XP on iMac - Sluggish performance

[philbagg]

iMac, late 2006 Generation

XP info:

System:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service pack 3

Computer:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU
T7400 @ 2.16GHz
2.16GHz, 2.98 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension

Leopard info:
Version 10.5.8, same hardware.

I've installed XP via Boot Camp. The internal drive in the mac is 230gb (total), and I allocated 60gb to XP. I formatted the partition to NTFS (not quick), and completed the rest of the setup. I then inserted the Leopard DVD and installed the boot camp drivers. Then I downloaded all available updates for XP, and the only other thing I've installed is Mozilla Firefox. I've also made changes to the system using an optimization guide (link below), and the performance seems to be the same before and after.

http://www.tim-carter.com/music-production/optimize-your-pc-for-music-production.php - I've only done as far as number 20.

The performance is very sluggish. It shows most while scrolling. It's not smooth and jitters a lot. On previous installations of XP on this computer, I've run audio software (Pro Tools/Cubase) and the performance is terrible. It can't handle even the simplest of tasks.

On the Mac OSX side of the machine, however, performance is fine. Everything runs smoothly.

As far as I know, the specs of the computer are pretty good. I can't understand why performance wouldn't be up to scratch

So, I'm just wondering if anybody has any ideas on what's going on? Is this normal, or am I missing something? It seems like Windows isn't using the full power of the hardware.

If you need any further info, I'll post it. Thanks for your time.

 

[Consultant]

Windows is technically CRAP for music production. That's why almost no one use Windows for music creation.

Almost all successful musicians use Mac OS X.

 

[philbagg]

Windows is technically CRAP for music production. That's why almost no one use Windows for music creation.

Almost all successful musicians use Mac OS X.

There are tons of people out there who use windows for music production. I have a PC here too, and it is like lightning. I rarely encounter problems with it. I wouldn't prefer it if I didn't feel it was a better option.

However, this is besides the point. It's not only audio software that's sluggish. Everything is slow, especially for a machine that has almost nothing on it. Even OSX is only freshly installed on it, and I haven't installed a lot on that either.

 

[vistadude]

The problem is most of these tips you've followed will make windows slower rather than faster. The only one you should follow is #17 (disable automatic updates).

Secondly, if you want better performance, use a version of windows xp that has sp2 rather than sp3. SP3 is slower.

If you try these and still have slow performance, this probably indicates that your hard drive is going bad or apple crippled the windows drivers.

 

[philbagg]

The problem is most of these tips you've followed will make windows slower rather than faster. The only one you should follow is #17 (disable automatic updates).

Secondly, if you want better performance, use a version of windows xp that has sp2 rather than sp3. SP3 is slower.

If you try these and still have slow performance, this probably indicates that your hard drive is going bad or apple crippled the windows drivers.

I have a version of SP 2 here. Is there any way to roll back to it, or do I have to remove the partition and start again?

Thanks!

Edit: If these tips make windows slower, apart from automatic updates, then how come the performance is relatively the same before and after

 

[vistadude]

Hi Phillbag,

I believe you cannot roll back. You will have to do a full install. However, you shouldn't need to create the partition with bootcamp again, it should be there already.

Choose quick format, do not do the full format. I am using a FAT32 format on a macbook and it runs quite well. I was told that NTFS is faster however.

 

[philbagg]

Hi Phillbag,

I believe you cannot roll back. You will have to do a full install. However, you shouldn't need to create the partition with bootcamp again, it should be there already.

Choose quick format, do not do the full format. I am using a FAT32 format on a macbook and it runs quite well. I was told that NTFS is faster however.

Alright cool, I don't mind re-installing, its just the format that takes ages normally. A quick one should be ok. I shall report back and tell you how I get on.

 

[nrajack]

The problem is most of these tips you've followed will make windows slower rather than faster. The only one you should follow is #17 (disable automatic updates).

Secondly, if you want better performance, use a version of windows xp that has sp2 rather than sp3. SP3 is slower.

If you try these and still have slow performance, this probably indicates that your hard drive is going bad or apple crippled the windows drivers.

You're so full of crap you don't know what you are talking about. I run XP Home sp3 on an aging Toshiba Satellite 1955 laptop (2.53 GHz P4, 1 gig ram) and other than a longer boot time, it runs as fast, if not faster than the previous sp1 install (I skipped right past sp2 and went straight to sp3). I have the core setup down to 19 processes and a total ram load of just under 100 meg.

I absolutely will not do Bootcamp and Windoze on my Macs. Why should I muck up a prefectly good machine with an inferior OS? I only keep a Winbox around to use Sonar as a recording system for the remaining projects I have on that setup. I do prefer to use Digital Performer on my Macs - PT is way too expensive at the moment.

To the OP - part of your problem is a small hard drive - only 230 gig if I understand you correctly. That really should be bigger. Too small of a drive will cramp things. Another is ProTools does not support running the Bootcamp/Windoze combo that I know of. PT can run native on OSX as can Cubase - why not just go that way and save yourself the headaches?

 

[philbagg]

To the OP - part of your problem is a small hard drive - only 230 gig if I understand you correctly. That really should be bigger. Too small of a drive will cramp things. Another is ProTools does not support running the Bootcamp/Windoze combo that I know of. PT can run native on OSX as can Cubase - why not just go that way and save yourself the headaches?

I prefer windows, and I just tend to get a lot more work done on it (I work quicker on it - not that I don't know my way around OSX, because I do, but I'm just faster on XP)

So, should I bother rolling back to SP2?

 

[philbagg]

Just wanted to inform everybody that, thanks to the replies on this thread, my curiousity moved to the boot camp drivers. And due to it being SP3, it requires boot camp 2.1. I had 2.0. So I reinstalled XP for the millionth time, extremely slow as usual. Installed boot camp 2.1, and a lot of windows updates, and it's running like lightning

Thanks everybody!

 

[vistadude]

Read the last paragraph here http://www.insidehw.com/Software/Operating-System/Windows-XP-SP3-vs.-SP2.html

Windows XP with SP3 is slower than the same install with SP2. You didn't even use SP2 so you would have no idea that it's faster than SP3. Your suggestion about the small hard drive is silly. 60 gb is plenty big enough to run a few windows programs.

Nobody cares to hear that you don't like Windows or bootcamp. This whole message board is for running windows on a mac, so other people do want to run windows.

You're so full of crap you don't know what you are talking about. I run XP Home sp3 on an aging Toshiba Satellite 1955 laptop (2.53 GHz P4, 1 gig ram) and other than a longer boot time, it runs as fast, if not faster than the previous sp1 install (I skipped right past sp2 and went straight to sp3). I have the core setup down to 19 processes and a total ram load of just under 100 meg.

I absolutely will not do Bootcamp and Windoze on my Macs. Why should I muck up a prefectly good machine with an inferior OS? I only keep a Winbox around to use Sonar as a recording system for the remaining projects I have on that setup. I do prefer to use Digital Performer on my Macs - PT is way too expensive at the moment.

To the OP - part of your problem is a small hard drive - only 230 gig if I understand you correctly. That really should be bigger. Too small of a drive will cramp things. Another is ProTools does not support running the Bootcamp/Windoze combo that I know of. PT can run native on OSX as can Cubase - why not just go that way and save yourself the headaches?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

The performance is very sluggish. It shows most while scrolling. It's not smooth and jitters a lot. On previous installations of XP on this computer, I've run audio software (Pro Tools/Cubase) and the performance is terrible. It can't handle even the simplest of tasks.

Sounds to me like you have a driver problem. Are the drivers up to date? Did you update bootcamp to the latest release? Can you try manually updating your video card drivers? Apple's not known for releasing good drivers for Windows at all, but they are (generally) usable at least.

 

[nrajack]

Read the last paragraph here http://www.insidehw.com/Software/Operating-System/Windows-XP-SP3-vs.-SP2.html

Windows XP with SP3 is slower than the same install with SP2. You didn't even use SP2 so you would have no idea that it's faster than SP3. Your suggestion about the small hard drive is silly. 60 gb is plenty big enough to run a few windows programs.

Nobody cares to hear that you don't like Windows or bootcamp. This whole message board is for running windows on a mac, so other people do want to run windows.

So games ran slightly slower - the article writer doesn't even give any hard numbers of how slow. So the assertion that sp3 runs slower than sp2 doesn't hold water to this electronics engineer. Give me hard numbers. I've been around these machines a hell of a lot longer than you have - started programming and otherwise working with computers back in the 1970's.

And as far as the hdd size - I still stand by what I said - too small a drive will give you problems running programs and storing data. Nobody in their right mind would run a machine with that small a main drive.

Further this whole site/message board is NOT for running Windoze on a Mac - just this thread.

 

[vistadude]

Click next, the writer game benchmarks. A better way is to just count how much longer it takes to run programs. I know photoshop and illustrator got noticeably slower. What more do you want?

Another reason not to run SP3: http://www.crn.com/security/224600002;jsessionid=GCWELBLSLSC1LQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN

So games ran slightly slower - the article writer doesn't even give any hard numbers of how slow. So the assertion that sp3 runs slower than sp2 doesn't hold water to this electronics engineer. Give me hard numbers. I've been around these machines a hell of a lot longer than you have - started programming and otherwise working with computers back in the 1970's.

And as far as the hdd size - I still stand by what I said - too small a drive will give you problems running programs and storing data. Nobody in their right mind would run a machine with that small a main drive.

Further this whole site/message board is NOT for running Windoze on a Mac - just this thread.

 

[nrajack]

Click next, the writer game benchmarks. A better way is to just count how much longer it takes to run programs. I know photoshop and illustrator got noticeably slower. What more do you want?

Another reason not to run SP3: http://www.crn.com/security/224600002;jsessionid=GCWELBLSLSC1LQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN

Okay, I clicked next - there is/are NO writer game benchmarks. The only possible benchmark that there's any significant difference is in the minimum frames per second for Crysis - the average fps is almost the same. The differences in the rest of the numbers don't mean squat. As I mentioned before, a properly optimized XP sp3 install can be as fast or faster than sp1 or sp2. I skipped sp2 because I never needed it until a certain piece of recording hw (TC Powercore) needed sp2 minimum for the newer drivers and I decided as long as I was doing the upgrade I would go whole hog. I turned off the security center and a whole bunch of other stuff - my daw computer doesn't go on the net.

And as for your second reference - that's not a fault of the Windows sp3 update but of McAfee antivirus - and they've never been known as a decent antivirus program.

And where's you basis for the Photoshop and Illustrator remarks? Got numbers? There's nothing in the article on that, either.

 

[vistadude]

I don't run benchmarks dude, nor do i know how or care to. I actually use windows and programs that run on windows, and I have seen illustrator and photoshop run faster in in sp2 vs sp3. I don't hold a stopwatch in my hand, I just see them lag a lot more with each "update."

Okay, I clicked next - there is/are NO writer game benchmarks. The only possible benchmark that there's any significant difference is in the minimum frames per second for Crysis - the average fps is almost the same. The differences in the rest of the numbers don't mean squat. As I mentioned before, a properly optimized XP sp3 install can be as fast or faster than sp1 or sp2. I skipped sp2 because I never needed it until a certain piece of recording hw (TC Powercore) needed sp2 minimum for the newer drivers and I decided as long as I was doing the upgrade I would go whole hog. I turned off the security center and a whole bunch of other stuff - my daw computer doesn't go on the net.

And as for your second reference - that's not a fault of the Windows sp3 update but of McAfee antivirus - and they've never been known as a decent antivirus program.

And where's you basis for the Photoshop and Illustrator remarks? Got numbers? There's nothing in the article on that, either.