Everybody thinks their computer is slow. I haven't met anyone who thinks
their computer is fast enough.

Obviously, a clean install of Windows 'feels' quicker. Then you add OS
updates, security software, other software that runs in the background,
bloated apps that run slowly - to say nothing of the way some people
like to screw around with their computers - and of course your computer
is going to slow down.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Daave wrote:
> <sweetp5555@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:2efd58d3-25a3-416d-9456-264d487e64ef@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> <quote>
> I repair computers for my friends. I receive a lot of computers that
> my friends say are “slow”. It used to be that a cleanup of Spyware and
> startup programs would speed things up. But more often lately this
> does not work. I have had 3 computers in the last month that are slow,
> that is when you press the start button it takes a long time to draw
> the start options and switching between windows is slow, you can
> literality watch the windows being redrawn.
> After re-installing XP on 2 of the computers, things worked fine and
> they were MUCH speedier. This slowness has nothing to do with
> networking, local programs are slow. I am working on a 3rd computer
> now with same issue,
>
> I have checked all of the following and have nothing else left to
> check and I am almost ready to re-install XP again:
> Ad-aware is up to date and runs clean
> Spybot S&D is up to date and runs clean
> Norton AV is up to date and runs clean
> 80 gig HD, 40 gig free
> HD is not fragmented
> Removed all not needed programs out of startup via msconfig
> No errors in error logs
> Scan disk runs clean
> Indexing is off and set to manual
> 256 meg RAM
> (one of the other PCs with same issue only had 256 and after XP re-
> install it was fine)
> XP sp2 installed and up to date on all XP updates
> Only one FW enabled, that is Sygate personal FW
> Pentium 4 CPU
> taskmanger shows CPU is not over worked, 70-90% idle
>
> I am getting tired of re-installing XP to fix this issue, any ideas,
> please HELP!!!
>
> I am suspecting that in these cases maybe the registry has grown too
> big over the years.
> </quote>
>
> That's not happening.
>
> <quote>
> But I do not trust registry cleaners, I’ve had bad
> luck with them in the past.
> </quote>
>
> There are different types of registry cleaners. The bad ones are
> actually a type of malware. The better ones often cause more harm than
> good. So, it's good you don't trust them. :-)
>
> It's possible a read error caused the hard drive access to change from
> Ultra DMA to PIO mode, reset it:
>
> http://technize.com/2007/08/02/is-yo...while-copying/
>
>