From: pete@petezilla.co.uk   
      
   Dear aowxp,   
      
   my parents PC is some years old and is now running very slowly.  It is   
   running XP and is fully updated.  It was quite a reasonable spec when   
   new.  I'm wondering if there is some issue I've failed to spot or just   
   whether the updates over the years to XP and other software such as web   
   browsers have means that this once reasonable machine is now no longer a   
   reasonable specification to run XP.   
      
   The machine (from memory):   
   	Athalon XP 2.0 GHz   
   	1GB ram.   
   	AGP graphics (I think - will be due to its age).   
   	   
   I can't remember the disk size but I think there is plenty free.   
      
   Symptoms are that it takes a long time to boot and when a user logs in   
   there is a lot of disk activity before the machine becomes usable.  Any   
   disk related activity is slow, Loading Firefox is slow, I'd estimate   
   10-15 seconds to load.  Chrome is noticeably faster.   
      
   I've looked at the running processes and there does not appear to be   
   anything unexpected hogging the machine.  Virus checker is behaving.   
   With no user interaction the CPU utilisation is low - as you would   
   expect.  I did try running linux on it a year or two ago on a second   
   disk and that was slow as well - that tends to eliminate any specific   
   software installation issues as a source of concern.   
      
   Thoughts?   
      
   Pete   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)