SP2 slows down the computer

[bbbngowc]

May be this has already been discussed but, what is the minimum recommended requirements for XP Pro with SP2? I've installed SP2 on computers with 128MB of memory and the computer moves at a crawl now. These systems were fine before the update. On systems with 256MB and higer, they are working wonderfully.

Any suggestions or input on this?

[LLXX]

...then don't install SP2.

I'm still using an original 5.1.2600 (non-SP) version, it works well enough.

Of course, if you have software which will only run under SP2...

Edited September 14, 2006 by LLXX

[Zxian]

The minimum resource requirements are still the same as before. 233MHz Processor or higher, and 64MB of RAM.

There really isn't that much more resource wise between SP1 and SP2. If you disable the security center service, you won't have that eating things up.

In the end though - I'd suggest getting more RAM. PC100 and PC133 RAM might be hard to find retail, but there's TONS of it floating around on various buy'n'sell sites. I recently bought 2 sticks of 128MB and 1 stick of 512MB (all PC133) for $15 USD. When I upgraded my girlfriend's parents computer from 128MB to 256MB, the difference was quite noticable. Sure the computer doesn't fly now (PIII 700), but there's no more waiting for XP to write pages to disk.

Just search on eBay for what you need (I'm guessing it's SDRAM. You'll find plenty of cheap stuff there.

[CoffeeFiend]

I agree with Zxian. Just get more RAM. It should be dirt cheap. I've given away over a dozen sticks of PC133 (256MB), and I'll be giving a couple 512MB sticks soon (to my dad - along with a motherboard and CPU too). It should be dirt cheap (you might find someone wanting to get rid of some, even for free), even new it shouldn't cost too much (25$ perhaps?)

Not that installing XP on low end systems is my specialty, but I remember installing XP on a few friend's old PCs a few years ago. Anything less than 256MB was already painfully slow back then (and that was pre-SP2). 128MB was quite sluggish (and slowed down to a crawl once you started using apps). 64Mb might work, and I'm sure someone would enjoy that a lot if their hobby's waiting after a slow PC - almost as exciting as watching paint dry.

CPU wise it didn't seem to matter too much, one had a P3 633, and it ran XP almost as fast as a ~2GHz PC as it had enough RAM (GUI was just as responsive).

[Zxian]

It should be dirt cheap (you might find someone wanting to get rid of some, even for free), even new it shouldn't cost too much (25$ perhaps?)

SDRAM prices have gone up significantly over the past couple of years. I remember trying to find 128MB of PC133 RAM, and the lowest price I could find for a new stick was $30 CAD.