PC Help

[Martin]

For a couple of months now when I go into task manager it says my Physical Memory is at a quite high number (at present 68%) The thing is I never have anything open exept the interweb but the PC is always slow! I have done a virus scan and it's clean.

 

The computer I have is a Dell e520.

I have 89.5GB free out of 138GB

 

I'm not sure if it's because of all the "borrowed" material I had on my pc.

I have removed all the programs and tomorow I will remove all my music

[PeeWee]

Something your running in the background will be eating up your cpu resources.

hold down ctrl alt & delete then choose task manager.

Once there choose the Processes tab.

Look down the various processes & you should see the one thats using far too much cpu in the third column.

Let me know when you find which one it is & ill try & help more?

This will hopefully be the program causing the slowdown.

[Si]

follow this simple solution.

 

 

START,

RUN,

type MSCONFIG

 

When this window opens,

Select START UP tab

Then Select Disable ALL,

Click APPLY

 

Click OK

 

Click Restart.

 

When your PC reboots it will start up a but faster.

 

 

 

This process turns off all the programs and systems, that come on when you first turn your pc on.

So if you find thst some thing isn't working just open it as you would normally and it will re add itself to the start up tab.

 

HTH Si.

[dark-ryder]

only thing with doing that is you will have to enable your anti-virus everytime you start your pc. i reckon its much better to let the PC start it automatically. just uncheck everything else but keep the one for your anti-virus checked.

 

also, if your running norton get something else, its poo and slows down the computer.

[stoo2000]

I;ve seen issues with the mcaffee security center slowing pc's down..... that comes on dell's so that could maybe be an issue?

[Woogie]

my Gfs machine has Mcaffee installed..... i instantly removed it and voila.... all the problems appear to be fixed

[stoo2000]

McAfee enterprise products (virusscan 8/8.5) are fine, I just always see problems with the home versions..

[Escort boy]

Backup all of your files and do a reformat of the hardrive and reinstall windows. That should cure what ails ya.

 

I did this whenever my pc slowed down for no reason (about 3 times in 2 years) and worked a charm.

[Phantom Menace]

That's normally what I do when my system starts running slow, a good ol' reformat. Alternatively you could do a system disk defrag by going to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.

[stoo2000]

IF you maintained your pc correctly, you wouldnt need to re-format it

 

And tbh, the windows defragmenter is a load of tosh, it hardly defrag's anything.

 

try using Power Defragmenter, its a GUI for Sysinternals Contig.exe (also now owned by microsoft).

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-D...ragmenter.shtml

[Stu]

The issue isn't with fragmented disks, the issue is with people installing all kinds of random Shite and sucking up spyware like a hoover. Spyware is the #1 reason for computers running dog slow. People should spend some time looking at guides on how to remove it so they can correctly maintain their computer. Then again, they should also read guides on how to not be a complete computer-noob so to avoid getting spyware on their machine in the first place!

[davespages]

Buy a faster processor

 

If you cant drive the nail in quick enough, buy a larger hammer! :lol:

 

Seriously tho, sounds like some unnecessary processes running in the background.

 

You have a 2.8ghz processor and 1gb ram which should be ample...

You also have a SATA II hard drive which should be bloody quick data transfer.

 

Double check to make sure your hard drive is operating as quick as it should. Download http://www.hdtune.com/

It will do data benchmarks and give you an idea of the hard disk transfer rate.

 

Also check the Primary controller properties...

 

My computer > Properties > (System Dialog) > Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers

 

Primary IDE Channel > Advanced settings.

 

Device 0 should be your boot device (main hard drive with the operating system on)

Make sure this is NOT running in PIO only mode.

Should say "DMA if Available" and should be Ultra DMA Mode 6 for SATA and Ultra DMA Mode 5 for ATA133 (IDE)

 

Using HD Tune, my SATA drive gets about 85mb/sec continuous transfer with higher burst rates.

My ATA 133 hard drive achieves 74mb/sec transfer with higher burst rates.

 

This gives you an idea of how your drive(s) should be performing.

I have a similar spec to you tho i have 1.5gb ram and a 3.2ghz CPU (Acer Aspire)

 

I've mentioned the hard drive because if programs have used all physical memory (ram) then windows will start using the hard drive and this slows things down... very much so if the hard drive is slow...

 

You could add more memory which would speed things up but if you do... there are benifits to adding DDRII Dimms in IDENTICAL pairs due to the DDR bus.

 

In XP you see benefits in performace with more ram up to 2gb.

After this, only large memory applications such as video/audio and photographic applications can utilise it.

 

(The main reason being that large memory modules generally have a slower CAS latency so the allocation of data in the memory is a little slower)

 

Windows XP also has numerous services running that are not needed.

 

You cant terminate these from the task manager but you can from the services applet by typing "services.msc" in the start menu "run" box.

Proceed with caution as some services ARE needed and some services have dependancies on other serices, Windows Automatic Updates for example depends on Application Layer Gateway and the Background Inteligent Transfer Service.

This website (Below) should help you decided what services are needed and which are safe to disable.

 

http://www.beemerworld.com/tips/servicesxp.htm

 

I've probabbly read too far into this but i'm the kinda person that has the taskmanger on start up so i can constantly monitor what processes are running... If i spot an unknown process and its not related to the task i'm doing at the time, its terminated...

A computer should do EXACTLY what you want, why waste your processor time on processes you dont need?

Why waste the memory on processes/applications that you dont want?

Why have processes "leaching" of your internet connection when they are not needed. Yes windows has random processes that leach the odd kb from the internet... tho a good firewall blocks this!

Edited July 11, 2007 by davespages

[white_van_man]

I;ve seen issues with the mcaffee security center slowing pc's down..... that comes on dell's so that could maybe be an issue?

 

i agree, my dell laptop i bought last month came bundled with it, seems to run faster now i've removed it

[PeeWee]

The issue isn't with fragmented disks, the issue is with people installing all kinds of random Shite and sucking up spyware like a hoover

Correct, & when the process`s bit is checked like i said it could well be that an antivirus program is doing overtime trying to combat the spyware, seen this happen many times.

[Lee_2f2f]

I've seen issues with the mcaffee security center slowing pc's down..... that comes on dell's so that could maybe be an issue?

 

this is very True stu, i bought a dell laptop a few weeks ago and got it last week... and when i got it, it was full of shite such as dell desktop support, dell updater, mcaffee etc etc.. all made it run slow and shite, so i uninstalled virtually everything dell put on it and now its fine and fast as fook

 

 

 

Backup all of your files and do a reformat of the hardrive and reinstall windows. That should cure what ails ya.

 

I did this whenever my pc slowed down for no reason (about 3 times in 2 years) and worked a charm.

 

why is everyones answer to format the pc and start again thats the noob's way out!!!!