Slowness of freshly installed SP3

[HipHoper]

Hi All !!!

I was wondering for the past few months why does a fresh installed xp sp2/sp3 works kind of slow on a p4 2.0ghz and even higher cpu's with an 80gb drive and 512mb of memory.
I haven't installed a thing except the OS on some older systems that were freshly formatted, And they don't work as fast as I recall older xp pro versions freshly installed on similiar computers.

Do you had similiar experiences ?

[NooNoo]

Define slow

[HipHoper]

The speed which programs are opened (Word 2003, Ie7) is noticeably slower than the speed the older xp installs used to run it. (Well....there wasn't Ie7 those days, but there was word 2003)

[CeeBee]

My experience is the opposite with all the SP3 machines. Visibly faster than SP2. Not faster than SP0 though

[HipHoper]

Bee man :O)
"Not faster than SP0 though " Are you reffering to old P4 installations ? Because dual core cpu run fine....
I guess that I'm reffering to pre-service pack days = SP0

[NooNoo]

I assume you have checked the start up items? Has the machine had time to reindex?

[HipHoper]

I don't know what you mean by indexing, But I'm talking about after about 2-3 minutes that the system has already booted into windows.....
I'm sure it has to do with some extra processes since xp sp0.....

[NooNoo]

So have you checked the processes that are necessary?

[HipHoper]

No. I didn't touched it. I just wanted to confirm with others that it's really slower and not a figment of my imagination. To tell you the truth, I considered telling clients which doesn't have dual core cpu that they must upgrade their computer before they ask me to reformat it....

[HipHoper]

IE7 plays big part of the OS, but I'm not sure this is it.
I have a new socket 478 I865 motherboard and some old cpu's ranging from p4-1.7 to p4-2.66, Will give xp sp3 a try if I'll find some old ide drive (Was amazed to get a i865 board with no sata - But it will make the test more authentic :O)

[xpuser357]

I have p4 2 gig with 1 gig ram sp3 and fairly fast, I can click off 2003 word and it comes up within seconds. I can click outlook 6 and presto. I use IE7
and it comes up ok, maybe the extra ram helps.

[HipHoper]

Thanks for the feedback XpUser,

Oe6 doesn't give that much reference when it's empty, It's really a small program, But I'll take into consideration the extra memory you've mentioned.
Have you played with swap file size and memory settings ?

[xpuser357]

I am not sure about memory settings, or swapping files.

[Gabriel]

....not a figment of my imagination....

Your mind plays tricks on you
I have pretty much good experience with SP3 installation - just remove all the unnecessary rubbish from the OS (like indexing service). and it work pretty well.
I also remove the System restore from most machines.

Cheers,
Gabriel