I have several questions that I THINK are performance related. For the last few days, my Windows XP has been running incredibly slow. I had it to the local computer guy in April who cleaned it up and really sped it up. I am wondering what I can do that can speed it up without irreparably damaging my computer and also without having to take it in to him again. It loads very slowly. Things seem to run a bit faster if I leave the Windows sign-in screen there, without signing in, for say five minutes or so. Programs and other windows seem to hang-up/freeze easily. I seem to need to have my task manager open, too. A typical reading on that when I’ve had the usual number of windows open that I like to have open is: Processes 47CPU Use 5%Commit Charge 877M/1145M Questions: What is the Commit Charge? Which processes absolutely need to remain running, and which ones can I safely delete without irreparably damaging my computer? What other things can I do to speed up my Windows XP? OS: Windows XPBrowsers Firefox 3.6.8 IE 7.0.5730.13 The ONLY maintenance things I do regularly are what my computer guy told me to do: Registry CleanerMalwarebytes' Anti-MalwareCCleanerSpybotAuslogics Registry and Disk Defrags1 person needs an answerI do too

Boot your PC into Safe Mode, how is it then?Commit charge: Broadly page / swap file useage (current / max sizes)Processes: There is no definative answer, it depends what has been installed and is running on the individual PC, 47 is not a great amount.Unless you know what you are doing *exactly* Registry Cleaners are one way to trash a PC's operating systemYou list 2 malware scanners, but no anti virus scannerWhat size is the Win drive, how much free space is there and how much ram?

Wow. Thanks for such a quick answer.I forgot to add that I DO have Avast, which is always running. Safe mode? I know press F8, but what will that do? Those commit charge things you wrote . . . What are they? Where will I find them?Win drive? Free space? Where do I find those things? I'm not an expert, here. I think my RAM is 446MB. OK. On the free space thing, do you mean on my C drive?I have used 46.1 GB and have 97.5 GB free.

Do NOT use registry cleaners or defragmenters. Do not use the registry cleaning option of CCleaner.Although Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is good, I'd uninstall Spybot Search & Destroy (assuming that's what you mean by "Spybot") and substituteSUPERAntiSpyware .There is no list of processes that must be running. Instead of worrying about how many processes are running, worry about those processes that use large amounts of your system's resources (CPU cycles and/or memory).The CPU % and commit charge numbers you show indicate very light usage -- those numbers aren't indicative of a slow computer. The commit charge is an indication of the amount of "virtual" memory in use. Seethis explanation . Do not be tempted into adjusting the page file size manually. Windows XP does a good job by itself.There is no reason to obsess about "slow loading." Your observation about staying at the Welcome screen is consistent with the way that many antivirus applications work: they don't commence their "startup scan" until a user logs on. Such startup scans typically what causes "slow loading." What antivirus app do you have? Some (e.g., Norton and McAfee) are far more intrusive, slow, and resource-hogging than others.Why do you think you need to run with Task Manager open? Do you have to terminate processes often? Which ones?If your system was slow before you took it to the shop, was fast thereafter for a short time, and then slowed down again, it seems as if you have not been practicing "safe hex " over the past 3 or 4 months.MVP Malke has the following excellent standard advice for slow computers. Check out the links.Below is general information about diagnosing slow computers.1. Computer hasn't been maintained - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Maintenance 2. Computer is infected with malware - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware 3. Hard drive is too full. Remove unnecessary stuff, uninstall unused programs. Don't forget to back up!http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Backing_Up4. Flaky third-party software. Toolbars and add-ons are particular culprits in this area. Uninstall toolbars (Google, Yahoo, ISP-branded, etc.) and look carefully at what add-ons are in use in your browser(s).5. Computer has too many unnecessary programs/processes running in the background. Manage your Startup:For XP - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP - http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560 The free Autoruns program is very useful for managing your Startup - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx For Vista/Windows7 - Start Orb>Search box>type: msconfig and when it appears in the Results box above, right-click and choose "Run as Administrator".Autoruns is also very useful.6. User is running a bloated/invasive antivirus program such as ones from Norton and McAfee. Replace with a better program. I recommend either NOD32 (commercial) or Avast (free). Avira is also good but the free version has an unpleasant nag screen (Google for instructions as to how to disable this). User may also be running more than one real-time antivirus/firewall/security program.7. User has installed new programs that are processor and/or memory-intensive (Photoshop, AutoCAD, Mathmatica or the like) and doesn't have the necessary hardware power.8. Hard drive is failing and is in PIO Mode. This is very dramatically slow (like being back in 1985). See Hans-Georg Michna's information here -http://winhlp.com/?q=node/10In addition to the above, also see http://miekiemoes.blogspot.com/2008/02/help-my-computer-is-slow.html

Wow, LemP! Thanks for such a great and thorough explanation. I’m going to include what I had written to post before I got back online and saw your post. Then I will respond to your questions/statements: Another thing I forgot to add was that I also have Zone Alarm. Network Diagnostics: Passed my network adapter: [00000009] Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC I’ve seen some suggestions on some other forums: What does running sfc/scannow do? Or tell you? How do I update my hardware drivers? How do I uninstall a suspected Service Pack? When I checked boot paths in msconfig, I got the following message: It appears that all BOOT.INI lines for Microsoft operating systems are OK. The programs I am using, like malware and spybot are ones that my computer guy put on my computer when he cleaned it up in April, I think. I asked about the processes, because I don’t want to delete anything that will make computer unusable. So, are they any processes that MUST be running? Is that a better question? It may be “all in my head”, but having task manager open appears to “wake up” stalled, processes, windows, programs, etc. when I switch over to its window. I rarely delete or stop a program in this manner. What in the world do you mean by “safe hex”??? I don’t appreciate the “humor”, especially without an explanation of what you mean. Are the links you included in the grey area what you mean?

Candy-Iowa,Safe hex defined: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/security.htmChuck the 80 year Old dogstill learning new tricks!

Booting into safe mode means the PC boots up with minimal fail safe drivers and background programs not starting, eg your anti-virus program and any other programs you see in the task bar.You have plenty of free space, too little free space, typically 15% of your HD size can lead to poor win performance."safehex" if you click on the link in that post it will lead you to an explanation pageProcesses: What is running depends what software you have installed. If you google search the process name usually you will get some explanation as to what created it. Often programs that auto start with win show an icon in the task bar, rt clicking that icon will often give an option list, one of which maybe to not auto-start with win. But only you can decide wether to prevent the auto start, or whether its something you need.Having Task Manager open will have no impact on the PC nor will it seemingly 'wake up' a program/process.sfc/scannow: See windows helpDrivers should be updated from 1) The PC makers site if a large brand name, eg Dell / HP or Laptop. 2) If a generic PC from the individual hardware makers sites, eg motherboard. Do NOT update drivers via MSupdate, As a general rule do not update drivers unless its required to fix a specific problem with hardware, or that driver gives greater funcionalityService Pack: They are critical updates. sp3 installation failure can be caused by drivers that require updating

Thanks, Palcouk. You seem to be contradicting yourself in your last two paragraphs. You caution against updating drivers and then you turn around and say that old drivers can cause service pack update failures. So, which should I believe/do? My computer is an emachines T5048A X86-based PC. Would I just go to the emachines site and search for driver updates? "sfc/scannow: See windows help" does not answer my question. If it finds a problem, HOW do you fix the problem? I cannot help what taskmanager "seems" to do for me. I just know how it appears to act. "You have plenty of free space, too little free space, typically 15% of your HD size can lead to poor win performance."This statement does not make sense to me. Do I have too much? Do I have too little? What is 15%? What information do I need to provide in order to help us both answer these last questions? I appreciate all this help and all these prompt and lengthy answers. Looking forward to the next one, so I can understand what is going on. Thanks again,Candy

Anyone else have any answers to my last post?Candy

Anyone else have any answers to my last post?CandyLet me try to shed some light.You seem to be contradicting yourself in your last two paragraphs. You caution against updating drivers and then you turn around and say that old drivers can cause service pack update failures. So, which should I believe/do? My computer is an emachines T5048A X86-based PC. Would I just go to the emachines site and search for driver updates?The general rule with respect to drivers is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That is, if your hardware is working properly, don't get new drivers just for the sake of having the latest and greatest. That's what Palcouk said in the penultimate paragraph.I may have missed something, but I don't recall seeing anything in your earlier posts about a failed service pack installation, so whether a bad driver might cause a failure of sp3 to install doesn't seem relevant to your situtation. Actually, you never said which service pack you DO have installed, although you asked, "How do I uninstall a suspected Service Pack?"Unless there was a real failure, with some error message, during the install of a service pack, most "suspicions" that problems subsequent to the installation of a service pack are caused by that service pack are not well-founded. However ... if you have installed service pack 3 subsequent to the initial installation of Windows, there will be an entry in Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs that will let you uninstall SP3. For reference only, see "Steps to take before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 ."In the event that you decide that you do need one or more new drivers, the emachines site is the place to start looking."sfc/scannow: See windows help" does not answer my question. If it finds a problem, HOW do you fix the problem?If you open Help & Support and type sfc into the search box, you'll get information about sfc. Briefly, "sfc" is the name of the executable file for the Windows System File Checker. The /scannow switch (note the space after sfc and before the / character) tells the program to do the scan immediately. The System File Checker scans important Windows system files; if it finds an error in a file, it will replace it. SFC first looks in the %systemroot%\system32\dllcache folder for the replacement. If the file isn't in the dllcache folder, you'll be asked to insert your Windows XP CD. SFC is part of the Windows XP File Protection feature . The bottom line is that if sfc finds a problem YOU don't fix it, SFC fixes it.I cannot help what taskmanager "seems" to do for me. I just know how it appears to act.I also was surprised by your initial comment about Task Manager. How does it help when you keep it open?"You have plenty of free space, too little free space, typically 15% of your HD size can lead to poor win performance."This statement does not make sense to me. Do I have too much? Do I have too little? What is 15%? What information do I need to provide in order to help us both answer these last questions?That's just a typo. The comma should be a period, thus: "You have plenty of free space. Too little free space, typically 15% of your HD size, can lead to poor win performance."The remark about 15% means that if you have less than 15% free space in the system partition (the partition where Windows is located), you may have poor performance. Disk defragmenter, in particular, won't work well (or at all) with too little free space. Click on My Computer. Then right-click on the icon for your system partition (typically C:) and select Properties. You'll see a pie chart (as well as actual numbers) showing the used space, the free space, and the total capacity. The "free space" should be greater than 15% of the "capacity." The numbers you listed were: used 46.1 GB and 97.5 GB free. That means the "capacity" of your C: partition is about 143.6 GB (used + free) and that you have about 68% free space. As Palcouk wrote, that's plenty.

That about says it all, no need for anything further unless the OP comes back with a specific query