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Windows Vista25
I have recently (I got it about 3 weeks ago now) recieved a new Dell Inspiron

1520 laptop with preinstalled Windows Business. However, performance has been

very for it's build. The setup is:



1.8GHz 2MB Cache Intel Core 2 Duo processor

2GB 667Mhz DDR2 RAM

Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT graphics

160GB 7400RPM hard drive



The computer has been acting, however, like my old 2.5ghz pent 4 256 mb ram

desktop computer - of the 2GB, almost 100% is constantly in use, and even

using tabbed web browsing is excruciatingly slow. I already posted one

question on this newsgroup, "Is windows Vista hogging my hard drive", and I

recieved feedback that windows vista ran certain background applications -

file indexing, for one - which could slow the computer. Ergo, I proceeded

disable these services. Performance improved slightly, but only minimally.



Perplexed, I started the computer in diagnostic mode using msconfig. Upon

checking task manager, I found that only 19% of the RAM was in use. In this

state, the computer ran wonderfully, programs like Word and Firefox opened in

a blink, and all was smooth. I proceeded to, one-by-one, re-enable services,

starting from security, networking, and then various ones like microsoft

framework, and so on and so forth, whilst keeping the number I activated down

to a minimum. To avoid trouble, I set most of the other services to manual,

so that I anything cropped up, at least I wasn't in too much trouble.



Now the situation is more interesting. Upon startup, the computer runs as,

and better than, I would expect. The antivirus is active, firewalls are up,

and all the necessary services are running. However, normally about 20

minutes after startup, the RAM use goes from about 25% background + programs

in use to about almost 100% background, and performance grinds to a halt. I

have checked the event viewer, but no recurring event appears to coincide

with this sudden memory spike.



In summary, my plea is twofold; if anyone has any idea as to what could be

degrading performance to this level, I would be extremely grateful for any

assistance. Furthermore, if anyone could advise a method (either through

windows or third-party programs) of accurately monitoring what

programs/services/processes are using the RAM and when, I would be able to

monitor spike with more accuracy and gather more information as to what is

going on.



Thank you in advance for your help,

Horus


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Windows Vista is designed to use the maximum amount of RAM that's available

in the system. That's the reason for high RAM usage. But regarding slowing of

computer, I don't have any idea and I'm just clueless.. For that matter, I

too own a Dell, but a Inspiron 1420 with 7200 RPM hard drive, 2GB ram, vista

business etc., etc., It's not fast enough.. I tried removing startup

programs.. still it's pretty slow... :(

Waiting badly for Vista SP1... :(



May be my blog on Vista review could be of use to you...

mugunthkumar.blogspot.com/2007/09/review-on-windows-vista.html" >mugunthkumar.blogspot.com/2007/09/review-on-windows-vista.html



"Lord Horus" wrote:

Lord Horus wrote:



Try www.petri.co.il/vista_tips.htm" >www.petri.co.il/vista_tips.htm





I would be extremely grateful for any

Use "process Explorer". It is an MS tool.

www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx" >www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx

I wouldn't expect any miracles from SP1. Unless, Microsoft has something

up their sleeve- most everything that will be included in SP1, will have

already been made available through Windows Update.



You might want to try decraptifying your computer of all the junk

Dell adds to it. If it came with any Norton/Symantec or McAfee

products, remove them and use another AV. Look in msconfig to

see what items are starting up. There are lot of programs that like to

add their crap there, unchecking them doesn't usually break the software,

it should still work ( I see you did this already).





-Michael



* Mugunth:

Really Michael...

MacAfee and Norton slows down your system terribly...

I used to get a lot of messages like "Windows is running low on memory,

Please close the following applications..."

I'm now using AVG free.. and the error is gone...



I've heard that, MS is working on the slow file copy issue.. I hope that

will improve the hard disk performance which I think is the cause for slow

startup...



"MICHAEL" wrote:

Have you installed these two recent updates?



support.microsoft.com/kb/941600" >support.microsoft.com/kb/941600

Cumulative update rollup for USB core components in Windows Vista



support.microsoft.com/kb/941649" >support.microsoft.com/kb/941649

An update is available that improves the compatibility, reliability, and stability of Windows Vista





-Michael



* Mugunth:

Try looking at you hard drive properties and if the box marked "Index

this drive" is checked try it unchecked... that made a heck of a

difference here on 2 machines and I see no loss of speed where "Search"

is concerned, it never found anything anyway but now finds nothing

quicker - go figure.





Mugunth wrote:

Your problem sounds like a service or a 3rd party application that is going

a bit insane. Monitor your tasks, and see if you can track down what is

consuming CPU and RAM usage, and then you can search the web for a way to

correct it.



I have seen this type of behavior with some Anti-virus software, and also

some 3rd party applications and drivers. (A Logitech mouse driver software

component was the most recent case I seen of this.)



Just so you know this is far from normal, and you will be able to track down

the problem. Vista should be rather smooth and peppy with your system

configuration, even surpassing XP on the same system.



Good luck to you...



"Lord Horus" <LordHorus@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in message

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From the task manager's processes tab, click Resource Monitor. This is truly

one of my favorite new tools in Vista.



Whatever graph is high, open that section and sort by relevant column. It'll

tell you exactly what is reading or writing to your drive, filling your

memory, tasking your cpu or clogging your network.



rtk



"Lord Horus" <LordHorus@discussions.microsoft.com>wrote in message

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The issue as I see it is people that try and index their entire system

drive. If you have a separate drive with some type of media, it's fine to

index that drive.



Once the index is built, it takes literally split seconds to update the

index when a file operation occurs. When this is taken into account, it's

obvious why indexing cache folders is a bad idea.



I'm indexing four drives and don't feel it at all, once the initial index is

built there's no noticeable performance impact IMHO.



rtk



"Charlie Tame" <charlie@tames.net>wrote in message

-

Michael,

Your patches did a lot of "magic" to vista indeed...!

But, I don't understand why my laptop was not updated through

Windows Update? I've set everything to "recommended" settings...





"rtk" wrote:

Microsoft sometimes releases these separate updates to sort

of test them before making them available through Windows Update.



An earlier version of the update 941649 caused

some folks boot-up problems. It's not really a beta

update, but it sort of is a beta update. ;-)



Glad they worked for you and seem to have helped

you out.



Take care,



Michael



* Mugunth:

MICHAEL wrote:



Hmm, but they don't "Sort of" disable your machine when WPA pronounces

the OS stolen, they comprehensively DO disable it.

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rtk wrote:

you are easily pleased, methinks. In fact, a same-similar facility also

exists in XP. Have a look at Process Explorer (also MS approved) and see

the difference.

-

WaIIy wrote:

err... 'process explorer' of sysinternals now belongs to Microsoft

(available from MS site) also for free.



-

* occam:

Yes, and sad day that was when Mark and Bryce sold out....

not for them I guess.



Also, they still use the name "Sysinternals".



www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx" >www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

Windows Sysinternals





-Michael

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"occam" <occam@razor.dot.com>wrote in message

Hardly, I've been using the pstools and procexp for years.



Process Explorer is definitely very powerful, but it's task manager on

steroids. Resource manager is a fantastic tool for getting a quick overview

of the other processes besides cpu and ram usage.



Using process explorer, how do you tell which process is most active writing

or reading from the drive?



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"WaIIy" <eIvez@ChangeThisPart.com>wrote in message

Great build in feature, and completely different from what MS (ne:

sysinternals) offers through process explorer.



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"MICHAEL" <u158627_emr2@dslr.net>wrote in message

I'm sure there were many people worried, but it's turned out to be a

non-issue.



Russinovich is my hero. ;-)



rtk



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