Win XP Pro running & running!!

Win Xp Pro SP2 800 mhz 192 mb ram

Computer is clean... no viruses or malware. Ran scandisk and defrag. Turned off all unncessary programs running in background, auto updating etc. And yet sometimes there is something running and running and I can't figure out what it is!! Runs for up to 10 minutes! Really annoying. Could it be indexing or ???

Thanks

 

How do you know something is running? Does your computer slows down or your hdd indicator is on etc.?

Indexing can create such problems. Better switch it off.

 

What output are you viewing to determine that "something is running "?

 

Running - Hard drive light is flickering

Without giving it any commands after booting up, the hard drive light is flickering. If we try to do something, it is so slow because it's doing something else. I'll check the indexing and try the freeware program. Thanks

 

With this amount of ram available to machine, it will be difficult to have a perky/responsive system. The preferred minimum is 512KB.

 

Just for a simply test, bring system up in "Safe Mode ". This will use the bear-bone minimum for system resources. If you experience a noticeable improvement, you could then work on "process on elimination" for start-up applications when returning to regular mode. I'm still concerned with low ram memory ... may want to provide us with size of virtual/page memory.

 

Yes, sounds very similar to what I found:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=47706
Writing to pagefile at startup.

Matt

 

Still running - tried all suggestions

I know that the computer would run XP better with more RAM, however I am not concerned with the general slowness due to only having 192 MB. I can deal with that. The current problem is unusual... as soon as the computer has booted up, it starts running something for about 10 minutes and then stops. When it's done, the computer runs normally.

We have checked for spyware, adware, dialers, viruses, etc. Have run several online virus scans. It's clean. We have turned off all unnecessary programs that run in the background. We have done a thorough cleaning, removed junk files, temp files, etc. and cleaned the registry. Indexing is turned off, Sys. Restore is off, tried all the tips posted here.

It's really strange. The only thing I can think of is the wireless PCMCIA card is causing the problem. Is this possible? Seems that when the card is removed, it doesn't start the running. We've reinstalled the software for the card several times. Do you think there is a conflict with the software?

 

I would still say try more ram. A lot of that activity is no doubt XP spending time swapping stuff out the pagefile. 192 MBs of ram isn't enough. 10 minutes does seem like a bit much but adding ram is still the place to start in my opinion. Eliminate that part of the equation first and then go from there. I know you said you aren't concerned with the general slowness but too little ram can certainly cause the type of problem you're describing.

 

Hello bintyre,

Try disabling the Indexing Service or change to Manual, it may be contributing to the HD thrashing.

Regards - Charles