Thanks in advance.
Quote:
It's about time that I write this. I have had too many people tell me that they need to reboot their computer right in the middle of an XP group because of performance problems.
There is a service in Windows XP that is turned on by default when you install it. This service has no business being turned on and has very little practical use and yet it has been the cause of many people's frustration. It took me about 8 months of troubleshooting to determine this was my problem. The fix is very easy and I have already helped a dozen people with this already.
Before you go run off and try to implement the cure you need to know if this is affecting you or not. The problem I was seeing was showing up after a reboot and the system had been online for a while, maybe a couple hours maybe a couple days. It wasn't very consistent. When it showed up I would notice everything all of a sudden just run very slowly. The next time you experience something like this, the first thing you should do to diagnose your problem is to start up the Task Manager. This can be done by first minimizing your EQ screen (press <alt>+<enter> to get to a windowed screen then press <shift>+<alt>+r to get your cursor out of EQ). Then you can right click on your task bar (this is the usually gray bar at the bottom of the screen where your Start button is and other icons show up. Some people move the bar to the top or have it auto-hide) and select "Task Manager". Once you have Task Manager open click on the performance tab. There are 2 very important things to look for here. The first is your CPU% graph and the other is memory which I'll talk about a little later on. If you notice that your CPU% is pegged at 100% then you should look to see what process is consuming all of your CPU. Do this by clicking on the "process" tab. This will bring up all of the visible processes running on your system. There will be a column next to each process that shows CPU. If you see a process called "svchost.exe" consuming alot of CPU (probably as high as 99%) then you probably have the problem I am describing. If you do not have these symptoms then you can skip the fix described next and look towards the bottom for other performance tips.
The problem with the svchost.exe comes from a service in XP called SSDP. This service enables discovery of Universal Plug-n-Play devices on your home network. It is rarely ever needed and yet enabled by default. What it does is scan your network constantly (and I do mean CONSTANTLY) looking for new plug and play devices. If you do not know if you need this on then chances are you probably do not. To fix this problem just disable the service and reboot. To disable the service you can right-click on the icon on your desktop called "My Computer" and select "manage". This will open a new window. Towards the bottom of the list on the left hand pane you will see "Services and Applications". Click on the "+" next to this to expand this tree. Then left-click on "Services" to show you the running services in the right hand pane. Scroll the right hand pane down until you see something named "SSDP". Right click on that service and select "properties". This will bring up a new window. In the middle of that window you will see a pull down menu labeled "Startup type:". By default it will probably have "Automatic" selected. Change this to "Disabled" and then click OK, exit EQ and reboot your PC. That's all there is to it. I have helped a dozen people already with this fix and I am now able to leave my PC on 24 hours a day and seldom ever have to reboot.
There is a service in Windows XP that is turned on by default when you install it. This service has no business being turned on and has very little practical use and yet it has been the cause of many people's frustration. It took me about 8 months of troubleshooting to determine this was my problem. The fix is very easy and I have already helped a dozen people with this already.
Before you go run off and try to implement the cure you need to know if this is affecting you or not. The problem I was seeing was showing up after a reboot and the system had been online for a while, maybe a couple hours maybe a couple days. It wasn't very consistent. When it showed up I would notice everything all of a sudden just run very slowly. The next time you experience something like this, the first thing you should do to diagnose your problem is to start up the Task Manager. This can be done by first minimizing your EQ screen (press <alt>+<enter> to get to a windowed screen then press <shift>+<alt>+r to get your cursor out of EQ). Then you can right click on your task bar (this is the usually gray bar at the bottom of the screen where your Start button is and other icons show up. Some people move the bar to the top or have it auto-hide) and select "Task Manager". Once you have Task Manager open click on the performance tab. There are 2 very important things to look for here. The first is your CPU% graph and the other is memory which I'll talk about a little later on. If you notice that your CPU% is pegged at 100% then you should look to see what process is consuming all of your CPU. Do this by clicking on the "process" tab. This will bring up all of the visible processes running on your system. There will be a column next to each process that shows CPU. If you see a process called "svchost.exe" consuming alot of CPU (probably as high as 99%) then you probably have the problem I am describing. If you do not have these symptoms then you can skip the fix described next and look towards the bottom for other performance tips.
The problem with the svchost.exe comes from a service in XP called SSDP. This service enables discovery of Universal Plug-n-Play devices on your home network. It is rarely ever needed and yet enabled by default. What it does is scan your network constantly (and I do mean CONSTANTLY) looking for new plug and play devices. If you do not know if you need this on then chances are you probably do not. To fix this problem just disable the service and reboot. To disable the service you can right-click on the icon on your desktop called "My Computer" and select "manage". This will open a new window. Towards the bottom of the list on the left hand pane you will see "Services and Applications". Click on the "+" next to this to expand this tree. Then left-click on "Services" to show you the running services in the right hand pane. Scroll the right hand pane down until you see something named "SSDP". Right click on that service and select "properties". This will bring up a new window. In the middle of that window you will see a pull down menu labeled "Startup type:". By default it will probably have "Automatic" selected. Change this to "Disabled" and then click OK, exit EQ and reboot your PC. That's all there is to it. I have helped a dozen people already with this fix and I am now able to leave my PC on 24 hours a day and seldom ever have to reboot.
