE. See Microsofts help with removing them at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_start/list-of-anti-malware-program-cleanupuninstall/407bf6da-c05d-4546-8788-0aa4c25a1f91

If you always have a web browser running (IE, Firefox, Chrome), then consider shutting down and seeing how it impacts your system. Many of the new websites have java programs running and reload sections of the screen.

How much CPU & memory are MSE and Windows update using? These programs are written to minimize CPU & refrain from using Huge amounts of storage. They should not be causing problems several times a day. Both programs should only become busy a maximum of once a day because Microsoft only adds updates & virus def’s once a day. They only schedule updates once a day. One slow period in a day could possibly occur because of updates but multiple slowdowns should not occur.

From the MSE control screen, click on the UPDATE a few times and monitor how much CPU and how long it runs. You can lower the MSE CPU % in the MSE settings. I think this setting only affects the update but I’m not positive.

It’s strange that windows update is running several times a day because it and MSE using windows update should only heavily use it once a day. The only constant MSE activity should be watching the internet (downloads, popups, malware, spyware and ???).

Does the problem exist with all programs? Is the problem only with programs that use the internet? For instance, if WORD or WORDPAD responsive?

Secunia OSI is running from the internet. It’s a scanner program that verifies files on your disk. It’s unclear if definitions are downloaded or web based. If they are web based, then MSE could be continually scanning the downloads. Does terminating Secunia make things better?

Ensure MSE is current – here are my levels which are current (you can find this information in the ABOUT help for MSE):
Security Essentials Version: 2.1.1116.0
Antimalware Client Version: 3.0.8402.0
Engine Version: 1.1.8001.0
Antivirus definition: 1.119.829.0
Antispyware definition: 1.119.829.0
Network Inspection System Engine Version: 2.0.7707.0
Network Inspection System Definition Version: 10.7.0.0

Verify MSE is the problem. You can uninstall it. Does the problem persist? Re-install after you finish tests below.

Verify Windows update has the problem. Do this while MSE is uninstalled because it uses Windows updates to obtain it’s verification files. You can do this in the control panel by opening WINDOWS UPDATE, change settings and set to NEVER CHECK FOR UPDATES.

Run some of the programs and watch the CPU to see how high it is (e.g. Secunia OSI). If secunia runs at 50% or above, then you would expect MSE to use quite a bit for the internet data it is transferring.

Install MSE. Restore your MSE & Windows update settings.

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The experience with MSE sometimes being very slow to update is perfectly in line with my own experience. I run MSE on Windows XP Pro, SP3 with the Comodo Firewall, which does not affect the actual definitions downloads. But when MSE updates itself, it temporarily shuts down some of its services and then tries to restart them. This can cause considerable system drag in my laptop, as Comodo Defense Plus slows down the restarting of the MSE services. Even with just the Windows XP Firewall (which MSE is supposed to replace partially) there can be some delays in MSE restarting its services.

I like MSE on my laptop, and it has caused lots fewer issues than some other freeware offerings. But the updates mechanism, relying on Windows Updates and restarting MSE services, is a real drag on system performance. So I manually check for MSE updates every time I’ve been off the computer for more than about a day. Better to take the hit upfront than to risk having my work slowed down or frozen completely (I only have 512MB RAM in there) later in my session. If you can’t live with this compromise, I would recommend a different AV product.

Would more RAM help? I guess an upgrade to 1GB (the maximum for this laptop) might help a bit, but the problem may lie with other system resources, and I think a single-core processor can only do so much, even with a RAM upgrade.

I have Windows Updates set to Notify but do not download updates, so that I can choose when to allow this very slow process to run on my limited-resources XP laptop. Then I follow Susan Bradley and Woody Leonhard for advice on which updates to install and when.

-- rc primak

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Even with just the Windows XP Firewall (which MSE is supposed to replace partially) …

Except on XP:

The latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials includes a new feature called the network inspection system. The network inspection system provides protection against network-based exploits such as the Conficker (MS09-67) and other exploits that take advantage of network vulnerabilities to infect PCs. The network inspection system in Microsoft Security Essentials also:

[*]Scans traffic on networks to which the PC is connected and proactively mitigates known attacks. No action is required by the consumer or small business.
[*]Automatically blocks traffic with an identified exploit attempt.
[*]Requires the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) available in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The network inspection system feature will not be enabled on Windows XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/security_essentials/FeaturesBenefits.aspx

Bruce

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Except on XP:

The latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials includes a new feature called the network inspection system. The network inspection system provides protection against network-based exploits such as the Conficker (MS09-67) and other exploits that take advantage of network vulnerabilities to infect PCs. The network inspection system in Microsoft Security Essentials also:

[*]Scans traffic on networks to which the PC is connected and proactively mitigates known attacks. No action is required by the consumer or small business.
[*]Automatically blocks traffic with an identified exploit attempt.
[*]Requires the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) available in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The network inspection system feature will not be enabled on Windows XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/security_essentials/FeaturesBenefits.aspx

Bruce

Not quite the same thing as a full firewall, however. Certainly not the equivalent of Comodo with HIPS and proactive Defense Plus. I am not advocating here, but I did post that there is at least partial firewall protection in Microsoft Security Essentials in its current version.

In Windows 8, Windows Defender is said to offer additional benefits. I haven’t researched the details.

In Windows XP, I do use the Comodo Firewall for additional protections. In Windows 7 and Windows 8, I see no need to do so. The built-in firewall of Windows 7 and Windows 8 seems pretty good to me by itself.

My point about system slowdowns is that every time we add something to Windows security, it seems that at least some aspect of the security layer slows down Windows, at least at certain times. I know that’s a sweeping generalization, but I have never found any Windows security add-on, including MSE, which does not cause at least some occasional system lag. As noted in this thread, the culprit in MSE seems to be the use of Windows Updates as the definitions updating source. But there’s also the issue of the stopping and restarting of the MSE services.

Granted, some security programs are worse resource hogs than others, but all which I have tried have caused at least some system performance hits at times. This is most noticeable on older hardware with single-core processors and limited RAM and other resource limitations.

Some of these performance hits are more manageable than others. MSE is in my experience not an easy program to manage in terms of when and how it uses system resources. Manually updating definitions when starting a Windows session (or at least when beginning the day) seems to be one of the few remedies I have found for my mid-session performance hit issues with MSE.

I also do not let MSE do scheduled scans. I perform these or reschedule them manually for times when I am not actively using the computer for productivity work. (I am a night-owl, so the default time of 2:00 AM does not always work out for me.)

I treat Microsoft Updates the same way. Notify but Do Not Download until I can schedule some down-time. Not Automatically Update even on a 2:00AM Sunday/Monday schedule. Just too much chance I will be doing something productive and important at that time.

And finally, let me repeat my overall conclusion about the original post. Adding more RAM may help with system performance if you are running demanding third-party or Microsoft applications. But if MSE or other security or updating programs or features are at the roots of a system slowdown, I do not believe adding more RAM than 1GB for Windows XP Pro will do much if any good toward resolving the slowdown issue(s). Your mileage may vary.

-- rc primak

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I am not advocating here, but I did post that there is at least partial firewall protection in Microsoft Security Essentials in its current version.

But NOT on Windows XP, which you specifically mentioned. My point was trying to clarify the misleading impression given by;

Even with just the Windows XP Firewall (which MSE is supposed to replace partially) …

It doesn’t, even partially, on XP.

Bruce

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But NOT on Windows XP, which you specifically mentioned. My point was trying to clarify the misleading impression given by;

Even with just the Windows XP Firewall (which MSE is supposed to replace partially) …

It doesn’t, even partially, on XP.

Bruce[/QUOTE]

All the more reason to follow my standard reply advice to use a third-party firewall with HIPS on Windows XP, regardless of active antivirus choice. I feel no need to include that advice in each posting when discussing Windows XP security. Once per thread is enough.

-- rc primak

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Hi Hammerhead. When I saw your question “Do you have MSE real-time protection enabled while you run the Secunia scan? “, I thought you’d identified my Secunia scan time problem. I immediately turned off MSE real-time protection, ran the Secunia scan, and it took about 40 minutes…..so that wasn’t the problem. Thanks anyway, it was a good question.

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Everyone needs to calm down. I’ve deleted the last seven posts. They were not germaine to the thread. As has been seen here things can quickly degenerate into a flame war.

Ted was correct in quoting rule 18.

18. Objectionable content is specifically prohibited
We do not allow posts, display names, or attachments that are, or appear to a reasonable person to be, obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, or threatening; prejudiced against a political, religious, or racial group; or in violation of law. Avoid outraged commentaries on sensational topics.

This is an actively moderated forum. All users including the “staff” agreed to the Lounge rules when we signed up. We try to keep all threads on technical subjects using language you would use in a professional setting.

Please abide by the rules.

Joe

--Joe

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I’m in complete agreement with removal for germane to the thread reason. Rule 18, while needed of course, needs to be rewritten to indicate moderator, rather than reasonable person, because, hand to God, I think I am more reasonable than the average person, if extended subjective inquiry (and attempts at objective inquiry) counts for anything, and I sometimes get flat out blindsided by what someone else considers objectionable content.
If the rule quit beating around the bush and laid the cards out flat it would be much better.

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