Windows XP goes full retard when doing more intensive tasks - Hardware & Software

Well, since I've got my new motherboard, HD and RAM (Had to upgrade those, since the old mobo died, the old HD was too small and old RAM was outdated) doing more intensive tasks (For example unzipping a file with many files inside, installing some updates, having too many tabs, etc.) my computer starts acting like it ran out of GDI resources (Titlebars get all whacked, fonts and images disappear, nothing wants to run saying that there's too few resources, etc.) even though that's not the case since I've changed to maximum GDI resource limit to higher values, was looking in Task Manager for GDI resource usage and didn't see any abnormalities. Bascially, doing anything complex involving reading and writing data causes Windows XP to get massive diarrhea and shits itself until it just crashes. Oddly enough, playing more complex video games doesn't seem to cause anything like that. There are my specs and all that jazz (reported by Piriform Speccy): [url]http://speccy.piriform.com/results/NM27xXNuakW87JlRHsYFPRM[/url] Please help since it's more annoying than a recording of Justin Bieber crapcore dubstep mashup played on a Vuvuzela being played back from a tape constructed from hardened crap fossils and rotting bacon being played back on a vinyl player smashed into a walkman and then thrown out of a window from the top of the Bur Dubai.

How much RAM do you have? A 32-bit Windows XP might be limiting it.

Wow that system is really old. What did you upgrade from if I may ask? I think it's best for you to do a disk check, since it happens when apparently your disk is at high load. A memtest couldn't hurt either.

If you used the same Windows XP install across machines, then that's likely the problem. When Windows installs itself on one set of hardware, it configures itself for that hardware. Throwing it on a different set of hardware trashes up the registry, drivers and other configs and can cause bizarre problems. That's assuming you mirrored the drive (which you likely didn't) If it was a fresh install, you might need to install the chipset and disk controller drivers.

[QUOTE=A big fat ass;36683802]How much RAM do you have? A 32-bit Windows XP might be limiting it.[/QUOTE] 2GB of RAM. No bottlenecking from the system. [QUOTE=Drumdevil;36685585]Wow that system is really old. What did you upgrade from if I may ask? I think it's best for you to do a disk check, since it happens when apparently your disk is at high load. A memtest couldn't hurt either.[/QUOTE] Well, I've used HD Sentinel and it says that the HD is in perfect status. I haven't done a Memtest but I've been thinking about it, even though that the RAM is fresh. [QUOTE=bohb;36686078]If you used the same Windows XP install across machines, then that's likely the problem. When Windows installs itself on one set of hardware, it configures itself for that hardware. Throwing it on a different set of hardware trashes up the registry, drivers and other configs and can cause bizarre problems. That's assuming you mirrored the drive (which you likely didn't) If it was a fresh install, you might need to install the chipset and disk controller drivers.[/QUOTE] I've formatted the Hard Drive and installed everything fresh, so that shouldn't be a problem. I've also installed all the Motherboard drivers.

Seriously? No one can help?

Maybe you should consider upgrading to Windows 7.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;36694001]Maybe you should consider upgrading to Windows 7.[/QUOTE] Sure, only if I could... But since I live in Poland Windows 7 is more expensive than high-tier RAM sticks. Ain't that great? Any other ideas?

Come on, seriously you have no idea how to help it?

There isn't really anything you can do without upgrading your entire system and your OS

Take apart the whole thing, everything out of the case, and rebuild it. Clean everything you can, like the RAM pins (carefully!), GFX card pins, etc. Use a brush to dust out every flake of dust you can find. Carefully remove the old thermal paste from your CPU with a soft rag and benzene/White spirit. Re apply new thermal paste. You can use benzene to carefully clean the RAM pins as well, don't use white spirit for that. Afterwards, delete all partitions on your drive and re install windows on a fresh formatted partition. This manner helped me fix tons of weird problems when I worked at a PC shop building systems/tech support. If you can't find it, start over.

More often than not, performing a clean install with windows XP fixes a lot of issues that I would get after changing my hardware.

If you don't want to upgrade your whole PC, I would say for the minimum to upgrade your processor for sure. Your next bet is a 64-bit OS and probably upgrading to at LEAST 4 gigs of RAM, but I would go for 8 gigs as RAM is cheap. Dust out your PC, check temperatures, use ccleaner, microsoft security essentials, and combofix. But I would just buy a new system or fully upgrade everything, but I know that can be expensive.