XP SP2 Question

I tried doing a search to see if I could find something about this but....


I just switched hard drives and during the staging process I noticed (as I was hoping) how much faster my new SATA drive was than my old crappy 5400 drive.

Not only was it lightning fast on startup, loading, and other tasks, but I was also downloading at 1.2 Mbps through my cable connection (usually never get past 250 kbps). Needless to say this made redownloading many of my programs really easy.

So, I have the basics and go for updating windows as much as I can, I get all the security patches and downloand service pack 2. Right after SP2, everything seems to be running ever so slightly slower, and download speed? nerfed to around 100 kbps.

I did not, however, compare download speeds from the same website and same time of day both before and after SP2, so I cannot account for the difference in servers/locations, etc. but in general it definately has seemed that SP2 has had some adverse effects on my system.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or have experienced something similar?

thx

 

Most Internet Service Providers (ISP) have some speed test files ones can download (Usually large empty text-files). Maybe try to test with those.

If you have usual high ping times, then you might consider looking at TCP Optimizer.

The most talked about change with XP SP2 is the limit of how many simultaneous connection attempts (Half-open) one can have (Max 50). This mostly affect P2P applications like BitTorrent.