Performance Enhancements

[DrRaid]

Hello. I have a question I would like to know if anyone can help me with finding working software or methods to enhance the performance of two Windows XP Machines. Heres the break down. My Mother Has 2 Windows XP Desktop PC's that she is using for her small business and they have financial information and all sensitive data she does not really want to upgrade yet as she has had these machines for years and years. Anyway the issue is the machines are very slow on start up and they lag around alot once loaded when browsing the web or going to control panel or other folders and everything I just would like to know is there any software that actually works to help boost the performance so they will run faster and what can i do to enhance her performance. They both only have about 2 GB OF Ram with 80GB HD's they are dinosaurs. So any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. BTW. I have already removed programs from the startup that were not needed and changed the index volume

 

[Xander]

Upgrade.

You will never turn a dinosaur into a cheetah.

 

[DrRaid]

You are right sir. I realize this but My Mother believes that something can be done thanks for this post I will show it to her so she can see for herself but if there is any software or something that may increase it and enable it to run smoother let me know.

 

[14049752]

You are right sir. I realize this ... but if there is any software or something that may increase it and enable it to run smoother let me know.

I believe the software you are looking for can be found at FinallyFast.com. Here's a great testimonial to show how well it works! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5mGAUwMbXg
All of those upgrades, like ram, are just a waste of money... The reason why everyone suggests that is because they don't know about the *secret* settings to maximize your computer's performance!










...



..

I'm kidding. Don't install that software. Tell your mom that ram is cheap and will be the best upgrade short of getting new systems.

 

[Xander]

Tell your mom that ram is cheap and will be the best upgrade short of getting new systems.

She's already got 2GB which means, unless she's doing high-end stuff like video editing and CAD/CAM, she's not getting full use of what she already has.

Check the disk for errors, defrag to <5%, SFC, etc. There's not a lot you can do for those old ones.

 

[Big Jim]

backup
format
reinstall

 

[OfficeTechs]

replace the stock IDE/SATA drive with an SSD drive, doesnt sound like she needs much storage space and smallish SSD drives are fairly cheap nowadays.

Ive done this to a few low end XP laptops and it makes a world of difference as long as you have the RAM sizeing correct which seems you have.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

New hard drive...clone the drive to a new one. You stated an 80 gig drive, I bet that drive is over 5 years old.

100 bucks...clone the drive to a new one, swap.
Keep the "old" drive and configure it as a second drive. Add the pagefile.sys to it and make it system managed....on both the new drive, and now also on the old drive.

She'll run noticeably better.

Adding more RAM won't help much if it's already at 2 gigs...a big law of diminishing returns comes into play with Windows XP and going above 2 gigs of RAM....unless she runs some app that REALLY needs RAM. It's cheap enough where you could add another pair of sticks to bring it to 4 gigs. XP (it's most likely 32 bit) will only see 3.2 or 3.4 or maybe 3.5 gigs (depending on video card and other hardware)...so it'll really only be able to use 3-ish gigs.

But seriously....older computers....clone the drive to a new one, instant regain in performance...and probably a longer expected life...on a new HDD. As hard drives age....they degrade in performance. Plus current generation HDDs perform better than older ones.

 

[FoolishTech]

>2GB of RAM is pointless in Windows XP.

New HDDs could help. Basic maintenance.

There is NO software that will make a PC run faster. Unless you're talking about the DOS days when QEMM by Quarterdeck was around.

LOL @ Finallyfast.com

 

[14049752]

On the Ram, fair enough. I missed the 2gb part in the op. But, like everyone else said, the real point is that money needs to go to hardware because there isn't a program that'll work like that.

 

[3ft]

A small SSD drive would make a difference.

 

[drake3d]

Check virtual memory. Too low or none will slow start up. Also there are registry tweaks that can help. Google for them. For my own systems I shut-off windows automatic updates, also If your mom does not need all the so called bling from themes switch them to windows classic and disable themes in services. That alone should help. Unless she is running a really, really old processor, but with 2gb ram I would believe it is a p4 or above it should be running fine. With the tweaks suggested. What did you leave running in msconfig? Also there are things that load automatically that are not in msconfig, ie. startup folders and other registry entries. Try autoruns if you are comfortable with that.

Good Luck. And an SSD is awesome for quick boot times.

 

[techpitt]

I'll agree that old P4 XP systems aren't going to be tweaked into running like an i7, but there are plenty of things that can get them from running at a snail's pace to at least that of a turtle.

SSD is tempting to recommend, but has anyone actually used one with XP for any amount of time? XP doesn't support TRIM, and most of what I've read indicates that SSD performance will decline sharply over time under XP. I've not revisited the topic in a while, but I'd definitely research it a bit before pulling the trigger on an SSD. A nice 7200 RPM drive with a large cache and high density platters (associated with high storage capacity) is a safe bet that will go a long way to alleviate any HDD related bottle necks.

Drake3D offers some sound advice. I'd add or expand the following items:

* disable disk indexing
* disable system restore
* use MSCONFIG to remove non-essential startup items
* disable non-essential services
* clear any excess in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder as well as excessive icons\files on the desktop
* make sure drivers are up to date (or as up to date as they can be)
* make sure the video mode is set to 24/32-bit color (takes extra overhead to render high-color images in low-color modes)
* set swap size min/max to the windows recommended setting
* uninstall non-essential applications and use the disk cleanup wizard prior to any defragging
* make sure hyperthreading is enabled in BIOS if supported by the CPU
* check BIOS to see if there are any 'optimized' or 'turbo' settings that can be used if you're not comfortable manually looking for things to optimize.

There are other ideas to help old systems run as fast as is possible. Spend some time with Google and see what works for you. ( :

A clean Win XP system can run with as little as 30-40 processes active in memory. Keep tweaking to see how low you can go so that as much CPU/RAM resources are available to the OS and desired application(s) as possible.

 

[Xander]

* clear ... excessive icons\files on the desktop

? Other than the fact that they are occasionally redrawn, I don't know how this would have any bearing on performance. The icons are cached, after all, so it's not like they're re-extracted from the Exes or Dlls every time or anything.
Removing the wallpaper does speed things up; that's why all remote software turns it off while connected.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

I would like to add in on this. The BIGGEST performance hit my my mind is caused by excessive startup programs. All of my Windows XP pcs run an antivirus and yet are all under 30 processes on a fresh boot. They are more than fast enough for my uses (HTPC, CNC Controller/web lookup pc in the garage, and Quickbooks pc at work). A process in XP is much more tasking to the system than a process in Win7(be it due to lower hardware or what not).

Kill any and all processes that you don't need, use Autoruns, it gets much deeper than MSCONFIG.

Defrag, Startup items and you are 98% there.

EDIT: This assumes no hardware problems.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

no software thats going to work miracles, figure out the source of the slowness and resolve it. For started some hd performance and sector test would be a good idea.

 

[techpitt]

? Other than the fact that they are occasionally redrawn, I don't know how this would have any bearing on performance. The icons are cached, after all, so it's not like they're re-extracted from the Exes or Dlls every time or anything.
Removing the wallpaper does speed things up; that's why all remote software turns it off while connected.

In my experience, excessive icons can be marginally to moderately detrimental to performance when a) initially loading the desktop while other I/O activity is going such as launching services and startup items, and b) when redrawing the desktop. It won't very often be a night and day difference, but on an older computer every bit helps.

I was on the fence about even mentioning the icon thing, but at my day job I work as support for a software company and have seen some pretty powerful PCs run like poo when a directory with an excessive amount of files in it gets polled. We're talking daul-quad Xeons with ridiculous RAM & RAID taking a minute to list a few hundred thousand files in a folder. Scale this example down to a P4 with minimal RAM (that's already shared with integrated video) and an ancient HDD... suddenly those 1000+ icons for "Free Games" and "Coupon Printers" (if OP's mother is anything like mine) may have a noticeable impact.

I almost forgot the #1 tip for speeding up old PCs... or anything for that matter:

Put an aftermarket spoiler on the back. Racing stripe might help, too.

 

[kisk]

As said before, slow boot into a 'useable' desktop is most likely related to excessive startup processes. In the tuneup we do we can usually speed up booting to a responsive desktop by around 200-300% by clearing out unnecessary startup processes/services. As stated before, use Autoruns. If you need help weeding out which processes to get rid of just save an autoruns snapshot and we'll let you know whats safe to remove.

In your case, upgrading hardware isn't going to give you a good enough boost to justify the cost.

 

[Vicenarian]

In my experience...snip...I almost forgot the #1 tip for speeding up old PCs... or anything for that matter:

Put an aftermarket spoiler on the back. Racing stripe might help, too.

Yeah, also if you put a few Intel Core i7 stickers, Corsair Memory badges, SSD stickers, etc. it will make it run smoother.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Well, there are things like shutting down selected services, defragging with a proper program like Puran or Auslogics etc., but as others have said, cloning the 80 gb drive and replacing it, then installing a clean copy on the new drive it is the best for performance.

BTW, I just was working on a Dell Dimension 2300 (Pentium 4 with 512 mb ram - two slots) from 2005 and it ain't the fastest unit out of the blocks, but just fine for minor uses (internet, word processing, etc.) I looked at increasing ram (sdram pc133 dimm )but found out Crucial wants $56.99 per stick!