slow computer

[willemjacobusse]

After working ok for a while, my computer (A Fujitsu laptop which has served me well for 7 years now!) slows down to a crawl. I download a little utility called freemeter and it shows CPU Usage at 100% during those episodes.
Other indicators like memory usage show nothing unusual.
Slowdown will typically occur when I run an online bridge program (Bridge Base Online version 5.2.6) as well as Yahoo messenger. Everything works fine at first but at some point the slowdown starts, all rather unpredictable. This a typical combination but by no means the only one.

One other thing I notice during those slow periods is a lot of harddisk activity.
Windows task manager doesnt really show anything out of the ordinary, just those 2 programs consuming quite large chunks of processor time.

My questions: would this be hardware or software related?
Does the harddisk activity have anything to do with it? If so, is that what keeps the processor occupied?
Is there any way of finding out which program or process is actually doing all harddisk accessing?

[JLK03F150]

You can just use windows task manager to see which process is using the cycles if you are running WinXP.

It could be a badly fragmented drive or a bunch of temp files cluttering your hard drive. I like CCleaner for clearing junk off my HDD. I usually just use the windows defrag, but I like to run it in Safe Mode (F8).

[willemjacobusse]

Thanks JL,

Maybe I should have mentioned it, but I have done most of the obvious stuf, like CCleaner and defragging. And Task Manager doesnt reveal anything beyond the obvious programs. Its almost as if something is stealing cycles even before Task manager gets to look, as if task manager is only monitoring the remaining cycles!
Or as if the whole processor is running at a lower speed altogether.

[JLK03F150]

In your first post you said Freemeter shows CPU usage at 100%. Task Manager should show you all of the processes running under the Processes tab & from there see which one is using the cycles. You can also use CPUz to see if your CPU is throttling - slowing under load due to high heat.

Here's a screenshot of my task manager opened while Orthos is using 99% of the CPU. I also have CPUz running. You can add the CPU Time column by selecting View, then Select Columns... then check the CPU Time box.

[willemjacobusse]

Thanks for the help. It seems I am able to influence things by fiddling with the process priorities. I also changed the settings in the System Control Panel to "adjust for best performance"
Experimenting with the Task Manager and its different columns I came across "Page faults" What exactly are those? I presume thats related to virtual memory and page swapping. The biggest number is associated with AVG
Might I simply have not enough physical memory?
Might another (free) antivirus package need less memory than AVG does?

[cksboy15]

AntiVir but AVG is the better antivirus.

[JLK03F150]

My personal free anti-virus preference is Avast, then AntiVir, then AVG - in that order.

I've seen a lot of PCs with broken AVG running on them. Seems the malware guys have found a way to disable it, but make it seem to be still working. Is your AVG fully updated? I've also seen it act oddly - such as using lots of CPU cycles - when it was unable to update for some reason.

How much RAM is in your PC? IMO 512MB is an absolute minimum for XP, & more is always better.

[cksboy15]

I ran a PC with 256MB of memory and it ran XP very well until I built the system i had before my current.

[JLK03F150]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cksboy15

I ran a PC with 256MB of memory and it ran XP very well until I built the system i had before my current.

And I bet the HDD light was on all the time because it was constantly paging.

[willemjacobusse]

My computer has 512 and that is also the max, I am going to try avast