computer slowing down

[dabud]

Asus P5KC [Intel C2D E6850 3.0mHZ] [2.0GB Transcend Jet Ram DDR2 [x 2]][supposedly match pair] [nVidia GeForce 8500GT] [DLink DGE530T nic][160gb Sata HD, 160 IDE HD, 160gb Sata II HD]

Hi
I am looking for some advice on some problems I am having with above computer.
I purchased it in January 2008. In the beginning, it was very stable, fast and multi-tasking was super. I was using WinXP SP2 and all updates as an OS. About a month ago i started noticing a marked slowdown on multitasking and internet browsing, sites took longer to open and programs slower to load.
I checked with asus for any driver updates, there was none.
For example, I have a chat room on a program called winmx. When Winmx is started a window opens and I get a listing of available channels [chatrooms] I used to get approx 1400 channel listings, now I only get 400 - 600 max. I know this is not an internet thing because another computer I have regularly get the full channel listings. The other machine is older [Asus P4S533-MX 2.4mHZ 2.0gb Ram] and is running Ubuntu 7.10. Thinking that maybe I had a virus/trojan/spyware I ran a full compliment of that kind [virus,etc] testing but all came clean. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 on this new machine thinking that might solve problem, since it runs so well on older machine. It was somewhat better but not a real big difference. I am thinking that this may be a hardware [motherboard/cpu/ram] problem, but don't really know where to start. I have posted in the asus forums and in some other software type forums, but have not got any helpful responses [even from asus!] I have tried submitting a technical inquiry to asus, but their tech site doesn't work very well. I am reluctant to return to my place of purchase, because when I purchased this machine I already had my OS[WinXP] [and was planning to switch to Linux anyway]and they were upset that they couldn't sell me a new copy of the same OS [WinXP]. Any how, I would like some advice on how to go about checking out what this slowdown problem may be. Some guidence on where to start looking, software programs to check hardware performance and how to interpret it all would be good. Thank you.

p.s. I am interested in trying some overclocking of this machine, once this other problem is sorted out and have found some useful information in your forums. Thank you.

[Thund3rball]

Sounds to me you just need to do some Windows maintenance. Here are a some XP tweak guides that you can read through and get an idea for how to rid your system of junk and optimize it.

TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - Tweak & Optimize XP

Optimize XP

TweakGuides.com - The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion

[dabud]

Thund3rball - thanks for reply
Sry, I know it was a wordy post, but i did mention that i am not running WinXP any longer but have switched to Xububtu 8.04, so i don't think that info is pertinent. [pls correct me, if i am wrong, as i am dual booting, altho' win xp is rarely used and am still having same slow probs.]

[Jack Rabbit]

Is your copy of Windows XP a full boxed retail version?

Aside from hard drive tools, there are very few programs that really test hardware directly. Most testing is done from the perspective of how well software runs on a system. Yes, this kind of amounts to the same thing but my point is there is nothing you can download that will categorically tell you that your system should be a 206A but is running like a 186B and that is bad because of blah blah blah or whatever.

WinMX is not really a good test of anything. Most benchmarking is done with a battery of tests. Any reviewer worth a darn will put the system through its paces with a variety of real and made up tests: LameMP3 and OGG Vorbis encoding; DivX and XviD encoding; PCMark and SiSoftware Sandra benchmarks; various game time demos; and the like.

I have never seen any real benchmarking in Linux. I have always wondered why that is.

You can run these various benchmarking suits and compare your results with similar caliber systems but this is not going to be quick or simple. Google for your board and find some reviews on major sites and then just do what they did and see how you compare.

[Thund3rball]

Originally Posted by dabud

Thund3rball - thanks for reply
Sry, I know it was a wordy post, but i did mention that i am not running WinXP any longer but have switched to Xububtu 8.04, so i don't think that info is pertinent. [pls correct me, if i am wrong, as i am dual booting, altho' win xp is rarely used and am still having same slow probs.]

ooops sorry I thought it was your Windows you were talking about.