Slow Window XP in P4

[ngaisteve1]

I just bought a new PC. The CPU is Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz. It was installed with Window XP and the DDR ram is 128MB. The problem is it is extremely slow. I wonder why. Is it because the Ram is just 128 or CPU speed? Even my old pc Pentium III is much faster.

When I open an application, it seems to long time to load. The worst is even when I save certain configuration like clicking OK in Taskbar properties, it takes around 5-7 seconds!

Anyone can say a word regarding this? Thanks.

 

[SYAR2003]

More ram / change ram . The operative system itself can use
much more than 128MB ,causinf the system
to use the harddisk as memory (pagefile).512MB is recommended by most people
including myself .

For more detailed recommendation you should post
some details about the system , motherboard , ram etc.

SYAR

 

[ngaisteve1]

I guess u are right as I also get the same reply from 4 others.

 

[SYAR2003]

I have a secondary pc "laptop with XP".
Originally it was 256MB .
Due to the fact that i use alot of multitasking ,
run several programs at the time .Even 256 was a little under configurated( heavy pagefile usage ) . Adding additional 128MB
to it giving total 384 semed okay .
So what im suggesting is for the normal business user witch use
some multitasking the sweet spot is somewhere between
300MB-400MB of physical ram .

You can also optimize XP to run faster by turning off
alot of the fancy visual stuff , and shutting down uneeded services .

256MB is to be concidered as minimum , even if microsoft says that xp neeed 128MB to run ( run yes , but they don't say anything about how fast).

 

[dakota81]

Check some of the configurations in XP; by default XP can bring even a 2.5 GHz machine to a slow crawl.

Go into the control panel, then system, then the advanced tab, then click on the performance button. Uncheck every option that includes the word "animate" or "slide", and especially uncheck the "show translucent selection rectangle".

The machine should be operating signifigantly faster after that.

And yes, definately atleast bring the machine up to 256meg ram.

 

[ngaisteve1]

Ok, I'll try that. Thanks.