Service Pack 2 SP2 PC Speed Slowdown

[Guest]

Hi

I installed SP2 the other day and have had a severe slow down in performance.

I use Zonelarm Firewall and McAfee Virus Protection & K9 Spam Blocker, other
than that it's mainly Microsoft & MacroMedia Applications.

I have a Standard 2.0 GHz Intel P4 in an IDeq 200T PC with 512 of Corsair
Memory. It worked very nicely BEFORE the update.

I have Elisa ADSL 512 (Finland's main telephone company).

Is it worth uninstalling and re-installing or is this a general problem.

The main gripes are
- Internet Explorer is slower (opening and browsing).
- Most applications (e.g. Macromedia Fireworks, Outlook, Word) open and
operate much slower.

Does anyone else have the same problems or is it just me or my PC?

Thanks,
John.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

John

After installing SP2 have you carried out housekeeping? Note the action
regarding System Restore and Disk CleanUp.

Poor system performance can be the result of a single problem or a
combination of factors. Listed
below are issues, which you may wish to examine if you are experiencing poor
performance after
the boot process has completed. Some items may help with slow starting of
Windows XP but the
list has not been prepared for tackling that problem. Work through the list
until you achieve an
acceptable result.

Regular and effective housekeeping is essential. What you do and how often
you do it will depend
on how you use your computer. A suggested routine may include:
1. In Outlook Express empty your Deleted Items folder.
2. In Outlook Express run File, Folder, Compact All whilst OFFLINE.
3. Run Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk
Cleanup with
Temporary Internet Files, Offline Web Pages (optional), System Restore (
more Options tab )
and Recycle Bin selected for deletion. If you have more than one drive /
partition you may
need to do this operation for each drive / partition.
4. Remove Cookies. Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, General, Delete
Cookies.
5. Run Disk Defragmenter.

Check whether you could reduce the number of days the History of sites
visited is retained. Start,
Control Panel, Internet Options, General, History.

Spyware causes many problems. If not installed download Adaware and / or
update Reference file
from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/ and use it to remove
parasites. If Spyware
persists as a problem try a Hosts file.
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

Slow performance resulting from insufficient memory, causing over reliance
on virtual memory,
may be especially noticed by those upgrading to Windows XP from an earlier
version of Windows.
Windows XP will run with 64 MB of RAM memory. However, a minimum of 256 MB
is
recommended and many users will recommend 512 MB. You may check on pagefile
(virtual
memory) usage with Page File Monitor for XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

Check how much free space you have on the hard drive / partition where your
pagefile is located.
You need a minimum of 15% but 20% or more is better.

Check your setting for the Indexing Service. Start, Administrative Tools,
Services, Indexing
Service. The default setting is Manual. Check that it is not running. More
information here:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#Indexing_Service

You can have too many programmes running in the background. Close
programmes/windows after
use. Check whether all the programmes loading when Windows is started are
really necessary.
http://aumha.org/a/loads.htm

Check whether you can identify slow performance with a particular programme.
Look in Google to
see whether others have encountered the same problem and found a solution.
http://groups.google.com/

Are there any error messages in Event Viewer? You can access Event Viewer by
selecting Start,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the
error, information
regarding Event ID: and Source Description is important.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&Product=winxp

~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[a bloke]

After installing SP2 have you carried out housekeeping? Note the action

regarding System Restore and Disk CleanUp.

I too had the same major slow down problem yesterday. Although house keeping
is useful, it was SP2 *only* that made the drastic difference. I performed a
system restore to remove SP2 and the system behaved normaly again.

John - As you have security measures in place anyway - I would suggest
removing SP2 and wait for SP3!

Regards,

Brian.

 

[Phil]

Hi

I installed SP2 the other day and have had a severe slow down in
performance.

I use Zonelarm Firewall and McAfee Virus Protection & K9 Spam
Blocker, other than that it's mainly Microsoft & MacroMedia
Applications.

I have a Standard 2.0 GHz Intel P4 in an IDeq 200T PC with 512 of
Corsair Memory. It worked very nicely BEFORE the update.

I have Elisa ADSL 512 (Finland's main telephone company).

Is it worth uninstalling and re-installing or is this a general
problem.

The main gripes are
- Internet Explorer is slower (opening and browsing).
- Most applications (e.g. Macromedia Fireworks, Outlook, Word) open
and operate much slower.

Does anyone else have the same problems or is it just me or my PC?

Thanks,
John.

It's just your computer. I've installed it on 20+ machines with no slow
downs at all.

 

[Richard Urban]

When you install SP2 it cleans out the prefetch folder and begins to
repopulate it. It will take about 3 days before the prefetch folder begins
to have an effect upon your system. At that time, the system will begin to
defrag the system partition in the background (when the system is idle) and
place the most commonly used files in an appropriate position for optimal
access. This will increase your apparent speed.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Guest]

Well I had a lot of posts, thanks and thanks Gerry on the large amount of
advice, but I am fairly technical and do have Adaware (& Spybot) installed
too, regularly (daily?) remove all rubbish (offline web pages, cookies etc.
etc.) and generally keep my PC in pretty good order.

My Machine has only had XP Pro on for 1 month and from new (new PC, disk
etc.) . It has NEVER been slow .. it is ONLY when I have installed SP2 that
this problem occured. (I have also kept it regularly updated with all windows
updates prior to SP2).

I defrag my disk regularly and it is 99% defragged at the moment, and have
about 110MB free.

So the answer is not that simple, (too me anyway) and it is not very clever
to say 'I have installed it on 20 PCs and they work correctly' - not very
helpful !

I will probably take 'a bloke's' advice and uninstall as this is pretty poor
and makes my system unstable ...

If anyone has heard any more on this problem I would welcome a 'realistic'
suggestion.

Cheers
John.

John

After installing SP2 have you carried out housekeeping? Note the action
regarding System Restore and Disk CleanUp.

Poor system performance can be the result of a single problem or a
combination of factors. Listed
below are issues, which you may wish to examine if you are experiencing poor
performance after
the boot process has completed. Some items may help with slow starting of
Windows XP but the
list has not been prepared for tackling that problem. Work through the list
until you achieve an
acceptable result.

Regular and effective housekeeping is essential. What you do and how often
you do it will depend
on how you use your computer. A suggested routine may include:
1. In Outlook Express empty your Deleted Items folder.
2. In Outlook Express run File, Folder, Compact All whilst OFFLINE.
3. Run Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk
Cleanup with
Temporary Internet Files, Offline Web Pages (optional), System Restore (
more Options tab )
and Recycle Bin selected for deletion. If you have more than one drive /
partition you may
need to do this operation for each drive / partition.
4. Remove Cookies. Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, General, Delete
Cookies.
5. Run Disk Defragmenter.

Check whether you could reduce the number of days the History of sites
visited is retained. Start,
Control Panel, Internet Options, General, History.

Spyware causes many problems. If not installed download Adaware and / or
update Reference file
from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/ and use it to remove
parasites. If Spyware
persists as a problem try a Hosts file.
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

Slow performance resulting from insufficient memory, causing over reliance
on virtual memory,
may be especially noticed by those upgrading to Windows XP from an earlier
version of Windows.
Windows XP will run with 64 MB of RAM memory. However, a minimum of 256 MB
is
recommended and many users will recommend 512 MB. You may check on pagefile
(virtual
memory) usage with Page File Monitor for XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/

Check how much free space you have on the hard drive / partition where your
pagefile is located.
You need a minimum of 15% but 20% or more is better.

Check your setting for the Indexing Service. Start, Administrative Tools,
Services, Indexing
Service. The default setting is Manual. Check that it is not running. More
information here:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#Indexing_Service

You can have too many programmes running in the background. Close
programmes/windows after
use. Check whether all the programmes loading when Windows is started are
really necessary.
http://aumha.org/a/loads.htm

Check whether you can identify slow performance with a particular programme.
Look in Google to
see whether others have encountered the same problem and found a solution.
http://groups.google.com/

Are there any error messages in Event Viewer? You can access Event Viewer by
selecting Start,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the
error, information
regarding Event ID: and Source Description is important.
HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&Product=winxp

~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Tom]

I defrag my disk regularly and it is 99% defragged at the moment, and have
about 110MB free.

Unless this is a typo on the amount of drive space you have, this could be a (the) problem.