After installing the eight or nine windows critical updates of 10/11/05 my laptop runs very . . . very slow. I created a system restore point on 10/10/05, however none of several system restore points are able to restore the laptop to any day. In other words, system restore does not work. I am considering using the dell restoration CD to go back to day one and start from scratch. What say you . . . good plan / bad plan. I have run chkdsk /f; done the disk cleanup thing including Run > %temp%, ran defrag in safe mode, and still the laptop is very . . . very slow. If possible, I would like to avoid the restoration option, however I will do what I have to do.

Hi Zap,

Could you tell us what is your laptop's specification?

Make sure you run anti-virus software because the problem could be virus.

Ahmed

My laptop's specification:

Dell Computer Corporation Inspiron 8100 laptop
Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600
Service Pack 2
30 GB hard drive
512 MB SDRAM
Mobile Intel Pentium III-S, 1133 MHz (8.5 x 133)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Solano i815P
BIOS Type Phoenix (03/03/03)
Video Adapter Dell 8100 (32 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 Go
ESS ES1983S Maestro-3i Audio Accelerator
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive HITACHI_DK23CA-30 (30 GB, 4200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/100)
Optical Drive LG DVD-ROM DRN8080B (8x/24x DVD-ROM)
C: (NTFS) 28576 MB (16371 MB free)
Network Adapter 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible)
Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter (10/100)

If more is needed, let me know.

"Make sure you run anti-virus software because the problem could be virus."
I forgot to say that I have already run a virus scan and the computer is virus free.

Hi zap,

It's possible that latest updates has triggered some unwanted or unneeded processes/services.

<Start/Run> type msconfig and take a look at what is loading/running at startup...

<Start/Run> type services.msc and see if you have unneeded active services.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I removed 4 or 5 things from msconfig and 1 from services.msc.

Still no help. I have no idea what services are needed and which services I can stop.

zap

Take a look at this resource:
http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm

Hope it will help.

You may also consider having some malware running, so it will not hurt opening a new thread on Malicious code forum and post a HijackThis log there

Chris

Hey Zap. I installed all those yesterday also. I have XP HE instead of pro, but have SP2. I did not have any trouble and everything seems to be running fine.
You have, I'm sure checked for virus, malware, etc. You might post a HJT log for someone to check out as Chris suggested. Good luck.
kenneth

The most conspicuous problem was the slow mouse response. As an example, I clicked on Start > All Programs > and then System Tools. At this point the mouse pointer lagged way way behind the mouse movement. I did an update of the GeForce2 Go video adapter and I am now back in business. I have had problems with this video card in this laptop from day one.

Video Adapter Dell 8100 (32 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 Go

Thanks for your help.

zap