nzsmarty

I'm using the standard IDE driver from XP, but it's running UltraDMA5 and I can't see how that's getting in the way. I did find a solution however. A program called CachemanXP 1.1. Outer Technologies My system is now behaving itself - smart cache and paging file management appears to be this utility's forte. The above describes the problem I was having. MAJOR slowdown due to disk trashing/thrashing. I'm posting this here so others might find the solution too.

Ok. I have 512MB ram on a 3Ghz notebook w 40GB HD / 12 GB free. I have: Defragmented (daily) Reg cleaned (just now) All visual effects are disabled (have been from day 1 ;-) Disk cleanup (just now) Swap file - constant (for many months) Swap file is even defragmented What you may not have noticed is that I am not complaining about XP being slow. I'm complaining about a disk intensive app pushing all other apps and the OS into the cache. For example, burning a CD. Instead of allocating a buffer and reusing it, the app seems to be getting a new buffer allocated for every track. Result: after 1 burned CD (640MB), nearly all my physical memory is taken up by the CD burning app and buffer (with some non-swappable OS stuff), and the rest (other application and all swappable OS) is sitting in the disk cache. Somehow I don't see how disabling visual effects, etc is relevant to this. However, I am desperate, and I have carried out all your suggestions. I'm sad to report no change. This one's a real ********

Hi Whenever my XP Pro SP1 (+ all critical updates) system is asked to do something with a big file (write a CD, copy a 500MB+ file, convert WAV to MP3, watch a movie, etc), it pushes all of the existing apps and a lot of the OS to the disk cache. Just to Alt-TAB to another app takes 30-60 seconds (I have a pentium 4 4GHz notebook). And just to bring up a print dialog or right click on the desktop menu can take 20-30 seconds to come up. It's insane and it's driving me nuts. I tried setting the cache for a server and for a workstation - no difference. It used to run fine, so it's something I have done. I've Googled my *** off, I have been all over MS, IRC and all over the place, and so far I am still to run into someone who's even HEARD about this problem at all, let alone knows how to go about fixing it. Is there anyone here who is able and willing? I'd be SO grateful.