Comments for Why is my machine slowing down?

Comment from merle on 2011-09-08

2011-09-08T18:19:22Z

Yet again, you helped me tremendously. My INternet explorer was running terribly. I had installed the new AVG 2012. I didnt know it scanned my links and email as restrictively as it did. I took your advice, changed my settings and it was an instant fix. THANK YOU AGAIN!!! Please keep up the great work!

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Comment from pepeduki on 2010-11-08

2010-11-09T01:00:10Z

My laptop, 1.7GHz, 1.5Gb RAM, 73Gb (8Gb free) slows down, when i play music, it is very evident as playback sort of goes into slow motion. My CPU fluctuates up to 100%, and this never happened even if Im playing music, surfing and dloading at once,, as in NEVER. Last thing I do was defragged, updated automatically by MS, and thats it. U gotta helpm me ...

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Comment from Garrett Jewell on 2008-08-20

2008-08-20T22:41:12Z

ok people... something that he forget to mention is that the capacitors on your motherboard will degrade after time, the only fix for this is to get a new mobo, and might as well just buy a new processor while ur at it, vista usually runs good at about 4 gig of ram, xp pro/xp pro x64 will usualy run very nice at 2 gig of ram... i have had to replace alot of computers due to bulging capacitors and damaged resistors, the only thing you can do to prevent this from happening and ruining the life of your computer is to shutdown the computer when not in use, dont use heavy cpu/gpu/hard drive intensive applications, games are the number one culprit, as well as storms, they will damage your computer with lightening strikes, you may not notice at first but it will get worse

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Comment from kevin on 2008-05-28

2008-05-29T01:46:03Z

internet is found and working but i can not find or will not load

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Comment from matthew on 2008-05-27

2008-05-27T19:58:09Z

Hi LEO,

you recently wrote that :"On some systems it's possible that network traffic or "noise" is causing your network adapter to impact your system to weed the actual information you care about. This is particularly true if the machine you are concerned about has internet connection sharing turned on. A quick test is to unplug the machine from the network and see if anything resolves."

it is the problem with my station, i have a quad core Xeon with 4gb of ram and for all application whatsoever it is great however, it is so slow to access "my computer" and all drives on my network. This station is part of a domain and one of the way to fix the problem was to do a system restore but now it doesn't work and i am struggling to find a solution.You are right when you say it is due to the noice on my network etc...

Any solution in order to solve this hellish problem???
the network card is on the motherboard and i wonder if buying another one on PCI could solve the problem, i forgot to mention that it is a gibabit card that i have on the motherboard...

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Comment from roberty on 2008-04-17

2008-04-17T14:55:29Z

VIrus.some of the problem cause slowing down the machine is virus so try to find ant virus which is very strong and clean the virus

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Comment from todd fast on 2008-03-02

2008-03-03T01:51:17Z

I run IE7 and Mozilla. Mozilla takes no time to load while IE grinds away and finally loads.

Why would one be so much faster than the other?

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Comment from Kurt Sailer on 2008-02-04

2008-02-05T02:29:42Z

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Comment from sohail on 2008-01-08

2008-01-08T13:24:28Z

my cpu of my computers cpu 2.6ghz and with 256mb of ram and it way slow..i might be thinking of upgrading my pc to dul core will this increase my cpu????and will it speed up my pcs overall performance!! im gonna get a dauk core 2 extrem processor! should buy one if it will hep my pcs performance if this wont help then i will foget buying it!

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Comment from sohail on 2008-01-08

2008-01-08T13:21:11Z

hi my pc is equitmted with 4gb of ram igb per each slot!!( 4 in totoal) but in the porpeties of my computer it says it has only 2gb so cna you tell me whtas oging on???

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Comment from Bryan Boulet on 2007-10-17

2007-10-18T02:49:04Z

I Just Formatted My PC Just Cuz I Was Cleanin It Up And That I Was Gettin A Slow Loadup When I First Start My PC.. From The Point The Main Screen Loads And Icons And Whatnot There Is 0% CPU Useage And Very Very Little Memmory Used.. I Can Click On Things And Open The Start Menu With No Problem But Once I Start Using Somthin It Freezes For About A Min And Then A Few More Things Load And Use Maby 5% CPU.. I Have Just Formatted My PC And Have 0 Virus's And No Programs Installed..

AMD Athlon X2 4200+ Dual Core CPU
GigaByte GA-K8NF-9 Motherboard
2 GB DDR PC3200 Kingston Ram

More Than Enough To Not Lag Like That..

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Comment from david on 2007-09-15

2007-09-15T18:19:31Z

my laptop was running generally ok, but one day it was booted up with a separate caddied hard drive still attached. since then it has booted up very slowly and the hard drive is reading slower then before. is there possibly a overwritten driver on the hardware/cmos/bios? ive tried most of the general methods defrag, driver updates and rollbacks. doesnt seem to be a windows problem. i cant figure the direct cause or conclusion, any ideas?

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Comment from Gary on 2007-08-28

2007-08-28T21:58:05Z

Hi i have become to addicted to bench marking and recently used pcmark 05 and to my dismay found i had one of the slowest scores and yet with 3dmark i was near the top. The problem seems to be with my HDD and when it does the hdd virus scan test i score virtually zero. I am worried that something is not set right and that i am losing an awful lot of performance becuase of this.

I am running 2 seagate 160gb drives in a raid 0 configuration with a 4600+ cpu 2gig 800mhz ram and two 7600gt in sli.

Thanks

Gary

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Comment from Fonzy on 2007-06-12

2007-06-12T22:00:37Z

I recently bought another MB for my P4 2.2 (100 Mhz x 22)I have 512mb of RAM and a nvidia 6800 vid card. My computer take forever to open programs and even studders a bit when going through the start menu. I've run stress tests and received a low score on my HD in the RAMDOM SEEK and REWRITE functions. The HD is old, but runs at 7200RPM. My gut tells me it's the HD. However, I haven't seen too many complaints out there for slow HDs. Also, it does make the occasional loud "clank" sound. I guess I'm looking for more a concrete reason to replace my HD. I'm a very experienced user and know how to get a computer running fast, but right now I'm stumped. PS - I have considered my processor, but the MB I had in there was no where near as slow (presently my 1.13 AMD processor on my other computer is much faster), plus the new MB I bought had a faster FSB. Any suggestions?

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Comment from Danny on 2007-04-15

2007-04-15T07:42:35Z

Hi Leo
Me again. I would like to know that on my current CPU of 2.40GHz, would going to the bios and changing the CPU speed from 2400MHz to 3200MHz (whatever that means) have any effect on the speed of the computer and if so, by how much?
In my previous comment, I realised I stated having 736MB of RAM. But I've installed one 512MB with the 256MB of RAM already in the computer, which adds up to 768MB. So how can I regain this 'lost' megabtyes since I bought the extra 512MB of RAM when I only could use 224MB from the 256MB of RAM.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Comment from Danny on 2007-04-08

2007-04-09T05:42:48Z

I had a 256 MB DDR RAM when I first got this computer. Since then, I have installed a 512 MB DDR RAM to give a total of over 700 MB. So now, my computer�s physical memory is only run from this RAM and not the page files from the hard drive as it used to when I had only 256 MB. However, even after installing this 512 RAM, I see little difference in the operation and speed of my computer. On a daily routine basis, the computer only uses about 300 to 400 MB of RAM yet it is still so slow. The only difference I have seen from installing the additional RAM about 2 years ago was that the programs don�t crash as often.

I�m no computer expert but even I know that my computer is unusually slow. I have CPU 2.40 GHz � 2.42GHz, 736 MB of RAM

I still find that opening IE takes ages and no difference in opening Microsoft Word which always takes over a minute, which is a long time when you�re waiting for the computer to load and not doing anything else. I know that in the school computer network, even if the computer were bought at exactly the same time and they are of the same brand, some of them would be lightening fast and others, snail slow. Unfortunately, my computer is even slower than the slowest computer on the school computer network and it�s even slower than the Windows 98 on the laptop.

I have done lots of things to help speed up the computer. They include

- Defragmenting the hard drive
- Buying more RAM memory
- Having less icons on the desktop
- Reducing the size of desktop wallpaper
- Stopping unnecessary startup programs
- Removing unnecessary installed program and files on hard drive

And many other which I can�t think of now.

What else do I need to do?
Please help as I really want a faster computer to work on.

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2007-03-25

2007-03-25T17:53:27Z

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

The BIOS settings are available when you first boot your machine. Typically you
have to press a key (F8, Del, F2 ... it varies from machine to machine) in
order to enter the BIOS configuration before Windows boots. On many machines
the memory configuration is listed - and sometimes controlable - there.

More commonly one of the memory cards on your system might fail such that it
looks like it's not there.

A couple of memory testing programs:
http://ask-leo.com/d-memtest
http://ask-leo.com/d-msmemtest

Good luck!

Leo
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGBrcnCMEe9B/8oqERAv7+AJ9j11VW4e8yoAyY+srf5WgVwnCMewCfY2NI
LpGmFZBI9tK10bH1u0t21/k=
=9mjt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Comment from Jon on 2007-03-24

2007-03-25T02:48:01Z

In a previous post (�That sounds like a hardware issue. You sure you're using the same computer? :-) I'd be looking at the motherboard... losing ram happens from time to time, but having the CPU drop speed like that is odd. You might also check BIOS settings for both, but ultimately it could be many different things. Might be worth having a tech look at the box. Posted by: Leo at June 19, 2006 05:11 PM�) you had mentioned that a loss of RAM sometimes happens however, you did not mention why it sometimes happens or if it is something that can be repaired\restored. You did make mention of checking the BIOS settings but I am unsure what that would require. My computer (emachines W3410) came with a 512MB RAM chip\card, whenever the heck it is. Now it is reporting as having only 382.5 MB RAM. This is ticking me off no end. Therefore, I am seeking your advice or opinion about this situation and any possible remedies that may be available to me.

Thank you,
Jon

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Comment from Brad on 2007-02-04

2007-02-04T15:05:39Z

Hi Leo,
Got a problem with Media Player. It runs fine until it suddenly starts using 90%+ of my cpu...
I'm running an AMD Athlon 3500+ with 1gb ram and a 250 GB HDD...
Any Sugestions?

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Comment from Garet Hartshorn on 2006-12-08

2006-12-09T02:03:08Z

My machine has 1.25g of ram and two harddrives. one has 80gb and the other has 240gb of storage. My machine randomly runs the harddrive for restore points when there is no activity, but mine will not stop when activity returns to the computer, which cause the responce to be extremely slow. I tried stopping the monitoring of the harddrives but that fail miserably. Need advise

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Comment from Giuliano on 2006-10-23

2006-10-23T10:37:39Z

Hi Leo, I have a notebook 1.5gh and 256Ram - The machine was slowing down so I cleaned the register and runned all kind of antispyware on it...yet the trouble seems to be that the RAM lowered to 192MB Could you please give me any tip for it ? thanks

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Comment from abraham on 2006-09-23

2006-09-23T11:00:12Z

Hi! i have a pretty knew hp pavillion dv8000 media center laptop, with 512 ddr and 180 hd,I know my ram is not that bad, but when i try to open MSN Messenger, the program freezes or takes a few minutes before it opens, i really need to fix this! please help!

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Comment from Chris on 2006-08-27

2006-08-27T21:19:13Z

There's one more thing that Leo didn't mention but I see a lot of... check your available hard drive space. A new computer will have plenty, but if it's more than 4 years old you may be running low. A computer running Windows XP or 2000 should have, at the minimum, 750MB to 1GB free for optimal performance. To see what you have, open My Computer, right click on the hard drive labeled C:, and click Properties.

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Comment from Peter McCluskey on 2006-07-28

2006-07-28T16:02:02Z

Hi,

I have a 3.4GHZ CPU and 2GB DDR Memory. Yet sometimes the machine appears jumpy and definately slows down. Surely with the CPU & RAM that I have this shouldn't happen. I don't run any excessive programs.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Peter.

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Comment from Leo on 2006-06-19

2006-06-20T00:11:36Z

That sounds like a hardware issue. You sure you're using the same computer? :-) I'd be looking at the motherboard... losing ram happens from time to time, but having the CPU drop speed like that is odd. You might also check BIOS settings for both, but ultimately it could be many different things. Might be worth having a tech look at the box.

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Comment from Graham John Burnett on 2006-06-18

2006-06-18T21:38:57Z

Hi Leo, Can you help me with this? I have windoes xp sp2 up untill 13/06/06 i had 2.09 GHz CPU & 512 mb of Ram . Now i have 1.25GHz CPU & 512MB of Ram. Why can this be ? Can this be reset if so how ?
Thanks,
Graham.

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Comment from jonnycave on 2006-06-05

2006-06-05T22:25:20Z

Found the solution that solved the problem immediately:(you may have to restart the computer and then do this)

Use Classic Windows Folders
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Appearance and Themes, and then click Folder Options (or double-click the Folder Options icon).
3. On the General tab, click Use Windows classic folders.
4. Click OK.

It starts working normally as soon as you do it.

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Comment from DeLagun on 2006-05-30

2006-05-30T10:35:28Z

well you have slime wire say no more.. I on the other hand have a event viewer process hogging my cpu WHY?

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Comment from andrewclone on 2006-05-15

2006-05-15T17:13:19Z

Problem with windows media player: using 183.000k

or more. it takes 5 minutes for me to minimize a program!!! I have 500 ram!!

windows media player has always been slow but never past 60 for me.

Here are my questions:

-how do I update Bios?

-Should lime wire be taking up 50 to 58.000 k?

Thanks you for your time
Andrew

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Comment from J on 2006-05-01

2006-05-01T12:11:39Z

i dont know if this is helpful or not...but i just thought..for those ppl whose windows media player runs at about 100% try and check if ur running any additional plugins in the background and check ur sound adaptors e.g if u got more graphic equalizerzz they sorta hog ur CPU, and if u like get rid of visuliazations for plugins go to View>plugins>options and tick dem off..hope it helpz

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Comment from Dave Laff on 2006-04-18

2006-04-18T15:09:36Z

For those of you who are looking to fix the problem where your CPU rages at 100% when you use any element of Windows Media Player or any other music/video program, here you go.

Try to update your BIOS.

I have a Dell (do not throw things at me) Inspiron 1100, and when I would run Rhapsody or WMP, the other programs would come to a grind. I never thought to update the BIOS, but when someone told me, I tried it, and Blammo! no more stuttering or frozen programs.

Wheee.

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Comment from Sean on 2006-03-26

2006-03-27T05:54:22Z

I just built a new computer and it is running great, most of the time. When I try running those larger programs or installinng certain things, it slows almost to the point of freezing. For example, media player will play music but wont slows/freezes when i try a movie. I have all the drivers for the computer installed. I know its not a memory problem because I have 1G DDR. When I use to do the same with 256k, and I have just reformatted the hard drive to it is barebones. I am stuck! Please help.

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Comment from Ray Hall on 2006-02-26

2006-02-26T21:25:00Z

Hi Leo:

I am very impressed by your answer and the time taken to answer it. It is very appreciated.
You must have a lot of patience to do it every week. I am a retired accountant, and especially during tax time, I was very hard to live with.

As a matter of curiosity, how do you make your living? I know that it is none of my business,
but it would be interesting to know.

Take care, and thanks again.

Regards - Ray Hall

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Comment from quenton on 2006-02-25

2006-02-25T08:03:40Z

hello
The other day my computer froze i had to shut it down with my main power switch at the back of my computer shuting windows xp down cold. when i went to start it up a couple of hours later it asked me what mode i wanted to start windows in i chose last stored settings. And now it takes windows forever to load and same with all other programs. Can you help me

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Comment from Cloud Strife on 2006-02-16

2006-02-16T17:04:17Z

Hi Leo
I have the exact same problem as many of the other ppl have posted on your pages. Windows Media player 10 has started for some unknown reasonover the last few days using near on 100% of my CPU. It goes back to normall soon after I shut the program. I cant remove this program as it is now part of Win XP, Fed up now, I see from surfing the net for a soultion that many other peps have this problem too. Any ideas how to clear this up once and for all?
Cheers CS

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Comment from Jon Armstrong on 2006-02-13

2006-02-14T05:19:11Z

Hey Leo, I just have a question for you.
Recently I've played a game called 'Tron 2.0' and found that as soon as I hit certain parts of the game, the sound quality dropped instantly to about a 65kbps (crackles in the background) and the sound itself sounded like it was being played slowly on a recordplayer...long and drawn out. I eventually ignored it, despite multiple restarts by my computer and as I beat the game, I never thought much else of it until now.
I was listening to a .flac file within winamp when the sound slowed down again, accompanied by the system restart. I have had absolutely no results in obtaining help from anyone thus far.
I do have a problem with installing directx though...I have version 9.0b, but any time I try to install any version now to update it (or even downgrade to upgrade again), it always skips the install and automatically tells me that the intstallation is complete. I have a feeling the two issues are related, but I am not entirely certain. The thought is there that I may have a cooling issue, but I seriously doubt that as well. As for the game, i've run it at the lowest visual settings all the way up to the highest and it's not had any effect either. I'm almost at my wits end about this. Is there anything you maybe be able to throw my way in terms of advice?

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Comment from Redman on 2006-01-26

2006-01-26T20:23:07Z

I would like to know why my Windows Media Player Uses 99 of CPU, and it takes a long time to play a song, any ideas of why this is happening

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Comment from Leo on 2005-10-22

2005-10-22T18:16:19Z

It depends on what all those systems are doing, and how your network is configured. If one of those systems is hogging all the bandwidth, it's quite possible for the network to appear slower to everyone else.

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Comment from wilson korakpe on 2005-10-22

2005-10-22T16:46:55Z

why i my internet speed so slow yet the isp keep teling me i have the maximum link bandwith, i operate about 10 system in a cafe

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Comment from sean on 2005-10-10

2005-10-11T04:27:08Z

windows media player
when i open task manager to see what's bogging my computer down so much, i see that windows media player is using 100% of my cpu. Just a solid green line running across the top of the graph.
Any ideas?
thanks,
Sean

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Comment from Leo on 2005-09-11

2005-09-12T04:10:18Z

Sounds like a driver issue. I would check with the computer manufacturer, or the manufacturer of the sound card, for updated drivers.

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Comment from Galen on 2005-09-09

2005-09-09T22:03:46Z

Ok, I just got a new computer and I'm loving it! One gig of RAM and it runs beautifully, except ONE problem. Whenever I try to play an audio file, it wants to freeze up EVERYTHING, I've tried using WMP and WinAMP, but the same thing happens with both, it will play for a bit, then the computer will lock up for around 2-3 mins with the song still playing but not being able to do ANYTHING at all. Is this a common problem? Do you have any suggestions? Video works fine I'd like to add.

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Comment from sorin on 2005-08-03

2005-08-03T07:10:41Z

I have a problem in explorer. The computer works fine, but when I double-click a text file, for eaxample, it takes up to 20 seconds to display the file. If I launch notepad, and then ai drand-and-drop the text file, is loaded instantly. Same, when I right click on the file, to copy, or something, it takes a lot of time until I get the context menu

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Comment from Nikhil Mathew on 2005-02-15

2005-02-16T06:11:55Z

In 98, 2000 and XP, right click takes a hell of time to display menu. this is after installing norton antivirus. any patch or update available ???????

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Comment from Leo on 2004-11-26

2004-11-26T19:20:48Z

I would also add a spyware scan. And possibly a second virus scan from a different manufacturer (they all miss something, so running two different ones at this point may make sense). Recommendations for spyware and antivirus programs here: http://ask-leo.com/d-recommend

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Comment from Bren on 2004-11-26

2004-11-26T19:17:37Z

After reading the whole thread, I can't find any answers.

My Windows 2000 Professional, 80 Gb Hardisk (with about 70 Gb free!) is fine until I connect to the Internet through my external ADSL modem.

Actually, when I connect, the computer is still fine. But as soon as I do something through the Internet (e.g. start Outlook or Internet Explorer) the CPU usage shoots up to 100%, of which typically 98%-ish is being used by 'System'.

I then find that the computer doesn't want to get off the web. Even when I physically take the modem out of the USB port it thinks that it is still in there.

Finally, when I attempt to shut off or restart the computer, it typically freezes at the 'Saving your personal settings' message or at the stage just past that, when I have a blank, blue screen.

If I don't do any Internet related stuff, the computer works and shuts down fine.

- The modem works fine on another computer in the house.
- I bought a new PCI USB card but it didn't help.
- I have started the computer in safe mode and used Symantec's virus scan but it finds nothing. Likewise when I run their virus scan through the Internet (though this takes FOREVER).
- Bugger, bugger, bugger! I have been wrestling with this for two weeks.

Any help would be really, really welcome.

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Comment from gau on 2004-10-27

2004-10-28T03:43:35Z

Hello Leo,

Thanks for your comments. My system slowdown problem was solved a bit by the defrag idea. However it did not last long. Whenever I try opening vlc or windows media player, it shows up occupying 99% of CPU cycles, which fluctuate between 70 and 90 and video is jittery. When not using them the system is still slow. All the memory and CPU usage shown on the process tab are within bounds, still the system is slow.
Initialli I tried to uninstall SP2 which I thought resulted in this problem. I however formatted and re-installed windows XP, the problem exists.
Is it due to some motherboard problem. Any help will be highy appreciated.

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Comment from ed yagerlener on 2004-06-21

2004-06-21T22:49:54Z

I had a similar problem, in that every program I tried to execute ended up with the infamous hour-glass icon.Even the task manager went nuts. In the meantime the disc was crunching away --a lot of disc activity. I finally concluded that Norton Anti-Virus 2003 was the most likely culprit--so
I uninstalled Norton and things settled down a bit. Something is still not quite right, though.

Any one else care to comment??

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Comment from Leo on 2004-06-02

2004-06-02T16:18:47Z

I'd use task manager or sysinternals process explorer (http://ask-leo.com/d-31017a ) and look at what processes are running, perhaps who's hogging the CPU, during that 5 minute period.

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Comment from Jack on 2004-06-02

2004-06-02T16:05:10Z

Computer keeps slowing down but not due to processor or memory being used up. Ran spyware and virus checker, defragged. Just seems to get stuck for about 5mins and then is alright again. Any help appreciated.

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Comment from Leo on 2004-04-20

2004-04-20T18:17:57Z

Thanks for that info NIRee. I tracked down the knowledgebase article: http://ask-leo.com/d-40420a - it does actually have a couple of work-arounds.

Thanks,

Leo

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Comment from NIRee on 2004-04-20

2004-04-20T10:23:34Z

Actually the problem when explorer is eating ram and taking 99% of cpu is a windows bug, and occours when you right click files, microsoft has no solution and recommends that you left click all files in explorer before rightclicking them.

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Comment from Leo on 2004-02-14

2004-02-14T23:37:55Z

Yikes. Does it auto-restart (it should), and if so is it back to taking 99%? If you're running XP, I'd run the system file checker to see if something got damaged somehow. I'd also run a spyware detector ... a quick look suggests that certain types of spyware can cause this. Recommendations for spyware scanners are here: http://pugetsoundsoftware.com/recommend.html
under security.

Good luck!

Leo

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Comment from chris on 2004-02-14

2004-02-14T23:29:37Z

What if explorer.exe is the process eating up 99% of the power? Shutting it down kills the interface...

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Comment from Leo on 2004-01-11

2004-01-12T05:37:18Z

Unfortunately, not to my knowledge. The biggest problem, of course, is that "minimum set" will vary based on your configuration. The best advice I can give is to use the info in task manager, process explorer and from this article: http://ask-leo.com/archives/000029.html to attempt to identify what each particular executing task is, and decide based on that whether or not it's "safe" to turn off. Oh, and I have yet to reference it in an article here, but http://ask-leo.com/r-xpservices is a good reference to what many of the Windows XP services are and whether or not you might need 'em.

Leo

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Comment from Adam Boettiger on 2004-01-11

2004-01-12T03:43:46Z

Leo,

Yes, but I've always had a problem knowing what exactly in the task manager should and what should not be running. I'm always afraid I'm going to hard shut down something that should be running. Is there a list of bare minimum tasks that should be running on XP?

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