Re: XP Professional SP@ is slow --- very slow
- From: Leonard Grey <l.grey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 18:06:04 -0400
Most of what you checked for does not affect the speed of your computer. Your computer runs just as quickly whether your hard drive is full or empty. The speed at which your computer runs depends on what's going on in memory, not the hard disk.
The most probable cause of slow performance by far is a malware infection. "Done scans with both Symantec 360 and TrendMicro" doesn't say much, because it doesn't say how these were installed, what settings were used, how up-to-date, etc.
The second most probable cause of slow performance is simply that the applications you have open, including background processes, require more memory than your computer has to offer. "...the thing is chewing up 90%+..." doesn't tell us what processes are involved.
Open Task Manager and park it in a corner of your monitor. Go to the Processes tab and display the processes in decreasing order of CPU usage. Do again, and this time order the processes in decreasing order of memory usage. In each case, when your computer acts slowly, notice which process or processes take up the majority of the CPU resources and memory. Look up the names of those processes with a search engine ... that could explain your problem.
The above won't work for sophisticated malware infections, including rootkits. Your are well advised to show your computer to a professional.
If your computer is of recent vintage, say, over the last four years, then unless you're running a busy server you won't see a big speed improvement from defragmenting, even with third-party tools. There are still good reasons for defragmenting a hard drive, but these days speed isn't one of them.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est
kgkphd wrote:
My computer is runnig very slow. I've:.
1. Cleaned out all pictures, movies, etc that take up file space.
2. Used Disk Clean-Up
3. Taken out internet temp fils.
4. Taken out desktop temp files
5. Run ctr-alt-delete to see what's running and check performance --- the thing is chewing up 90%+ when it should be much less.
6. Gone to a clean-boot status
7. Defragmented
8. Done scans with both Symantec 360 and TrendMicro (with only one at a time on the computer)
9. Deleted programs that I do not need
There's lots of stiff no longer there that was. 70GB free and 23 GB used.
The only thing I can think of that would cause such a CPU usage is a background program runnibg somewhere, but I can't find it. Nothig is listed at ctr-alt-delete.
Does anybody have any ideas as to how I can find what's running and how to get rid of it?
Thanks
Ken
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