Why is my pc so slow?!! 1

[mviltan]

At work I've got a compaq evo 310 cmt. It's a P4 2.26ghz with 512 ram.

The programs which i have installed on it are:

Mcafee virus scan 4.51
Novell netware client
groupwise 5.5
kazaa
easy cd creator 5
win vnc
office 2000


I installed alsmost the same software on other pc's excedpt for kazaa and they are ok. but my one when i click on the start bar it open gradually, fades in. when i open word doc's it's slower than other pc's. what can i do to help it?
also someone changed the size of my paginf file, what should it be on a 30gb hdd?

thanks,

mark

 

[Msharkey]

Remove the kazaa and see what happens.

Matt

 

[pbxman]

You most likely just said what the problem is: your pagefile.

What size is it exactly? Is it set to empty after a shutdown?

It sounds like it's resizing or rebuilding itself after you logon, and that could take a while with that much RAM in it. I set mine static at 1024K on my home PC with 384MB RAM, and it's perfect on mine. For your application, i'd try going a little higher - maybe 1152/1152 in both fields (for min/max) and see what that does. If not - set it back to default and see what works best.

Aside from that - you may have a lot of services starting up, or a program running in the background (Kazaa doesn't start automatically does it?) See whats hogging your resources by doing a CTRL+ALT+DEL when it's slow and see what your available RAM is, processor useage, and processes using the most CPU resources.


Good luck pbxman
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[Cadwalader]

pbxamn is on the ball...do that.

A word about KaZaA:
Our "friends" in the marketing industry--yes, the same ones that made it so EVERYONE on the face of the earth is automattically "opted in"--gave kazaa the idea to act like a commercial viewer. Yeah, like Gator(pardon me while I puke). I have noticed that Gator (GAIN and GMT in your task manager) will hog the CPU from time to time. I guess it's acting as a supernode or something. I haven't cought KazaA doing it, because I used KaZaA_Lite (notice "used&quotwhich is supposed to be the "commercial free" version--it is, but I don't know if it's available anymore. I got sick of files displaying as 192K bit rate and sounding like streaming audio for dial-up. I use WinMX now. Anyway, it wouldn't surprize me a bit if KaZaA uses the same stuff as GMT, and is intermittently hogging your CPU.

You have my CPU beat 4 fold (I have a 600MHz Celeron). That thing is ripping fast. It runs like a 1.8G P4 with Win98. That box will do things that it shouldn't, like run SOF 2, UT 2003, WarCraftIII, and I can actually host these games with no trouble. Well, it does get to where the side of the case is warm to the touch, but other than that, it runs like a top.

I believe there is a FAQ on how to tweek a 2k box. Check that out. Good luck. Hope I was of some help...
--OR--
Thanks for the help...
--Rich

 

[HYPROGLO]

I would definitley lose the Kazaa, I had a lot of problems myself with that program. After I removed it, the problem was gone!

Good Luck!

 

[wolluf]

pagefile? - pbxman is on the ball? with 512mb RAM you don't need ANY pagefile (2k won't let you set this - so set for example fixed 100MB - max & min 100 - but it won't be cause of your trouble). If you want Kazaa try Kazaa Lite (no adware). I'd get rid of McAfee (too many posts on various forums with problems - try AVG - free and doesn't slow you down)

 

[mlevine]

Another thing with Kazaa... Hidden software... Grab Adaware and give that a quick run.

http://www.lsfileserv.com/

 

[pbxman]

Wolluf - what do you mean "2K wont let you set this"? and "you dont need ANY pagefile with 512 RAM"? No offense, but that is wrong, and also bad practice in general. The pagefile is there for a purpose, and is designed to speed-up your computer, not slow it down. I run Kazaa no problems, and it's not that program that seems to be causing his problem.

We need a post back from him to see what his used resources are before continuing to troubleshoot. Dont jump the gun and blame Kazaa right away..it's not the only difference between his other computers (that are working fine)..he also said "also someone changed the size of my paging file"..and that is the most likely cause. As i said..millions run Kazaa without any such problems (myself included)..my money remains on the pagefile.

Mviltan - any further info? pbxman
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[mviltan]

Thanks for all the reply's.

i've changed the paging file to 1152 this seeems to of helped. at least the start bar loads sraight away. The only thing that takes a while now are loading word documents off of the network. Plus NWadmin takes longer to load on this pc than others.

 

[wolluf]

Pbxman - the only reason for a pagefile is if you run out of RAM - its an overflow area (I don't count being able to dump the whole of RAM to hard disk in the event of a system failure - no use to me). With 512MB RAM, I don't run anything or combinations of apps which will exhaust this memory - so ergo I need no pagefile. As RAM is much faster than hard disk access (1000 times or more I think), having no pagefile will speed up your PC if you have enough RAM. I run my NT (& 98) installations that way (but 2k won't let me).

PS. I have previously had some problems with Kazaa slowing things down (only on the odd occasion - generally fine) - but Kazaa lite is an improvement in that respect (and also looses the spyware).

 

[vgrice]

You need a pagefile at least as large as the physical RAM in your system. And if you add RAM, you'll need to expand the pagefile. The reason is that Microsoft designed Win2K for nonstop operation. Other OSs—including early versions of OS/2—allow pagefile sizes significantly smaller than physical RAM. Under certain conditions, the system might need to page out more virtual memory than would fit in the file—and the system would hang. By making the minimum pagefile size in Win2K the same size as the RAM, this memory overrun won't happen. That doesn't mean you can't run out of virtual memory in Win2K—you can; the system will try to expand the pagefile, and in the process, the system will slow to a crawl, but it won't stop running. So, to those growing system requirements for Win2K Server, add at least as much hard disk space as physical RAM. On a Win2K AS system with 8GB of RAM, you'll need at least 8GB of space for a pagefile, over and above the 2GB minimum requirement.

http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=7996

Vince Grice
vgrice@hotmail.com
MCSE Win2K, NT; MCSA; MCP+I

I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.
- Woodrow Wilson

 

[pbxman]

Mviltan,

A couple of other things to check as well..
Go into device manager, and choose your primary and secondary IDE controllers. Go into the Advanced Settings tabs and make sure they're set to use DMA if available. That will also give you some speed.

Cadwalader was right about the 2K speed tweaks, there is a FAQ written by Butchrecon that is great info.

Check your services running as well. More than likely you have a lot more running than you need on the PC. Win2K loads up a lot of extra services that you wont use, so those can be disabled. If you have the time, just stop services you are unsure of, and look for any ill effects. On a standard Win2K install, there are probably 5-8 services that will be running that you can stop or set to manual.

You can also easily go the Kazaa route and uninstall that to check and make sure that issue is taken care of. Removing it may or may not help you, but it's easy enough to reinstall regardless.

Vgrice posted good info about the pagefile. Windows 2000 requires a pagefile for a reason, and it's best to use it, and keep it optimized as you have. You can still "tweak" those sizes my opening your performance monitor and monitoring Page File Object: % Usage counter, and then resize the pagefile to your needs with a max size of 50MB larger than the min. size. As i said 1152/1152 works best on my system, but yours might like another size..dont be afraid to experiment with it as long as you keep it larger than your physical RAM you'll be fine.

Basically, just keep on tweakin' and looking for those strange processes running that you're not sure what they do. End the processes showin in task manager if you're unsure what they're for. You can always reboot and they'll be back again, but I use that as a tool to get rid of the rogue programs on my PC. THere's always some junk running that i end up removing.

Sorry for the long post..good luck.
pbxman
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[kathanon]

Just for info a place that kazaalite can be downloaded still is

http://www.kazaalite.nl/

Also if you do a search on BDE you can usually find the trojan that kazaa adds to a pc. There is an uninstall program too. Here is some info on that

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-875278.html

Kathy

 

[scroce]

2 cents 2 late,

for anyone else coming across this post, i'd strongly suspect that #%#$%! Gator marketing bull!#$@ that gets lumped in with KazaA

If you're going to use that software I would recommend KazaA lite as well. (if you can still get it) I've seen that run successfully without the spyware.



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