Slow Computer

[patrick_pang79]

I have a Pentium MMX computer but the speed of this computer is slower compared to other computer with the same configuration and hardware.
My computer is equipped with a 32 EDO Ram...
My computer is expecially slow when during installation and surfing the web...

[YODA74]

Have you cleaned the temp. files,cookies,cache,Run scan disk & defrag?
Have you been getting low memory errors?

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YODA74@windows-sucks.com
CCMR (http://www.dreamwater.net/tech/yoda74/index.html)

[Sylvander]

Hello Patrick

1. Study how your PC works and what's going on under the surface.
Go to "Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Monitor".
Learn how to use it to study your PC as it works.
Get a little prog called "TclockEx" which constantly shows CPU usage and Free RAM so you can see if the PC's CPU suddenly jumps to 100% usage and whether that's unreasonable under the circumstances. This may indicate a program starting in the background. Go to "Control Panel>Sounds" and allocate short distinctive sounds to "Open Program" and "Close Program" so that you can hear whenever a program opens and closes and see the resultant jump in CPU % usage.

2. Go to "Start>Windows Update" to update your system and do it regularly.

3. Check if any Programs are running unseen in the background.
Examples would be "Control Panel>Find Fast" which a lot of peaple hate and uninstall or you can just disable it. Another example could be "Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Maintenance Wizard".
Use a right-click in the system tray and select "Close" or "exit" to close down unnecessary prog's. You could use "ctrl+alt+del" to see which Prog's are still running after this and close more unnecessary ones down. They will come right back next time you boot, so if you want them semi-permanently removed then:
Go to "Start>Run" and type "msconfig" and hit ok, then go to the "Startup" tab and untick any Prog's here that you don't want to be started up at boot time. There should only be a duplicate of "LoadPowerProfile". If ther are any other duplicates this would cause quite serious problems and could account for your particular trouble.

4. Do you have enough space on your c:drive to accomodate your swap-file [Win386.swp]. Having only 32MB of RAM, you need all the help your swap-file can give and if you don't have enough space on your hard-drive [and if it's also fragmented and the swap-file is in bits all over the drive] then Windows is going to be struggling for room to work and running back and forth trying to retrieve info from all over the place.
You could allocate a fixed size of swap-file and that would release your CPU from the task of constantly calculating it's needed size. If you clear some space on the drive and allocate an adequate fixed space you can get the best of both worlds. I have mine set to 120 MB and get no problems but trial and error will let you know at what point the PC complains of "Shortage of Memory" then you could add 50% to 100% to that.
Put it on your d: drive if you have one.

5. Download for free and install "SysSoft Sandra" and see what it recommends.

[ski]

If the faster computer has more and/or faster RAM, then it will run faster.

[pentachris]

I know I post this link (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/win98/maintain/first.asp?frame=true) often, but it's a great resource for tuning Windows 9x.

If the hardware is the same, either there's something not set correctly in your BIOS or your Windows needs to be cleaned and tuned.

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Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.