Windows 2000 Pro speed problem

[Day 0]

I have recently installed Win 2000 Pro as I heard that it is faster than my Win98 i had previously.

 

But i found that it runs much slower and often takes like a minute or so to open an app or change between apps while they are alredy open. During this time I can hear the HD working overtime.

 

I defragmented, run Norton SystemWorks, installed RAM memory management programs but there is no difference.

 

My system specs:

 

IBM ThinkPad A21m

PIII 750

20gig HD - Win2000 running on seperate 6gig partition

128 RAM

 

Does anyone know why it is so slow and are there any ways of speeding it up. Any tweaks?

 

 

Thanks

[Christianb 8]

Naturally, there are a plethora of possible reasons, but based on the information you gave me you need more RAM. Windows 98 is more than happy with 128, Win2K is not okay with so little of something so integral.

[Christianb 8]

You did mention Norton SystemWorks and Ram utilities. For performance disable all NAV auto-protection, and systemworks tray applications from starting automatically. Look at your startup group and in the registry. Also uninstall any RAM utilities that stuff is garbage, like crash defenders, and screen savers. These applications all do nothing and typically have the opposite effect (okay screen savers used to be helpful 10 years ago).

Good Luck,

Christian

[DosFreak 2]

Hmmm, 2000 Controller drivers may be unoptimized for that laptop. Laptop HD's are VERY crappy (at least on older HD's) Try up[censored] the drivers if you can.

 

Also flash the bios.

[Christianb 8]

Are there any RAID solutions for laptops aside from installing Linux?

[Day 0]

All m y drivers are updated, I turned off all the unnecessary apps which load up at startup, not using any sreensavers or wallpapers also got rid of most shortcuts on the desktop and it still runs slow.

 

I found a website which tells you which networks functions you can turn off but it gives me an error message saying that these are critical functions which cannot be switched off.

[ptba42 0]

Flat out, you need at least another 128 mb of ram to run Win2k Pro efficiently. The OS Kernel itself likes to use almost 128 megs for just itself. So the moral of the story is: GO GET MORE RAM!!

[Day 0]

Does anyone know where to get cheap ram for laptops

 

at crucial.com 256meg cost about £70

[DosFreak 2]

www.pricewatch.com

 

http://www.resellerratings.com/

[Christianb 8]

Whoever agreed with me about the RAM is absolutely correct . However I'm wondering did you check HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

...munOnce

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\......\Run

..munOnceEX...munOnce...munServices...?

 

Win.ini, system.ini (check for run= and load= sections)

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Flat out, you need at least another 128 mb of ram to run Win2k Pro efficiently. The OS Kernel itself likes to use almost 128 megs for just itself. So the moral of the story is: GO GET MORE RAM!!

While I agree with you to a point that more RAM is required (even though 2000 Pro used to run perfectly fine for me in 128Mb RAM) your line about the 2k kernel needing 128Mb is absolute bull. Right now, my XP kernel is using around 26Mb which is up a little from the 19-20Mb it normally uses but still nowhere near 128Mb. The 2000 kernel would have been around the same if not smaller.

[Christianb 8]

I'm not trying to offend you, but if you've never tried 128MB and then 256MB on the same Win2K Pro system you simply don't know what you're talking about. Since everyone seems to be in agreement except you why not consider the possibility that we are in fact correct. You could spend 20-40 bucks, or maybe even borrow a RAM stick from a friend just to try it out. Then you can write us all a thank you post, because we were right.

-Christian Blackburn

[DooDiddley 0]

I'm not trying to offend anyone either but when I upgraded to Win2K pro, I had 512 meg memory and my once speedy system turned into a dog.

 

Day ... search this forum for all the tweaks you can find. This is where I found most of my registry tweaking information and now my system runs as it should. As always, back up your registry just in case. Here are also some good links with tweaks:

 

http://www.winguides.com/registry/

http://arstechnica.com/tweak/win2k/others/memory-1.html

http://www.ntcompatible.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17024&highlight=alec+staar

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

I'm not trying to offend you, but if you've never tried 128MB and then 256MB on the same Win2K Pro system you simply don't know what you're talking about. Since everyone seems to be in agreement except you why not consider the possibility that we are in fact correct. You could spend 20-40 bucks, or maybe even borrow a RAM stick from a friend just to try it out. Then you can write us all a thank you post, because we were right.
-Christian Blackburn

For the record, I never disagreed with anyone about needing more RAM. What I disagreed with was the statement that the 2000 kernel consumes 128Mb. According to the Task Manager my XP kernel uses about 20Mb at startup. I can't remember the exact figures off hand but I doubt it would have been much larger for 2000.

[Christianb 8]

Okay nevermind about the ram thing. It just wasn't clear in your posts. However I think it's next to impossible to know how much overhead the Windows 2000 kernel takes outside of Microsoft or some book. Every system has different hardware and since different drivers are always going to be running on a user's system it's quite possible that some users actually do have close to 128MBs take between their drivers and the OS. It's been my experience that the resource use is very close to 100MBs not 128, but once you start one or two apps file swapping will take it's toll.

-Christian

[snakefoot 0]

Quote:

According to the Task Manager my XP kernel uses about 20Mb at startup. I can't remember the exact figures off hand but I doubt it would have been much larger for 2000

My standard install of Win2k Pro takes 40 MByte RAM(Idle), and my standard install of Win2k Adv. Srv. takes 100 MByte RAM(Idle)

So with the Win2k Adv. Srv. one should be able start two IE's and then get into pagefile heaven.

[Christianb 8]

Funny I just looked at my system and after closing every program aside from drivers and the OS my memory usage was 157MB! However that too can be misleading, because windows makes the most of what you've got. I'm using 157MB, because there's probably a ton of files in a system cache right now. I wouldn't be at all surprised in screen resolution and color depth came into play too.

[Christianb 8]

Funny I just looked at my system and after closing every program aside from drivers and the OS my memory usage was 157MB! However that too can be misleading, because windows makes the most of what you've got. I'm using 157MB, because there's probably a ton of files in a system cache right now. I wouldn't be at all surprised in screen resolution and color depth came into play too.

[Christianb 8]

Just look at this screenshot that's the real number you need to pay attention to. You're never just running the kernel there's always drivers, and probably your choice of applications. Also note in my screenshot that apps are running. I'm merely showing you where not depicting the ammount of my system at it's leanest and meanest.

ScreenShot

[cazzman 0]

hi, i run 2k pro on a 128mg ram system and it runs fine, and its only 200mhz processor. Btw, norton sysworks, takes up lots of ram, so if your computer's sluggish uninsall it, it made my computer go a lot quicker.

It probs won't work, but it did for me.

[Christianb 8]

Hi cazzman,

Just for the record nobody runs Windows 2000 Pro just fine on a P200 w/ only 128MB ram. I presume it's a RAM issue, but having used a system with such little specs I can tell you with considerable confidence that this is definetly not an ideal system/ OS combination. The keyboard and mouse response will be ungodly slow on your system. You might try windows 98 (I know it's unstable, but it will be a lot faster), or upgrading your RAM and or CPU. 128MB just doesn't cut it on Win2K you need at least 256 and really it requires a decent Pentium II Proc or better.

-Christian

[pmistry 0]

I thought I would throw in some experience. I know someone who had a AMD K6-2 350MHz processor, he installed Windows 2000 on it which at the time had only 64 MB RAM. It ran alright, he isn't a heavy user, mostly running Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Internet Exlporer, Nero, and Winamp. When RAM became cheap it popped in a 256 MB RAM module to up the RAM to 320 MB, and all of the older programs executed noticeably faster and disk swapping became less frequent.

 

So...if you upped your memory you would have a better performing system, but as ChristianB says, running Windows 2000 Pro on a Pentium 200 is not common nor is it a good idea, it is like asking an old 386 to run Windows 95.

[tweaked 0]

while i agree that more than 128 mb of memory for win2k is optimal, win2k can run just fine on 128mb.

 

 

i got a desktop p3 450 with 128 and a IBM a20m laptop with 128mb. Both running win2k just fine.

 

on average i run a minimum of three applications at a time with little to no slow down due to file swappin.

 

i've run win2k on a p200 with 128mb of mem before as well and just for the record "IT WORKED GREAT!", faster than win98 when running multiple apps.

 

No, not as fast as my dual 1 gigger with 2 gig of memory, but damn, it worked alot better than you would normally assume. Much better than i anticipated.

 

 

BTW, my laptop is similar to the original posters, and win2k works great here. Something is janky with his install. Its not just memory or a slow laptop hard drive. My laptop is a notch slower than his and is very responsive.

[dave.green1 0]

Quote:

I'm not trying to offend anyone either but when I upgraded to Win2K pro, I had 512 meg memory and my once speedy system turned into a dog.

Disable the pagefile. You speed will increase.

[Christianb 8]

Quote:

I'm not trying to offend anyone either but when I upgraded to Win2K pro, I had 512 meg memory and my once speedy system turned into a dog.

Okay well that could be for a lot of reasons. First off I can't infer whether you are describing one or two separate upgrades. 1. from some lesser quantity of Ram, 2. an upgrade to Win2K Pro, or 3. Both.

If the answer is both you really are comparing apples to oranges. Adding more RAM can slow a system down, think about it, it has to address more memory therefore it has to search more "mailboxes" before it finds the right one. However most programs fit into 256 Megs of RAM (not to say that 512 isn't better for complex games and graphics) therefore an upgrade from 256 to 512 would probably slow down the execution of say MSpaint, but I can guarantee you that if you start running complex applications and several of them simulataneously you should notice an improvement with 512 megs vs 256 or any value below that.

Now on the other hand if you originally had 64 megs of ram and upgraded to 512MB there should be a 100% chance that everything will be faster, because Windows 2000 Pro takes up about 100 megs beneath the OS and drivers.

As for upgrading to Win2K and having your system perform more slowly that could be due to a myriad of reasons:
1. You have a Sub Pentium II class system
2. You have more applications and or more bloated versions thereof running simultaneously (in your system tray for example)
3. The drivers your hardware vendors wrote for Win2K reflect a half ass quickie job and aren't as optmized as the drivers they wrote for prior OS's
4. You need a benchmark, because you still don't believe me

Quote:

Disable the pagefile. You speed will increase.

Okay that's a particularly bad idea for anyone with less than about 1.2 gigs of RAM. If you disable your pagefile, and try to edit some complex graphics or run a whole bunch of programs at once you'll run out of memory. Not to mention that Windows will be less stable, because you're running a nonstandard memory configuration. Nonetheless I may try this just to see how things go, but really if you do this and start getting out of memory errors use your brain and re-enable your pagefile.sys.