Re: Computer running very slow

Hi Kathy:

The speed of your connection to the internet has nothing to do with the speed at which your computer operates.

A computer usually runs slowly because its memory and CPU processing capacity are being used up by having too many resource-heavy applications running at the same time.

There are several tests you can perform to determine what is causing your computer to run slowly. They are tedious, but they work.

First try this: Open Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and go to the Processes tab. Make Task Manager display the processes in decreasing order of CPU time. Also, set Task Manager to be 'Always on Top' of other windows and park it in a corner of your monitor. When you feel your computer is running slowly, look over to Task Manager and make a note of the two or three processes that are taking up most of the CPU's capacity. You can easily identify what those processes are with a web search.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Recycler29 wrote:
I have a Dell XPS 400 with Windows XP Media edition Professional 5.1.2600. The main memory installed is RAM 1024MB. There is an Intel Pentium dual processor CPU 2.8GHz. Processor speed 2.73 GHz. NVIDIA Geforce 7300LE video card. I am not a total beginner but can understand some things concerning the computer. The computer runs extremely slow with the fastest available cable internet connection. Ever on booting the computer, it takes more and more time each day. I have run spybot and ad-aware constantly. The computer came with Trend Micro PC-cillin security software that is up to date.

I was told to look at what was running in the background by doing a ctrl-alt-delete and found that I have 55 processes running and only 2-3% CPU usage. I don't know what this means and was hoping someone could tell me what I need to do to speed this up a bit. the compute ris not but 1 yr. old. Should I buy more memory? Thanks for any guidance or advice! Kathy

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: CPU performance peaks and stalls
    ... Open Task Manager and watch the processes (sort them by the CPU column ... will run when there is an Internet connection. ... Not all programs that reduce their CPU usage when Task Manager is opened ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Task bar freezes for some minutes
    ... it started to "hang" for a couple of minutes and then come back. ... I had task manager running during a "hang" and CPU use was only about ... I also have Internet Connection Sharing enabled, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: high cpu
    ... When a line would go across, the cpu of the ... ups would shoot up to like 68% and then drop to 0. ... >> internet connection, my system goes to 98% idle. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: high cpu
    ... > internet connection, my system goes to 98% idle. ... UPS service/application seemed to use a high percentage of your CPU ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • 100 percent CPU usage
    ... my CPU gets bogged down. ... internet or not, it bogs down. ... manager to kill the program, ... next task manager. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)