XP performance

I bought a computer about a year ago. AMD 1800XP with
256M of memory. This computer shows very poor performance
and is always accessing the hard drive. I even see the
hard drive indicator light go on when the computer is just
sitting with no one even logged on. I am forced to wait
constantly, even when running very simple applications
(i.e. Word, Excel). I have a cable modem and thought that
maybe hackers were accessing my drive, so I put it on a
router with firewall. The computer came loaded with
Windows XP and I have been blaming the OS. Is there some
configuration that would cause this constant accessing of
the hard drive? Am I short on Memory? Any suggestions???

Hi, tgilker.

Am I short on Memory?

Most likely. 512 MB seems to be the "sweet spot" these days.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

wrote in message
...
I bought a computer about a year ago. AMD 1800XP with
256M of memory. This computer shows very poor performance
and is always accessing the hard drive. I even see the
hard drive indicator light go on when the computer is just
sitting with no one even logged on. I am forced to wait
constantly, even when running very simple applications
(i.e. Word, Excel). I have a cable modem and thought that
maybe hackers were accessing my drive, so I put it on a
router with firewall. The computer came loaded with
Windows XP and I have been blaming the OS. Is there some
configuration that would cause this constant accessing of
the hard drive? Am I short on Memory? Any suggestions???

I have all your settings and I also have 256, That should be enough. Sounds
like a virus or many you have too many services running in the background

"R. C. White" wrote in message
...
Hi, tgilker.

Am I short on Memory?

Most likely. 512 MB seems to be the "sweet spot" these days.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

wrote in message
...
I bought a computer about a year ago. AMD 1800XP with
256M of memory. This computer shows very poor performance
and is always accessing the hard drive. I even see the
hard drive indicator light go on when the computer is just
sitting with no one even logged on. I am forced to wait
constantly, even when running very simple applications
(i.e. Word, Excel). I have a cable modem and thought that
maybe hackers were accessing my drive, so I put it on a
router with firewall. The computer came loaded with
Windows XP and I have been blaming the OS. Is there some
configuration that would cause this constant accessing of
the hard drive? Am I short on Memory? Any suggestions???

You can turn disk indexing off, it is on by default and
speeds searches for files when you are on a network.

You may have other services running in the background and
you could have a Trojan which can penetrate your router
because it is already on your system. Install Zone Alarm
(free) and it will allow you to block out-bound traffic.
You will see a request for Internet access when a program
tries to go on-line.



wrote in message
...
| I bought a computer about a year ago. AMD 1800XP with
| 256M of memory. This computer shows very poor performance
| and is always accessing the hard drive. I even see the
| hard drive indicator light go on when the computer is just
| sitting with no one even logged on. I am forced to wait
| constantly, even when running very simple applications
| (i.e. Word, Excel). I have a cable modem and thought that
| maybe hackers were accessing my drive, so I put it on a
| router with firewall. The computer came loaded with
| Windows XP and I have been blaming the OS. Is there some
| configuration that would cause this constant accessing of
| the hard drive? Am I short on Memory? Any suggestions???

wrote:

I bought a computer about a year ago. AMD 1800XP with
256M of memory. This computer shows very poor performance
and is always accessing the hard drive. I even see the
hard drive indicator light go on when the computer is just
sitting with no one even logged on. I am forced to wait
constantly, even when running very simple applications
(i.e. Word, Excel). I have a cable modem and thought that
maybe hackers were accessing my drive, so I put it on a
router with firewall. The computer came loaded with
Windows XP and I have been blaming the OS. Is there some
configuration that would cause this constant accessing of
the hard drive? Am I short on Memory? Any suggestions???

1. Check for a possible virus. Make sure your antivirus software is
fully up to date with the virus definition files not less that a week
old.

2. Check for advertising spyware with AdAware (free) from
www.lavasoft.de or one of the other spyware remover programs.

3. It is possible that you are using the computer heavily enough that
it really requires more than 256 mb of RAM. The key factor in
assessing a possible RAM upgrade is to measure actual usage of the
paging file - active memory pages that have been moved from RAM to the
paging file so that RAM can be used for other currently more important
tasks. Unfortunately none of the utilities provided with XP report
that specific figure. A free utility can be downloaded from
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm or from
http://billsway.com/notes_public/WinXP_Tweaks/ If that reports
actual page file usage of 50 mb or more on a regular basis then there
is significant paging activity and adding more RAM will eliminate or
at least substantially reduce this.

4. Some of the services loaded by XP at startup do not necessarily
need to always be there and can safely be changed from 'automatic" to
"manual" startup. Just which services this can be done for depends on
just what your computer is being used for, the networking environment,
etc. http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm has an extensive
list of the various services and information about them, including the
web site author's suggestions as to how each can be configured.
****BE CAREFUL**** and make certain you have a current system restore
point available before making any changes.


Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."