I was with a client yesterday whose computer was unbelievably slow at doing everything until we actually managed to install ISP software and get online. Then things speeded up considerably and it seemed almost as fast as my DSL. Everything else takes an age. Her hard drive is full - I had to delete something before we could install the new software - would this account for the sluggishness? Computer is very old, Win 95, 200 Mhz.
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V-e-r-y s-l-o-w computer!! 2
- Thread starter dibeach
- Start date
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2
- #2
dibeach,
That is a little slow compared to most today, don't you think? 200Mhz...they're almost at 2,000Mhz
How much RAM?
Full harddrive...Another big mistake. Is the client using Drivespace...boy I sure hope not.
First, have the client go to Add/Remove programs and uninstall the programns that aren't used.
Try hitting F2 or the Del key on startup to access the BIOS. You may see an entry for Fast Boot or similar wording.
Also look over the contents of the c:\msdos.sys file. Here's a guide to the settings for faster bootup:
BootMenuDelay=<Number>
Default: 30
Purpose: This setting is used to set the number of seconds your system
will pause on the Startup menu. If the number of seconds counts down to 0 without intervention, the BootMenuDefault is activated.
NOTE: This option is not functional unless BootMenu=1 has been added to
the [Options] section of the Msdos.sys file.
If it's running that poorly, right-click on My Computer, click the Performance tab and verify the File System and Virtual Memory are 32-bit.
Click the Virtual Memory button and make sure that Windows is managing the virtual memory.
If those are OK, try these steps to eliminate unecessary program running:
The things that make the computer slow are the many unecessary items that automatically startup when Windows starts.
Right-click on the icons in the tray area, open each, go through the options to turn off the "tray" or "run at startup" feature.
Since there is no msconfig to show what's loading from the registry, download Startup Cop. It's freeware. Here's a link:
Go to Start>Run, type sysedit. Look over the autoexec.bat for unneccessary lines, click the win.ini and check for programs loading here:
[windows]
load=
run=
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to c:\windows\temp and delete all files here. Empty the Recycle Bin
Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools>InternetOptions, click the Delete Files and Clear History buttons. Set a resonable size. Forcable connection, I only use 10MB.
Close all tray applications and hit Alt_Ctl_Del and end task on all items except for explorer and systray, disable your screensaver, then run scandisk, then defrag.
If you don't know what an entry is or what it does, post back.
That is a little slow compared to most today, don't you think? 200Mhz...they're almost at 2,000Mhz
How much RAM?
Full harddrive...Another big mistake. Is the client using Drivespace...boy I sure hope not.
First, have the client go to Add/Remove programs and uninstall the programns that aren't used.
Try hitting F2 or the Del key on startup to access the BIOS. You may see an entry for Fast Boot or similar wording.
Also look over the contents of the c:\msdos.sys file. Here's a guide to the settings for faster bootup:
BootMenuDelay=<Number>
Default: 30
Purpose: This setting is used to set the number of seconds your system
will pause on the Startup menu. If the number of seconds counts down to 0 without intervention, the BootMenuDefault is activated.
NOTE: This option is not functional unless BootMenu=1 has been added to
the [Options] section of the Msdos.sys file.
If it's running that poorly, right-click on My Computer, click the Performance tab and verify the File System and Virtual Memory are 32-bit.
Click the Virtual Memory button and make sure that Windows is managing the virtual memory.
If those are OK, try these steps to eliminate unecessary program running:
The things that make the computer slow are the many unecessary items that automatically startup when Windows starts.
Right-click on the icons in the tray area, open each, go through the options to turn off the "tray" or "run at startup" feature.
Since there is no msconfig to show what's loading from the registry, download Startup Cop. It's freeware. Here's a link:
Go to Start>Run, type sysedit. Look over the autoexec.bat for unneccessary lines, click the win.ini and check for programs loading here:
[windows]
load=
run=
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to c:\windows\temp and delete all files here. Empty the Recycle Bin
Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools>InternetOptions, click the Delete Files and Clear History buttons. Set a resonable size. Forcable connection, I only use 10MB.
Close all tray applications and hit Alt_Ctl_Del and end task on all items except for explorer and systray, disable your screensaver, then run scandisk, then defrag.
If you don't know what an entry is or what it does, post back.
- Thread starter
- #3
when HDD gets over 80% full it slows the PC down greatly - try to keep disk space to a maximum - or - it may be that the drive is simply old and in need of replacement...
i suggest you back up data, format drive and then re-intall opeatying system, this should see an improvement. Reghakr is right, more ram the better - its an impotant fact !!
i suggest you back up data, format drive and then re-intall opeatying system, this should see an improvement. Reghakr is right, more ram the better - its an impotant fact !!
- Thread starter
- #7
DriveSpace is a drive compression utility that comes with Windows. It compressed the drive to gain more space, but in the process it s-l-o-w-s it down a lot, because the information has to be uncompressed to be used and compressed again to be put back on the hard drive. Every day above ground is a GOOD DAY!!!
DMA (Direct Memory Access), is a feature that is predominately in removeable disk devices (ie: CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc), and it is not recommended to have that option turned on for your hard drive, as not many hard drives support DMA. To check & see if it is:
>right click on My Computer
>Click on Properties
>Click Device Manager Tab
>Click Disk Drives
>Double Click your hard drive (probably will be titled
GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE(some number here))
>Click on the Settings Tab.
>If DMA is selected, deselect it & reboot.
If this was the problem, then you ought to be working fine again. If it doesn't, let me know & I might can throw some other scenarios w/ solutions. Going by what you've said though, it's undoubtedly a hard drive problem. If it aint this, then you might need a replacement hard drive, so let's hope it's DMA.
>right click on My Computer
>Click on Properties
>Click Device Manager Tab
>Click Disk Drives
>Double Click your hard drive (probably will be titled
GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE(some number here))
>Click on the Settings Tab.
>If DMA is selected, deselect it & reboot.
If this was the problem, then you ought to be working fine again. If it doesn't, let me know & I might can throw some other scenarios w/ solutions. Going by what you've said though, it's undoubtedly a hard drive problem. If it aint this, then you might need a replacement hard drive, so let's hope it's DMA.
Just a thought, all of the aboved entries have not mentioned the possiblity of the temp folder being full of unrequired temp files. If this folder gets to full it greatly slows the machine to a crawl.
Go into the Windows System folder and scroll down to the TEMP folder. If there are a lot of tmp files there is most of the problem. The second major thing is of course the Tempory Internet files and cookies. These can build up by the 1000's if you do not clean them out regularly.
Plus as one of the guys has already mentioned if the HDD is nearly full you tend to run out of space for the swap file which can also be detremental to the systems speed. Go thru all the programs that are on the system and remove all unnecessary programs. It is preferable to have around half to two thirds of the drive in use not around 90 to 95%.
Lastly the amount of RAM in the system will affect the running. Some of the older systems can not handle anything more than 64 to 128Mb of RAM. It is more true of systems that have been running Win 95. Plus it realy depends on the motherboard and CPU type on the system. I would say that with it being a 200MHz it is an Intel running at 66MHz and using EDO so just there you have something that is rather slow compared to say the 300 Celeron that can use SDRAM. So it could be time to get them to upgrade the system that can handle some of the new technology and get them running much more efficiently.
As I said it is just a thought.. Hope this is some help.
Steven Walker
strider@paradise.net.nz
Brainbench MVP Computer Technician
Go into the Windows System folder and scroll down to the TEMP folder. If there are a lot of tmp files there is most of the problem. The second major thing is of course the Tempory Internet files and cookies. These can build up by the 1000's if you do not clean them out regularly.
Plus as one of the guys has already mentioned if the HDD is nearly full you tend to run out of space for the swap file which can also be detremental to the systems speed. Go thru all the programs that are on the system and remove all unnecessary programs. It is preferable to have around half to two thirds of the drive in use not around 90 to 95%.
Lastly the amount of RAM in the system will affect the running. Some of the older systems can not handle anything more than 64 to 128Mb of RAM. It is more true of systems that have been running Win 95. Plus it realy depends on the motherboard and CPU type on the system. I would say that with it being a 200MHz it is an Intel running at 66MHz and using EDO so just there you have something that is rather slow compared to say the 300 Celeron that can use SDRAM. So it could be time to get them to upgrade the system that can handle some of the new technology and get them running much more efficiently.
As I said it is just a thought.. Hope this is some help.
Steven Walker
strider@paradise.net.nz
Brainbench MVP Computer Technician
TekKnowGeek
Technical User
Hmmm.....
Size of paging file? Too small, too large?
Temporary internet files, too many?
Recycle bin full/empty?
Using upper memory agressively? Primary role of computer = Desktop computer or network server?
Only one partition, all files on system partition?
Shutdown regularly or not at all?
If paging file is too large the computer must traverse the page file to find the information it needs then loads the information into memory before it uses it. This can take awhile. If the page file is too small, the system ends up swapping between HD and mem alot! (very slow)
Configuring the computer to act as network server permits the use of agressive upper memory management.
Having temporary files stored on a different partition serves many purposes. Minimizes fragmentation of system partition and speeds up read access times. I put all temporary files (ie. browser cache, temp,tmp, pagefile.sys) on a seperate partition. If you do not have another partition then ensure that you delete temporary internet files and temp folder files often.
NOTE: Always delete temporary files and recycle bin contents before defragmenting.
Size of paging file? Too small, too large?
Temporary internet files, too many?
Recycle bin full/empty?
Using upper memory agressively? Primary role of computer = Desktop computer or network server?
Only one partition, all files on system partition?
Shutdown regularly or not at all?
If paging file is too large the computer must traverse the page file to find the information it needs then loads the information into memory before it uses it. This can take awhile. If the page file is too small, the system ends up swapping between HD and mem alot! (very slow)
Configuring the computer to act as network server permits the use of agressive upper memory management.
Having temporary files stored on a different partition serves many purposes. Minimizes fragmentation of system partition and speeds up read access times. I put all temporary files (ie. browser cache, temp,tmp, pagefile.sys) on a seperate partition. If you do not have another partition then ensure that you delete temporary internet files and temp folder files often.
NOTE: Always delete temporary files and recycle bin contents before defragmenting.
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