How much time do you spend waiting on the OS?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Herbster
  • Start date Start date
J

John Herbster

It seems that with Win2K and WinXP I am frequently waiting on
the OS:

Sometimes I click to display a drop-down, see no evidence of
action for a second and click again, only to see the drop-down
and then to see it closing (as a result of the second click). It
happens with many or all Windows program functions.
If the OS would at least show the hourglass between the time of
my click and when it does the work I would not complain so much.

Then to delete a little file from the File Explorer, it may take over
thirty seconds if it is the first file that I have deleted in a while.

About twice a month, I spend about 15 minutes doing another
WindowsUpdate download and install of critical updates.
This year I have had to download and install major service packs.
Right now I am having to delay a trip to a customer while I am
waiting for the huge WinXP SP2 95MB update to download
and install. It has already taken over 90 minutes. (The pre-DL
and post-DL install are taking longer than the actual DL.)

I think that I am spending too much time waiting for the OS.
I am starting to think fondly of the older versions of Windows
and even DOS.

Do these waits bother you?
 
There are many things that can cause this so start with the following. Clean
out your temp files, defrag your hard drive, run Spybot S&D and AdAware. If
the problem is still there, come back and ask again.
 
John,

If you are expecting that things happen instantly, with no apparent lag time
between the instant you initiate the desired action and the action taking
place, you will be disappointed at every turn. This just does not happen.
I have seen my system, running Windows XP Home Edition on a 1.34 gHZ Athlon
powered box, with 512 MB of RAM, delete a 5 MB file in ten seconds and
minutes later, take twenty or thirty seconds to delete a 300 kb file. There
is no rhyme or reason to this.

I update using Windows Update on a regular basis, as the updates become
available. It takes a few minutes here or there. I don't see a problem
with that. If you want to sit at your machine while it downloads the latest
patches and service packs, that is your choice. I frequently do not hang
around for that myself.

The older versions of Windows were no different than the current version of
Windows XP. It took just as long to delete files with Windows 95 as with
98, and now, with XP. I see no difference. Where I do see a difference is
in total boot time, system stability and system reliability. XP is by far
the better operating system when compared to 98 or 95. I won't even mention
Windows ME! That operating system should never have been allowed to come to
market. It is the most grandiose error ever made by Microsoft, and they
have made some doozies.

Make sure your system has enough RAM. Run malware scans and delete any
malware found. Keep your hard drive tidy and organized. Use a firewall and
anti-virus application. Do this and your machine will run at peak
efficiency.
 
How much memory do you have and what is your processor? I believe in Mark
Minasi's first law of computer hardware: If the lights don't dim when you
turn on your computer, add more memory. The less memory you have, the more
time the system spends accessing the swap file on your hard disk.
 
What about using one of those memory optimizing programs? I downloaded one
for free called 'OptimizeMemory' and it seemed to make a difference. What's
your opinion on that?
 
How much memory do you have and what is your processor?
Click to expand...

The computer is a Dell 5100 with 256 MB and Pentium4/2.4Ghz.
And with system properties set to:
Greater share of processor time for Programs.
Greater share of memory for Programs.
Total paging file size for all drives: 384MB.
 
Have you run adware sweeps for unwanted programs and
keyloggers? Often they get on the computer and load in the
background, making everything very slow.

--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


|
| > > It seems that with Win2K and WinXP I am frequently
waiting on
| > > the OS:
|
| > How much memory do you have and what is your processor?
|
| The computer is a Dell 5100 with 256 MB and
Pentium4/2.4Ghz.
| And with system properties set to:
| Greater share of processor time for Programs.
| Greater share of memory for Programs.
| Total paging file size for all drives: 384MB.
|
 
The computer is a Dell 5100 with 256 MB and Pentium4/2.4Ghz.
And with system properties set to:
Greater share of processor time for Programs.
Greater share of memory for Programs.
Total paging file size for all drives: 384MB
Click to expand...

John, based on the System Requirements for XP, 256MB of RAM is on the low
end. I would expect to see delays if that was what I had installed. While
256MB of RAM is fine for light use, 512MB is the minimum amount that I like
to see on an XP setup. If you were to bump this up to 512MB, you would see
a big improvement. More improvement can be seen using 786 and again 1GB but
these change wouldn't be as dramatic as the 256 to 512 step up.
 
How to tell when to add more memory: If you turn on the computer and the
lights don't dim, add more memory. Seriously, more memory keeps your
programs from needing to use the swap file as much, and that is what is
slowing you down. Not only does performance improve, but you save wear and
tear on the hard drive as well. After you add more memory, you can tweak
such things as the icon cache, etc. to further improve performance.
 
There are many things that can cause this so start with the
following. Clean out your temp files, defrag your hard drive,
run Spybot S&D and AdAware.
If the problem is still there, come back and ask again.
Click to expand...

Temp stuff was recently cleaned out.

Defragging was recently done.

Spent 40 minutes downloading and running Lavasoft's Ad-Aware se
found 46 running processes;
scanned 223,000+
found 77 critical objects (all cookies)

Spent 5 minutes down-loading and running SpyBot S&D 1.3
Took from 4 minutes to BU registry.
Found and removed 5 DSO Exploits
Found and removed 4 WebTrends Lives

There after
Took 10 seconds to delete first file.
Took 0.7 seconds to drop down the style combo-box of MS Word.
In File Explorer, takes 7 seconds without hourglass to bring
up a window for searching.
Takes 7 minutes to search C-drive for "zipfldr.dll".

After using the cleaned out computer for a day, I can now say that
the Ad-Aware and SpyBot S&D cleanup did *not* significantly help.

Thanks for the suggestions, anyway. Next I will try going from
256 MB to 512+128 MB RAM. --JohnH
 
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