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08-07-2006, 12:23 PM
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#1 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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Windows XP sluggish?
After installing a copy of Windows XP Pro on my home computer, I'm left wanting. Or rather, waiting.
I installed Windows XP Pro, with a complete format using NTFS, and then installed the usual programs, Webroot SpySweeper, Bitdefender, along with other applications that I like available, such as TrueCrypt, Hamachi, and Roboform, Firefox, Photoshop, etc. Using Yahoo! Widgets I discovered that just sitting idle on the desktop, Windows is eating up half of the 640 MB RAM installed in the system. Booting into safemode causes Windows to only use around 25% of the memory, which I think is great, but there isn't too much you can do in safemode other than diagnostics or get rid of virii or malware (which are not present on the system). The feel of the system is sluggish, even to the point that I want to reformat it again, thinking that hopefully it'll work correctly next time. I limit the number of startup programs using SpySweeper, so not everything that is installed runs at boot. Using the Task Manager, I see that biggest chunks of memory are going to Bitdefender and SpySweeper, although that is expected (when sitting idle). Is this normal or have I just not noticed it before? |
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08-07-2006, 12:26 PM
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#2 |
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Professional gadfly
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 6,364
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What are your complete system specs? The memory usage doesn't sound like it is out of line. Do you notice a lot of disk activity when you switch programs?
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08-07-2006, 12:40 PM
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#3 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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Intel P4 2.26 GHz
640 MB RAM 128 MB Radeon 9600 Direct X 9.0c Onboard Sound Nothing spectacular, system was bought four years ago. I might be biased because before installing XP Pro, I had a stripped version installed. Although I quickly found out that not everything worked correctly, but it flew. Another thing: right after startup the main files only take up a bit of memory, and then quickly spike to the point where svchost.exe climbs to 78,944 K and explorer.exe climbs to 70,000 K. That doesn't seem like a lot? If thats just Windows, then I might do everything except gaming on Ubuntu or something. Thats unbelieveable. |
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08-07-2006, 12:42 PM
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#4 |
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Professional gadfly
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 6,364
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Yes, that much memory for explorer.exe is a lot. Have you scanned for viruses and spyware lately?
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08-07-2006, 12:48 PM
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#5 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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I have updated Bitdefender and SpySweeper and run scans at least twice (once last night) since installing XP. Should I use a different online scanner to catch something that Bitdefender might miss?
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08-07-2006, 12:49 PM
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#6 |
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Professional gadfly
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 6,364
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It's always a good idea to use more than one scanner for both viruses and spyware. For an online virus scan go here: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Have you updated Windows so it has all of the latest service packs and patches? |
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08-07-2006, 12:52 PM
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#7 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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Yes, that was the first thing that I did (after installing Bitdefender of course, you can't just let Windows go out to the big WWW without antivirus and firewall protection). I'll run the trendmicro scan.
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08-07-2006, 03:51 PM
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#8 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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trendmicro removed a few adware programs, but nothing to the degree that would significantly boost performance. Windows is still eating up half of the memory while idle, leading me to believe that its always been like that I just haven't noticed it. Besides spyware/adware/virii any other ideas as to what's going on here? or is it just being Windows?
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08-08-2006, 05:19 AM
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#9 |
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Forum Administrator
Staff
Premium Member
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Joplin MO
Posts: 37,791
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I think it's the background programs that you have chosen to use.
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08-08-2006, 05:07 PM
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#10 | |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Posts: 979
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Quote:
__________________
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. |
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08-09-2006, 10:33 AM
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#11 |
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Member (4 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 10
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After I ran a fullscreen program (game) that required RAM to be freed up, I noticed after I quit the game that while idleing, Windows only used up around 25% of RAM, which I think is great. What I would guess the reason that so much more memory was being taken up before would be that Windows loaded its files into RAM, and kept them there. After using a program that required RAM to be freed up, Windows allowed those system files to be shuffled to the page disk. I will disable some startup programs though. Thanks for the help.
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08-09-2006, 06:58 PM
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#12 |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Posts: 979
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Is it possible that you are not using Page file ?
http://www.theeldergeek.com/paging_file.htm |
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08-10-2006, 04:25 AM
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#13 |
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Member (7 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 77
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spysweeper takes a lot of resources fo my pc...iuninstal it..forget it...may be your case
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