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theCleaner? · Apr 19, 2003, 11:06 PM

Since I don't know of any good windoze forums with people as knowledgeable as you folks, I'll ask here. I just got a peecee (my first one ever). I don't know how to check all the specs, but it is a 900mhz celeron, 128meg ram (PC133), winxp pro., geforce 32meg sdram. The thing is, it seems painfully slow, my iMac 400, seems to run circles around this thing. I tried to play UT 2003 and it would hardly play it and had major lag. Opening apps and folders takes forever. I know this machine can't be this bad. I'm thinking it's the 128meg ram. If I add around 512, would I see a major difference? Does xp use alot of ram? Even though it's a celeron, it still can't be this bad, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Catfish_Man · Apr 19, 2003, 11:13 PM

Celerons are pretty awful, although the 900MHz Celeron should be Pentium 3 based and not QUITE so bad. I've seen a 1.7GHz P4 and a 1.7GHz Celeron running side by side, there's a world of difference. Still, try turning off eye candy and getting all the latest drivers.

parsec · Apr 19, 2003, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by theCleaner?:
Since I don't know of any good windoze forums with people as knowledgeable as you folks, I'll ask here. I just got a peecee (my first one ever). I don't know how to check all the specs, but it is a 900mhz celeron, 128meg ram (PC133), winxp pro., geforce 32meg sdram. The thing is, it seems painfully slow, my iMac 400, seems to run circles around this thing. I tried to play UT 2003 and it would hardly play it and had major lag. Opening apps and folders takes forever. I know this machine can't be this bad. I'm thinking it's the 128meg ram. If I add around 512, would I see a major difference? Does xp use alot of ram? Even though it's a celeron, it still can't be this bad, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

get more ram, definitely. It's the single best thing you can do for a computer.

and xp, like os x, is a ram hog.

bradoesch · Apr 20, 2003, 02:19 AM

That's strange that it's so slow. I run XP on my 233 MHz Pentium 2 and it runs fine. Much, much faster than it was on a 450 MHz K6-2. Never really understood that. Oh, the P2 system had 192 MB (now has 512) and the K6-2 has 128.
You might want to try reinstalling WinXP and see if that helps.

WJMoore · Apr 20, 2003, 09:40 AM

1. Get more RAM, I have a Duron 900 desktop that runs XP no worries with 384Mb - of course even more that that would be better.
2. Make sure you have the latest and correct video drivers. I tried playing a game (Racer I think it was) on the aforementioned PC that had performed fine up until that point. Racer run at some stupidly slow frame rate like 0.7 or something with the default (XP supplied) video card drivers (that correctly identified the TNT2 card I was using). I downloaded the latest ones from NVidia and all was well :-)

Wesley

theCleaner? · Apr 20, 2003, 10:12 AM

The video card is the PCI nvidia geforce 2 mx 32meg. I just got it two days ago and installed the drivers on the cd. Do you think they already have updated drivers for it? Were can I go to update all my drivers needed? When playing the UT2003 demo, it takes 2 to 3 minutes to load a map (honest, that's no exageration). But it's ever very slow and sluggish trying to open apps and folders. I know this computer has to be faster than what it is. I got it mainly because my work required it and to play online games, becuase I'm told they are better for that, but my iMac with 8 meg video card runs circles around this thing. Any links to update drivers would be greatly appreciated, Thanks and happy Easter.

thesearcher · Apr 20, 2003, 10:56 AM

Nvidia's web site, unless it is an oem card.

If pc133 is still cheap, go for 512 MB, otherwise get at least 256 MB.

As for UT2003, that's fairly recent, so that card is probably a bit long in the tooth by comparison. A ram upgrade especially should help, if not for that game, than for the other stuff.

Cipher13 · Apr 20, 2003, 11:08 AM

What kind of motherboard is it?

Slow processor, not much RAM, slow video card, probably a slow motherboard, all result in a slow Windows XP.

Stratus Fear · Apr 20, 2003, 02:28 PM

Windows XP should run just fine on that machine if you get some more ram. I used to run Windows XP on an old machine with a P3 700 and a GeForce 256, with 512 MB of PC133. It was very fast.

dawho9 · Apr 20, 2003, 02:35 PM

We install XP at work on a lab full of Pentium I 233 - 256 RAM. Default "eye-candy" and although they were slow to login, once you made it to the desktop, it wasn't too bad for internet and office.

But, as said above. Get more Ram and yes, most likely there are new drivers at nvida.com

dw9

kmkkid · Apr 20, 2003, 02:58 PM

XP and OS X have at least one thing in common, they guzzle ram. The more ram you have the faster your system is going to be, and the longer it will stay up. It's been recommended by many people (not MS) that XP needs AT LEAST 512 MB, and thats why OEM's are starting to bundle machines with 512. Also, a 32 MB GF2 isnt going to cut it if your a serious gamer. Thats most likely your problem right there, for the sluggishness part at least. If adding more ram and getting a better video card doesnt help, then your system is probably hosed, and you'll need to reinstall. Or something is wrong with the hardware. Either way, good luck

Chris

Mediaman_12 · Apr 20, 2003, 06:08 PM

<rant about using XP at work>
Remember that XP can't really multitask for dick!
Any app in the background will almost stop. If one app decides to misbehave (happens often), and you hit 'control, alt, delete', it will be a good 5 mins before the end process window finally appears, and during this time the other apps on the PC will hardly respond to anything. Theres also no garantee that the end process window will actually kill the app, it may take a few attempts.

</rant about using XP at work>

Krusty · Apr 20, 2003, 06:21 PM

Originally posted by theCleaner?:
I know this machine can't be this bad. I'm thinking it's the 128meg ram. If I add around 512, would I see a major difference? Does xp use alot of ram? Even though it's a celeron, it still can't be this bad, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Echo ... echo ... echo (echoing what everyone else has said) Get more ram, dude. My GF has a 800mhz pentium III that she bumped from 64 to 320mb of ram (running XP pro). It was like night and day. Her machine is still suspiciously slower at some things than my 450 G3 iMac/384mb/10.2.5 (her's seems to choke on multimedia files that my iMac has no problems with) but her overall system was sped up substantially by the simple addition of ram.

beb · Apr 20, 2003, 09:01 PM

I'm kinda wondering whether the ram deal applies to both OSes.

I guess XP needs or practically requires 256mb minimum, it seems to run smoothly at 512 or more.

X or 10.2.5 needs at least 300mb+ 512 or more.

I wonder what panther will devour.

theCleaner? · Apr 20, 2003, 09:16 PM

Thanks guys, I'm going to be adding about 512 to the 128 I have and get a new video card. Best Buy just got a new one for PCI slots from PNY that has 128 DDR Ram for $119, wonder if it's any good? Anyway, I hope this will help. I have fiqured out that I absolutely hate windows, they can be lots cheaper than a Mac, but not always worth it, to me. My iMac 400 only has 256 on OS 10.2 (no updates) and seems like a speed demon compared to this pc. OS X is DEFINATELY a better OS in my opinion.

macmike42 · Apr 20, 2003, 09:49 PM

Originally posted by theCleaner?:
...new video card...one for PCI slots...

Ack! You're trying to run UT 2003 with a PCI video card? No wonder its performance is below expectations. If you have an AGP slot, get an AGP video card. If you don't, and you want to play games, get a motherboard that does.

Stratus Fear · Apr 20, 2003, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
<rant about using XP at work>
Remember that XP can't really multitask for dick!
Any app in the background will almost stop. If one app decides to misbehave (happens often), and you hit 'control, alt, delete', it will be a good 5 mins before the end process window finally appears, and during this time the other apps on the PC will hardly respond to anything. Theres also no garantee that the end process window will actually kill the app, it may take a few attempts.
</rant about using XP at work>

Usually any process that causes other processes to slow down like that is running as a high or realtime priority thread. If all processes are running the same priority, this doesn't happen. This also doesn't happen if the process trying to be a CPU hog is running on idle priority.

Hi I'm Ben · Apr 21, 2003, 12:11 AM

my XP is super fast.

Krusty · Apr 21, 2003, 12:33 AM

Originally posted by Hi I'm Ben:
my XP is super fast.

I believe you ... but what is your hardware config compared to this guy's ?

typoon · Apr 21, 2003, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
<rant about using XP at work>
Remember that XP can't really multitask for dick!
Any app in the background will almost stop. If one app decides to misbehave (happens often), and you hit 'control, alt, delete', it will be a good 5 mins before the end process window finally appears, and during this time the other apps on the PC will hardly respond to anything. Theres also no garantee that the end process window will actually kill the app, it may take a few attempts.
</rant about using XP at work>

I agree. I try and Multitask at home on my P4 1.7 512DDR With Nvidia GeForce2 MX 32 Meg card and It just SUCKS. I have to concur with what you said about ctrl-alt-del. Takes it forever to come up running multiple tasks at once is just painful. My 450 G4 seems faster overall when I try and Multitask compared to XP.

More RAM will help.

Scifience · Apr 21, 2003, 09:41 AM

First of all, what baffles me is why you bought such a bad computer. You can get a 1.5 GHZ P4 and 256MB for under $700. I got a 1.3 GHZ P4 in March, it came with 256MB RAM, but a cruddy graphics card, for under $700. Just this weekend I bought a Radeon 9000 Pro with 128MB RAM and popped it in the on-board AGP slot.

Games like AGP - PCI is WAAAAY to slow to do a good job processing graphics for games.

theCleaner? · Apr 21, 2003, 03:51 PM

Originally posted by Scifience:
First of all, what baffles me is why you bought such a bad computer. You can get a 1.5 GHZ P4 and 256MB for under $700. I got a 1.3 GHZ P4 in March, it came with 256MB RAM, but a cruddy graphics card, for under $700. Just this weekend I bought a Radeon 9000 Pro with 128MB RAM and popped it in the on-board AGP slot.

Games like AGP - PCI is WAAAAY to slow to do a good job processing graphics for games.

My brother gave it to me, I didn't buy it. I'm not gonna use it for gaming, I'll just get another one and use this one for work.

Hi I'm Ben · Apr 21, 2003, 04:58 PM

Originally posted by Krusty:
I believe you ... but what is your hardware config compared to this guy's ?

much faster.

Drizzt · Apr 21, 2003, 05:43 PM

Tips for Windows XP :
[list=1][*]Get a load of RAM, XP is worst than MacOS X on RAM usage![*]Update those drivers, don't use M$ Supplied ones for specialized hardware (Sound cards, video cards, etc..)[*]Update your BIOS if you can![*]Get a AGP video card[*]Get a fast harddrive, XP opens lots of little files and depends on seek times..[*]Be lucky...[/list=1]

That's what I learned from installing a shitload of machines with Windows XP at work..

klinux · Apr 21, 2003, 05:48 PM

Originally posted by Scifience:
First of all, what baffles me is why you bought such a bad computer. You can get a 1.5 GHZ P4 and 256MB for under $700.

Correction - http://techbargains.com/ often lists PCs under $400 for even better specs. Also, UT2k3 is one of the most demanding programs - hence many sites use it for benchmarking. No wonder it does not run fast on your machine. Lastly, go to www.blkviper.com for XP tweaks.

pamelah · Apr 22, 2003, 02:13 AM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
<rant about using XP at work>
Remember that XP can't really multitask for dick!
Any app in the background will almost stop. If one app decides to misbehave (happens often), and you hit 'control, alt, delete', it will be a good 5 mins before the end process window finally appears, and during this time the other apps on the PC will hardly respond to anything. Theres also no garantee that the end process window will actually kill the app, it may take a few attempts.
</rant about using XP at work>

what are you talking about? I can have Photoshop, Illustrator, Winamp, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Messenger, and ArchiCad open all at once and it acts like I've got one program running! And if one does crash, the others keep going and the process window box pops right up.

nobitacu · Apr 22, 2003, 05:57 AM

Originally posted by pamelah:
what are you talking about? I can have Photoshop, Illustrator, Winamp, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Messenger, and ArchiCad open all at once and it acts like I've got one program running! And if one does crash, the others keep going and the process window box pops right up.

Mine ran nicely with 1 gig of ram as well. 2200+ AMD. But... OS X is far more stable then win xp. I have yet to crash and had to reboot. happenes sometimes with my pc.

Ming

Pierre B. · Apr 22, 2003, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by pamelah:
what are you talking about? I can have Photoshop, Illustrator, Winamp, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Messenger, and ArchiCad open all at once and it acts like I've got one program running!

I think he means to have many programs not simply open but executing simultaneously calculations in the background. That can make a lot of difference.

SMacTech · Apr 22, 2003, 07:44 AM

I haven't seen anyone mention to check the AntiVirus software that may be on it. AV software places a major hit on performance, as generally every single file that is opened and saved to disk is checked for viruses. That is the default for McAfee and Norton. Try turning off the AV software. The next thing I would do would be to boot in safe mode with VM off and defrag the drive. Then turn VM back on and reboot.

RooneyX · Apr 22, 2003, 08:49 AM

XP runs fine on my brother's computer and it only has 110Mbs. It only slows down when running office apps at the same time.

typoon · Apr 22, 2003, 10:36 AM

Can you Disable VM totally if you have 1 gig of RAM in XP? I don't see the need to use the much slower VM if you have enough physical RAM.

Mouton · Apr 22, 2003, 11:05 AM

No, you can't. Application are made to use VM and real memory... If u disable VM, some app will crawllllll...

But u don't need as much... The standard is VM = 1.5x RAM but u shud be ok with ~750mb.

Got 1gb ram myself on winxp, and i don't have any idea how big my vm is... using the default i think... never really played with it since i got plenty of hd.

SplijinX · Apr 22, 2003, 12:00 PM

If your games can handle it, I would "upgrade" to Windows 2000. Although you save a couple seconds booting up and shutting down with XP, I find that many apps run much faster since XP is much more that Windows 2000 with lots of eye candy and probably why it has an endless appetite for RAM.

HiDDeN · Apr 22, 2003, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by beb:
I'm kinda wondering whether the ram deal applies to both OSes.

I guess XP needs or practically requires 256mb minimum, it seems to run smoothly at 512 or more.

X or 10.2.5 needs at least 300mb+ 512 or more.

I wonder what panther will devour.

I've got 10.2.5 running on an imac DV 400 with 256mb ram and it runs just fine

klinux · Apr 22, 2003, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by Mouton:
No, you can't. Application are made to use VM and real memory... If u disable VM, some app will crawllllll...

But u don't need as much... The standard is VM = 1.5x RAM but u shud be ok with ~750mb.

Do you mean a pagefile? Yes, you can disable the pagefile (control panel, system) if you have enough physical RAM tand don't anticipate any need to swap memory to the pagefile on HD.

Spliffdaddy · Apr 22, 2003, 03:09 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
<rant about using XP at work>
Remember that XP can't really multitask for dick!
Any app in the background will almost stop. If one app decides to misbehave (happens often), and you hit 'control, alt, delete', it will be a good 5 mins before the end process window finally appears, and during this time the other apps on the PC will hardly respond to anything. Theres also no garantee that the end process window will actually kill the app, it may take a few attempts.
</rant about using XP at work>

can't multitask?

you're mistaken. It does multitasking very well, indeed. Better than OSX, in my opinion - and it even has a nice GUI for setting thread priority and affinity (for SMP).

If your app misbehaves often, it's probably a crappy app. Don't complain about the OS being slow to extinguish crap applications you load.

I don't think you even use XP.

theCleaner? · Apr 22, 2003, 07:49 PM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
can't multitask?

you're mistaken. It does multitasking very well, indeed. Better than OSX, in my opinion - and it even has a nice GUI for setting thread priority and affinity (for SMP).

If your app misbehaves often, it's probably a crappy app. Don't complain about the OS being slow to extinguish crap applications you load.

I don't think you even use XP.

Unfortunatley I do have xp. And I'm not complaining about crappy apps, it takes seconds (sometimes 5) just to open the "my computer" folder, and the same when I hit the start tab at the bottom to bring up the selections. I'm not here to just trash it, I wanna fix it.

Fallout · Apr 22, 2003, 11:46 PM

Get at least 256 MB of RAM in there, preferably 512. That will help it drastically.

thePurpleGiant · Apr 22, 2003, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by theCleaner?:
Unfortunatley I do have xp. And I'm not complaining about crappy apps, it takes seconds (sometimes 5) just to open the "my computer" folder, and the same when I hit the start tab at the bottom to bring up the selections. I'm not here to just trash it, I wanna fix it.

Just a heads up dude, your sig is way too big. The forum has guidllines on them that state they must be maximum 140x40 pixels, non animated, and under 10kb. Yours seems to fail all these criteria!

DBvader · Apr 23, 2003, 12:29 AM

hmm thats intresting, especially considered how slow macs are for normal ui things. my Athlon 2000+ is way snappier than my dual 867.

the PC youre running does have ancient architecture, and its ramless. get more ram, and it should be ok.

BkueKanoodle · Apr 23, 2003, 12:30 AM

You can't just come out and say XP is slow and leave it at that. Just like a mac there are a thousand other variables out there that could be causing the slowdown. For example, how many background process's are loading at startup, how many crappily written applications are loaded on the machine. What condition was the machine in when you got it?

My point is, I believe you when you say your machine is running slow, but to lay the blame on XP itself is incorrect. In my experience, most computers can perform perfectly well if they are properly maintained. Even OS X will slow to a crawl if you load a bunch of badly written software on it, never do any system maintenance, or try and run it on less then the recommended hardware (even Microsoft suggest 256 mb min for XP)

Avon · Apr 23, 2003, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by theCleaner?:
Unfortunatley I do have xp. And I'm not complaining about crappy apps, it takes seconds (sometimes 5) just to open the "my computer" folder,

The ONLY thing you need is more ram. Get 512 mb of ram. This will triple the speed of your computer, its constantly reading and writing to the hard drive.