Why is my Windows so freaking slow?

[ManDay]

stevehoot:

*All drivers from vendor. Afaik, they are all certified. But thats worth mentioning. Next time I install Windows I'll check performance without drivers.

*Well, I guess it boots okay. I'm a Linux greenhorn and I don't know what speed it's ment to be, but the procedure runs smoothly without any delays (except a short unexplainable delay before the login-promt - but this is not even coming close to the delay Ive got in windows)

*2GB, all fine

*It's connected to a WLAN site, a router with modem

*It's a brand new install by me. As I said I redo my computer almost every month

*No RAID at all

*It's just getting slow at the screen where it says "Windows is starting up..." before the login-promt. I'm not even ment to seee this screen, heh?

srsly:

As I mentioned no major 3rd party applications.

Hexicon:

I've already disabled indexing in the services.

[I8PP]

Are your drives operating in PIO mode? Since I don't have SATA drives, i don't know whether this applies or not. For IDE drives, you would check Device Manager, IDE/ATAPI Controllers, Primary (or Secondary) IDE channel. There might be applicable settings somewhere for SATA drives, or in the BIOS where you set up hard drives.

[Sikh]

I use to have this problem and couldnt explain why.

But, I did a COMPLETE Harddrive Wipe. Which would be DOD 3 Pass Whipe using WhipeDrive Pro.

Great progrma, good for money.

Anyway, I would do my formats every motnh to, and then it started to run really slow exactly like your explaining.

So what I did was, Completely reformat and then installed windows.

After that, double booted Linux and all was fine.

So I dont know what to say other then, if nothing works, try a COMPLETE Whipe.

Any program offering a DOD 3 Pass Whipe(s) then use that or get WhipeDrive Pro.

Cheers,

-Sikh.

[ManDay]

Both Ultra DMA

[bryonhowley]

It's certainly worth mentioning (which i forgot to now) that the bootup ("Windows is starting up...") goes with absolutly none to slim h/d activity.

That sounds like a driver hanging during startup. It has been a wile but I belive bootvis will do a boot trace and give you a idea what driver might be takeing to long. That would at lease give you a place to work from

[I8PP]

Well if its not an hdd performance issue, yes something could be stalling at startup. Just after POST and before XP starts booting, press F8 and enable boot logging. If i recall, everything performed is timestamped and logged. It should be saved in %systemroot%; have a look see to determine which step/driver/device takes the longest.

[oldaccount1]

I'm posting this here not to flame you but so readers will see this and, too, get the message: don't pollute this forum with rude and condescending behavior. There's no rule that says "if you're a jerk, you're gonna get banned", but all of us can benefit from a little common courtesy. Part of me didn't even want to respond to this because of your grossly negative attitude.

Like I8PP said, Boot Logging would reveal if there is a faulty driver or process that is causing your system to boot slowly... I'd like to hear some more details about the startup process. I am unaware as to a service that can be disabled that would cause a system startup to hang. Are you seeing any other perf. issues? Is this your first time running with this hardware setup? I've experienced similar issues with bad ram as well as a bad psu.

[Lucas]

If I were you I would do memtest as it is most likely faulty ram taking long to process, another hardware issue or a driver conflicting on startup and extending the startup time. You might want to check that.

[Aquafox]

hey manday,

1) is everything set correctly in the bios...ie is your memory running at its optimum 'correct' speeds and timings....

sometimes, when you set it at the wrong speeds (e.g. DDRII 800 running at 533 or 400) will show detrimental effects on performance, especially if the ratio between CPU:FSB is very high due to incompatibilities in timing - usually meaning more cycles to come into sync...(E.G. CPU:FSB is something like 7:9)...etc.

2) are all your sata settings in the bios set to maximum (e.g. sata300, 32-bit transfer etc)...

3) acoustic management of hdds, if you set the hdds to quiet mode using stuff like the hitachi drive feature tool, it may slow down hdd read/write/seek speeds

[ManDay]

Thanks for all your answers.

What about the following: Every time the screensaver hits (because I don't bother sitting in front of my pc till the startup is over and happen to be late some time) and I move the mouse to disable it and revert to the login-promt the screen turns black and just from time to time I can see my mouse pointer or a baloon-tip from the password-field (your pass is wrong - because i pressed enter after typing my pass).

Video card problem?

[Hexicon]

Have you confirmed that all of your RAM is being recognized? When I was running Vista with 512mb (yes, I know, I know) it was dog slow coming out of the screensaver. Video could also be an issue since a poor driver will affect screen draws.