Reinstall of XP...computer now functioning worse than ever.

Fistycuffs

So I had an old laptop,around 5 years old that had slowed to a very slow crawl so I decided to reinstall XP on it in hopes of restoring it to it's former glory. I'm no expert myself so sent it to a repair company to have this done. Now I have it back fully reinstalled with only Microsoft security essentials and IE installed on it and it's as now even worse than it was...painfully laboriously slow.

Is this normal for a reinstall?

I had hoped that it would return to me in the shape I'd initially bought it when it usesd to zip along.
I've considered contacting the company again but I don't want to make a fuss if this is what I should be expecting..

biko

It sounds as maybe they just repaired it instead? A proper install should be superfast compared to what it was like before.
You should go back and show them how slow it is now.

Do you have the CDs with XP on?

bryaner

If you don't have the cd you can try this.

http://www.wikihow.com/Reinstall-Windows-XP-Without-the-CD

Just make sure you have the xp product key.

ronkmonster

Maybe they didn't install the drivers?

Right click my computer and select manage from menu

In there go to device manager and check if any devices have an exclamation mark

bobbytables

That is odd, if a clean OS re-install was completed then I would expect to find a performance gain. However there are many ways to "re-install" operating systems.

I am assuming you're strapped for cash like most of us and this is why you made a further investment in keeping your 5 year old laptop alive and kicking. I met a mother of a few young kids recently (not gamers). They had an old windows XP machine that was riddled with malware/adware/plaque build up/etc . They just wanted a PC that could browse the web (facebook, book holidays), word processing, email, etc. So I nuked their hard drive (after a backup of essential files) and performed a fresh install of Ubuntu Linux.

The linux desktop has come forth in such leaps and bounds in recent years that in many regards it's now easier to operate than Windows ever was. After it was installed, I sat her down and hardly needed to show her how to do what she wanted to know, she could figure it out herself. Long gone are the days that Linux users need to be shell experts. I am posting this from Linux right now, I don't use windows any more, ever!.

So what you could do is get yourself a Free Live CD and give it a whirl, see what you think. If you don't like it, just pop out the disk, reboot and you'll still have your crappy windows install.

Linux is a great option for old computers IMO.

biko

bobbytables wrote: »

Linux is a great option for old computers IMO.

Very true, my GFs lappy was acting up and I couldn't be arsed to fix it (Vista).
Installed Ubuntu on it and she well happy now. Much faster, safer and better that Vista.

Btw, that was the first time she ever saw Ubuntu and still she manages to use the computer, so you don't need to be a geek to use Ubuntu.

Fistycuffs

Thank you very much for the replies everyone.

I checked the drivers as suggested and there was no exclamation mark beside any of them.

I don't have XP CD but I have the serial number that came with initial preinstalled XP years ago.

I also tried a linux bootable cd called Slax Live CD (I just googled live cd) and while it loaded it seemed to be quite slow and choppy and wouldn't load firefox etc.

Could it be that my laptop really just is that bad and that 5 years later everything is just too much for it ?:(
Is it likely that XP may have become alot more resource hungry than it was 5 years ago?

I might try a different live cd incase the one I used didn't work well with my laptop. Does anyone recommend any names as there seem to be a few out there?
EDIT : I should have mentioned that I'm a complete beginner at this non windows stuff...and I'm not any great shakes at the windows stuff either .

hearny

No its pretty much the same in terms of resources.

If I were you I would contact them and let them know you are not happy.

I repair computers and I sometimes take machines back if the performance is not wat was expected.

You could run task manager to see what processess are using up cpu / memory.

Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click on the processes tab you can then click on cpu to order by cpu usage or memory usage to order by memory usage.

Make note of any processes that use alot.

I have two thoughts here. Either they repaired the OS rather than reinstalling (which is utterly useless) or else your laptop doesn't have enough RAM, especially if it has 256MB or less. In this case it would have ran ok until the anti-virus was installed, at which point it would slow to a crawl. Check how much RAM you have.

Black Swan

Fistycuffs wrote: »

I've considered contacting the company again but I don't want to make a fuss if this is what I should be expecting..

You computer with XP reinstalled should not be sluggish. Check to see if this company guarantees its work, and if so, take it back.

Fistycuffs

Karsini wrote: »

I have two thoughts here. Either they repaired the OS rather than reinstalling (which is utterly useless) or else your laptop doesn't have enough RAM, especially if it has 256MB or less. In this case it would have ran ok until the anti-virus was installed, at which point it would slow to a crawl. Check how much RAM you have.

I was definitely told it was a full reinstall. Is there anyway I could check if it was?
All my files were deleted and wiped when I got it back so I presumed that it was a full install.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I feel more confident about bringing it back now.

bhickey

Do you know how much RAM is in the laptop? Start > Control Panel > System and look at the bottom in the 'Computer' section.

ronkmonster

Go to the device manager. Find the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller Group and expand it.
There should be 2 or 3 devices in there usually, look at the properties of the Primary IDE Channel and Secondary IDE Channel. There will be a tab called advanced settings. Check that the current transfer mode is not PIO for any of the channels. It is usually DMA Mode 5 for hard drives and mode 2 for DVD/CD drives

CreepingDeath

What is actually slow about it ?
Is it browsing the net, or starting up programs such as Ms Office ?

If it's the net that is slow, your laptop could be downloading ALL the Windows updates since your Windows XP CD disk was released.
There's a hell of a lot of updates there, I'd say a good 500Mb.

What is your internet connection, a wired connection, wireless, or a mobile/3g usb dongle type ?

Cuddlesworth

Xp SP3 fully updated with anti-virus on a five year old machine can easily be pig slow after a reformat. Ram, cpu and age of hard-drive are all factors in how well it performs in a bloated OS and up to date AV.