Apps slow on first load

[djforeman]

Hi,
Hope someone out there has some ideas for me.
All of my apps seem to take a LONG time to load the FIRST TIME I load them. (About 8 seconds for Word, Excel, Outlook, Perfectdisk, Firefox, IE, etc.). After that, they load very quickly.

I recently built a new machine: ASUS P4P800E mobo, P4 3.0E, Seagate SATA 80GB drive (NOT RAID), 512 (256*2) MB PC3200 RAM, ATI 9600XT graphics. Also have a WD 80 GB ATA-133 drive on Promise adapter card for backups.

XP2 Pro was succesfully loaded and am running w/SP2. Norton Internet Sec (autoprotect excluded for MS Office), anti-spam off. MS Anti-spyware beta.

I am comparing this to my work machine: 80 GB IDE drive, McAfee Security, 512 MB RAM. Programs always load quickly there.

Any hints as to why it's only slow on first load? How can I be sure Windows knows I have a SATA drive and is not doing some kind of emulation?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

The name of your 'sinner' is: (surprise, surprise!) the Norton/Symantec bloatware.
Dump that and get AVG free from http://free.grisoft.com and a free firewall from http://soho.sygate.com
You'll be pleasantly surprised at their small 'footprints'.

 

[djforeman]

That's what I suspected. I'll give it a try.

What about the SATA drive part of my post?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

You could also look into defragging your drive... Just using the regular defrag in windows should help some, and you can get even more speed by using a better program to optimize for certain (often used) programs...

I did a lot of defragging when I sat up my last system, and was very pleased with the result... Do a search for defragging programs and see which fits you best, both feature and price wise..

 

[djforeman]

apps slow to load first time

I've done a "smart defrag" with Perfect DIsk, removed ALL Symantec (Norton) programs, installed Grisoft's AVG. Apps STILL load slow ONLY THE FIRST TIME, same as before. Still looking for hints.

PS. How can I tell if WInXP knows I have a SATA drive?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

If you know what's on that SATA drive, and Explorer can see it also, then you KNOW.
Switch off Indexing in XP.
http://www.activewin.com/tips/tips/microsoft/winxp/basic/21.shtml

 

[djforeman]

apps still slow to load

I turned off indexing and all other services I know I can live without. No luck. Still slow. I am comparing the performance to an identical machine load on a slightly slower CPU (2.6 vs 3.0GHz), with only IDE drives, which outperforms this one on first-loads. Any more hints?

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Is DMA enabled?

Your work-PC probably runs 24/7 and the home-PC only as and when needed.
So the work-PC has the advantage, perhaps with a fully 'stocked' prefetch area?
Do you have many icons on your desktop? Get rid of the seldom-used ones.
Try setting the PC optimized for applications in System/Properties/Advanced/Performance.
Check the pagefile-size (1.5 x memory-size or max 4GB.)

 

[djforeman]

apps still slow to load first time

Hi Realblackstuff,
Thanks for the quick reply.
>>yes, work-PC runs 24/7, but home-PC is on 7AM-11PM daily.
So the work-PC has the advantage, perhaps with a fully 'stocked' prefetch area?
>>Possible. Can this be tweaked?

>>Do you have many icons on your desktop? Get rid of the seldom-used ones.
>> use almost all every other day

Try setting the PC optimized for applications in System/Properties/Advanced/Performance.
>> Already done

Check the pagefile-size
>> 1.5* RAM= 1.5 * 512 = 786MB

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Try this prefetch-tweak:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Gaining-Speed-Empty-Prefetch-XP.html

If you use large(r) apps, perhaps you should increase your memory by adding another 512MB.
Try and move your pagefile onto the HD that Windows is NOT on.