Slowing Computer down.

Anon

Can IIS, php, and mysql be slowing my pc down this much or is it something else?!?
Ok here are my specs.
PIII 733 RAM 128 and 256 pc 133
OS Windows 2000
HD 7200 RPM Maxtor
Start up Activities:
IIS, PHP, mysql, asus mobo monitor, norton antivirus.

PROBLEM: My computer runs really slow when opening programs ect, EVEN Internet explorer takes like 20 seconds to open. My processor isn't being touched, its around 10%, but my LED light is ticking away. So first i think ahhh ok I/O hard drive problem so I defrag get all my files contiguous. Then restart is next day and still running slow. So i take out the ram and put my origial 128 in only and still running pretty slow. It use to be fast with this ram when i first got it.

Its still running slow, I dont think the other services running should kill my performance this much, any tips or helpful hits/experience would be appreciated.

Thanks

-Doom

jariizumi

If you're running Win2K Server, make sure your Active Directory stuff (if any) are behaving properly. If that's all fine, then I would probably guess that it's the Indexing service, trying to index every single file on the hard drive, which could be rather time consuming on a large hard drive with lots of files. I'd suggest that if you do want to keep it, then run it with the least amount of stuff, or simply, just turn it off. That probably is your problem, since Indexing usually is the cause of the blinking hard drive LED. Hope this is of some help to you 😉

Anon

A couple possibilities immediately come to mind, but without doing some I/O monitoring it is hard to tell for certain. Try using the Windows2000 Performance Monitor to identify which process(es) are doing the I/O. Also check to make sure that your system isn't page faulting to death -- 128MB is on the light side for a real Win2k.

Just a quick question: Do you have your anti-virus software set to check every file when accessed or openned? If so, the anti-virus software may be causing some of the delay. This can be especially impact large programs which use a lot of files.

-- Michael
Darkstreak Consulting
www.darkstreak.com

Anon

Thanks for the reply, could you help me out in a little more depth, i know where the performance monitor is but im not sure how to use it for anything. Seems to only load logs. Also how can i check if my system is page faulting. If it is what do i do?

I have a 128mb ram and 256 mb of ram so 384 mb.

Yes i did have Norton real time checking i disabled it but didn't have any effect on system speed.

Thanks.

Sorry, im not really a big user of IIS or windows 2k i just set it up to run IIS, php, and mysql real easy to do some web work.

Anon

I am running Professional, and sorry I dont' know anything about indexing of files on a hard disk. Does Professional have this option? I did minimize my startup stuff to only Norton and my motherboard monitor. I also disabled norton to test it but seemed to have no effect.

Any way i can view what programs are taking up how much of my resources? or find the bottle neck with any analysis software?

Thanks Ryan

Anon

its ASUS Probe

I have a 900Mhz AMD Duron with 448Mb PC-133 and mine slows down to when Probe is on

I would kill probe and then try it out

Anon

🙁 I had hope there for a second, but i disapled asus probe and tried to fire up any program and said netscape should open quick and it took 30 seconds. I think its safe to say that 733 - 390 mb ram should open it quicker right?

I will reboot with asus off and try it again.

Anon

Don't benchmark your hole computer on netscape

Netscape is slow as hell to start off with

on everything

you can have a 1.2Ghz and it will still take forever to load

its a slopy program and thats why its alow

Anon

i know where the performance monitor is but im not sure how
to use it for anything. Seems to only load logs. Also how
can i check if my system is page faulting. If it is what
do i do?

Apparently we are talking about different things. The Performance Monitor is used for getting realtime data about how your system is performing. It can give you detailed information on hundreds of factors which can be used in tuning your system.

Try this:
1) Start->Programs->Administrative Tools->Performance. If it is not there, then use the Control Panel to install it from the Win2K CDs.
2) Locate and click the "+" button to add a counter to the chart
3) Change "Performance object" from "Processor" to "Process"
4) Click the "Select counters from list" radio button, then select one of the I/O counter (example: "IO Data Operations/sec") from the scrollbox.
5) As a first pass check, click the "Select All Instances" radio button. You can select individual processes once a few likely I/O hogg candidates have been identified.
6) Click the "Add" button then the "Close" button.
7) Watch the chart to determine what processess are hogging your I/O. Change properties or remove on the counter lines until you find the culprit.

As for paging faulting... I'm running Win2KPro with Apache/PHP4/2xSETI/plus-a-bunch-of-other-cruft on 256MB with plenty of free memory to spare. With 384MB RAM you shouldn't be paging much at all. If your system is paging heavily, then something is very wrong.

I do agree with another reply that tells you not to base performance assumptions on how one application (Netscape) starts. Instead monitor your system and applications to determine what performance factors are important to them, then tune Win2K for those parameters. Rinse, wash and repeat the monitoring-tuning cycle until desired performance is achieved.

-- Michael
Darkstreak Consulting
www.darkstreak.com

Anon

to Rich:

Give me a break... will you

I use netscape on Pentium 150 Mhz here at work running lousy windows NT, and that thing loads up quickly, browses great and stuff like that. You are telling me that Netscape slowed down 733 Mhz machine with 384 Mg of Ram. You are out of your mind... The NT box I use at work has 48 Mg of ram and I can load 4 netscapes and use them without any problem.

I also use apache, mysql and php on that machine to test my scripts, and it works fine without any problems...

To Ryan:

If it is not your hardware, then it is definitely some windows 2000 component. I mean 30 seconds to load Netscape using pentium III 733 with so much ram - unheard of - it has to be your software....

I have a suggestion for you. Apache, php, mysql are native to Linux, so do yourself a favor go to www.linuxcentral.com and get yourself a two disk RedHat distribution for 3.84 plus some shipping charges. Once you'll put linux on your box - your server, mysql will be smoking! Linux is the best!

Anon

yes i will eventually set up a linux box but i can't at this time. I run lots of graphics and 3d programs and such that unfortunatly is ms dependent. I will probably pick up another pc to put linux on and run apache ect,

I didn't only use netscape as a benchmark, also used other programs, adobe photoshop took a minute or so.

Ryan

Anon

Hmmm...

Another suggestion I'll give you is may be your harddrive is way too fragmented. Try to defragment it. I bet that you use a big harddrive. If a lot of data is non-contiguous - then it'll definitely slow it down.

Give it a shot,

P.S. one minute to load photoshop, man... my ME box using 1996 seagate IDE harddrive loads quicker..

Anon

I know its killing me, first thing i did was defrag my drives. But nothing.
Im wondering if it could possibly be any hardware problems.

I think its either services or hardware because my pc that i use at work is set up win 2k pro and pii 350 128mb and it runs faster then my home 733 390.

Anon

http://www.cse.msu.edu/~doomryan/p/
Has pictures of my performance monitor, im going to try to figure out what is what and see what normal should be. If you could take a quick look to see if anything is obviously wrong that would be great.
Thanks for all your help.

I also tried other programs thats why I posted on here, netscape was just one i clicked on after i tried lots of my real programs.

Thanks Ryan

Anon

You will need to be a little more selective in what you monitor. Selecting too many counters or processes makes the results hard to read. This is especially true when the screenshots can only display part of the results at a time.

I prefer to use the chart or histogram displays, then scroll through the counters removing ones that aren't relevant to the problem I'm working on.

-- Michael
Darkstreak
www.darkstreak.com

ame12

Ryan, I look at performance monitor but that doesn't help because the processes we would care about aren't listed.

Could you fire up Task Manager (start/run/taskmgr) and do two things:

1) (On Processes pane) Check to see which process is consuming the lion's share of CPU
2) (On Processes pane) Check to see which process is consuming the most memory
2) (On Performance pane) See if your handle count keeps increasing and available physical memory keeps decreasing.

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Anon

Thanks, I posted some more images of performace bar and software running.
Ive tried all of this on the forum, asked people at school,work,other forums. I can only guess that its hardware?!

http://www.cse.msu.edu/~doomryan/p/

The thing that seems to have the best chance is go through every task on the Adminstrator Perfrmace monitor and watch them and see what they do each...

Anon

This has extended beyond the scope of this PHP forum into Win2K system tuning. It should probably be moved to a different venue.

-- Michael
Darkstreak Consulting
www.darkstreak.com

Anon

I sort of agree....

To Ryan: there is one fundamental windows principle - 95% of all problems can be resolved by reinstalling the software... Sad.., but windows is no linux....