Why does my computer seem slow?

My PC has never really seem to run at its full potential, i may be wrong but i just want to make sure. Im questioning my Winxp64, does a 64bit OS that isnt using 4 or more gigs of ram tend to slow down a PC compared to a 32bit system? Im comparing my system to my friends PC which we built last Christmas. here is his setup:
e6750 OCed to 3.4 with aftermarket HS/F
2 gigs crucial balistix PC8000
Powercolor HD3870
Asus P5E X38
WD caviar SE 250 gig sata
700 watt psu

My system is listed in my specs.

My start up time seems longer than his, pausing in and out of games to the desktop is defiantly slower, he would have instant response from COD4 but when i do it from COD4 it takes about 5 seconds and waits on a black screen then goes to my desktop. his 3dmark 06 score was 12300, mine was 13000 with the 8.8 beta drivers but it has dropped 2000 points by switching to the 8.8 final release drivers. But my computer seemed to be slower than his even before i made the change in drivers and had the 13000 3dmark06 score.

[aharvey]

do you run a lot of applications in your background? AntiVirus stuff will kill performance.

[J-Man]

Anti virus can cause slowdowns and maybe a defrag on the HDD will help.

[Asylum]

Also check your memory timings to see if there set correctly.

[francis511]

Other people get better fps with 8.8. Issues like this can be random if it`s frustrating. Tried a tweak program to speed up responsiveness ?

[J-Man]

I don't notice any performance difference in the change of graphics drivers lol.

[r9]

Yes try different Antivir and Defragment your HDD.
I had interesting problem in WinXP I had process running in the background svchost.exe that was using 50% od CPU at all times when I closed that process via task manager than I lose sound. To regain sound I would go and activate Windows Audio service. Start up Task Manager and see if there is some process that is using you CPU or some of your memory.

[Urbklr]

I found 64Bit much slower than 32Bit for me, and don't worry about 3Dmark06...My 4850 scores nearly the same as my old 2900XT.

[r9]

I got from winXP 32 bit to Vista 64bit and I like it. It is far from perfect . Doesn`t run 20% of the software that I used on XP. Other 80% it runs perfect. It is more responsive. In WinXP on clean install and drivers it is fast as light but when I install 50 programs it lose responsivnes. In Vista clean or full loaded same responsivnes. And I lost all my save games on Vista (when I started supporting Vista).

[AsRock]

Originally Posted by Urbklr

I found 64Bit much slower than 32Bit for me, and don't worry about 3Dmark06...My 4850 scores nearly the same as my old 2900XT.

If i remember right i get near 13k in 3DMark all though my card is overclocked. But yeah 3D Mark is not the real thing. Never found XP x64 slower though.


like others are saying maybe you got a lot of stuff running in the background. As you only THINK it's slower i think if it bothering much to do more tests with your friend and make sure you both are using the same settings in game and in CCC.

Originally Posted by aharvey

do you run a lot of applications in your background? AntiVirus stuff will kill performance.

i am not running 43 proccess in task manager and as im writing this the cpu usage goes from 0- 5%, commit charge is 778M/3963M altho i have no clue what that means.

Proccesses using the most mem usage are:

firefox.exe *32 86k
svchost.exe 42k
aim6.exe 39k
RTHDCPL.exe *32 25k
explorer.exe 22k
SixEngine.exe *32 21k
ashServ.exe *32 18k
ashWebSv.exe *32 14k
SmartDoctor.exe *32 15k
CCC.exe 14k
searchindexer.exe 13k
svchost.exe 10k

then the rest is less than 9k


there are 7 processes of svchost.exe all using more than 3k and the most using 42k


my anti virus is Avast home edition, is there another virus software that is free that uses less resources?

I will run a defrag

Originally Posted by Asylum

Also check your memory timings to see if there set correctly.

my memory is set at 4-4-4-12 @1033 2.2v in bios. stock settings are 5-5-5-18 1200 voltage 2.1-2.3

[hat]

you've got too much shit running at startup, for example AIM. look in the preferences and find th option for that. Also take a quick run through start>run>msconfig>startup and see what you can get rid of

Originally Posted by hat

you've got too much shit running at startup, for example AIM. look in the preferences and find th option for that. Also take a quick run through start>run>msconfig>startup and see what you can get rid of

I do not have aim start with windows start up. What i posted was after running the comp and using it for a few hours. I start aim after windows starts, and i did have it start with windows when i had 32bit and i did it a few times with 64 bit and it seemed much slower with 64 bit.

[J-Man]

Originally Posted by Urbklr

I found 64Bit much slower than 32Bit for me, and don't worry about 3Dmark06...My 4850 scores nearly the same as my old 2900XT.

can some one compile a list of all things i can uncheck in msconfig, i dont wanna uncheck anything that is needed to run the comp. i unchecked a few things already but dont wanna make any mistakes. thanks. also is it ok to start in diagnostics verses normal start in msconfig, because wont that be much faster?

[hat]

I don't even know what all you have in your msconfig.

Originally Posted by hat

I don't even know what all you have in your msconfig.

i will list it all for you then

how do i post images that are 4.2mb on paint here?

[Urbklr]

Originally Posted by AsRock

If i remember right i get near 13k in 3DMark all though my card is overclocked. But yeah 3D Mark is not the real thing. Never found XP x64 slower though.


like others are saying maybe you got a lot of stuff running in the background. As you only THINK it's slower i think if it bothering much to do more tests with your friend and make sure you both are using the same settings in game and in CCC.

Yea, 3Dmark the same...everything else is nearly twice as fast

Both 64Bit and 32Bit were on clean installs, was slow from the start. It was very unresponsive, everything seemed very very sluggish. I read it had something to do with my SATA controller or something, idk.

[hat]

Originally Posted by quasar923

how do i post images that are 4.2mb on paint here?

don't save it as a bmp, save it as a jpg.

pics of start up processes in MSconfig in attachments.

[AsRock]

i see your running aVast, so try disabling Standerd Shield as that will scan files like crazy.

Originally Posted by AsRock

i see your running aVast, so try disabling Standerd Shield as that will scan files like crazy.

how do i do that?

[psyko12]

I was a previous user of win xp x64 although I never found it slow for me.. It ran perfectly, just tweak/optimize the services/applications that you don't use and then try a HDD defrag.. And see how well the system improves...