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When my computer runs slow, what is actually happening?

L

legocitytruck

Senior member
When I am using my computer, it gets slower over time, this effect is accelerated when taken through multiple hibernate cycles (it is a laptop). What is actually happening hardware wise? Is something happening with the RAM? If I do not restart it, it may sit making lots of noise performing lots of processing, but nothing happens with any programs. What is it doing making all that noise?
 
How many processes are running and which ones are using a high percentage of CPU, and which ones are hogging your memory usage?

Does it slow down on everything or just web surfing?

Have you done anything to clean up the registry or clear out your temp files?

How full is your HD?

How much memory do you have installed?
 
The OS is Windows XP. It has two GB of memory.

During web surfing it generally does not slow down too bad, but sometimes firefox will get stuck and sit there using 95% of processing power.

I do not know how many processes are running and which ones are using a high percentage of CPU, and which ones are hogging my memory usage? I do know how to check which processes are using what CPU percentage using alt-control-delete, if that is what you mean.

I also do no know how to clean up the registry or clear out my temp files, other then the temporary internet files in the browser. Is that what you are suggesting? How else is this done?

Also the HD is 80 GB, and I am usually using about 60~70 GB, occasionally I will have less than a GB of space free, then I remove some things and free up some space. What exactly is HD paging, I am assuming that is related to the amount of free space that is available.




 
How many windows/tabs do you have open in Firefox? Some of the pages can get pretty 'busy', and if you have several open..
 
Sometimes there are software that is poorly written and which memory leaks will occur over time. While I am not saying Firefox is a prime candidate for memory leaks (there may be a possibility) an add-on or a skin could be a culprit.

Just a thought.
 
Originally posted by: legocitytruck

I do not know how many processes are running and which ones are using a high percentage of CPU, and which ones are hogging my memory usage? I do know how to check which processes are using what CPU percentage using alt-control-delete, if that is what you mean.

I also do no know how to clean up the registry or clear out my temp files, other then the temporary internet files in the browser. Is that what you are suggesting? How else is this done?

Also the HD is 80 GB, and I am usually using about 60~70 GB, occasionally I will have less than a GB of space free, then I remove some things and free up some space. What exactly is HD paging, I am assuming that is related to the amount of free space that is available.
Click to expand...
Ctrl+Alt+Delete > "Processes" tab

CCleaner

I like at least 20% free space on my HD.


 
if firefox is using all your proc power, well, it's probably a firefox problem. i'd completely remove it and reinstall (with no add-ons) and see if it's any better.
 
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: legocitytruck

I do not know how many processes are running and which ones are using a high percentage of CPU, and which ones are hogging my memory usage? I do know how to check which processes are using what CPU percentage using alt-control-delete, if that is what you mean.

I also do no know how to clean up the registry or clear out my temp files, other then the temporary internet files in the browser. Is that what you are suggesting? How else is this done?

Also the HD is 80 GB, and I am usually using about 60~70 GB, occasionally I will have less than a GB of space free, then I remove some things and free up some space. What exactly is HD paging, I am assuming that is related to the amount of free space that is available.
Click to expand...
Ctrl+Alt+Delete > "Processes" tab

CCleaner

I like at least 20% free space on my HD.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he needs a bigger hard drive.
 
Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: legocitytruck

I do not know how many processes are running and which ones are using a high percentage of CPU, and which ones are hogging my memory usage? I do know how to check which processes are using what CPU percentage using alt-control-delete, if that is what you mean.

I also do no know how to clean up the registry or clear out my temp files, other then the temporary internet files in the browser. Is that what you are suggesting? How else is this done?

Also the HD is 80 GB, and I am usually using about 60~70 GB, occasionally I will have less than a GB of space free, then I remove some things and free up some space. What exactly is HD paging, I am assuming that is related to the amount of free space that is available.
Click to expand...
Ctrl+Alt+Delete > "Processes" tab

CCleaner

I like at least 20% free space on my HD.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he needs a bigger hard drive.
Click to expand...

Yea he has no room for paging which always caused problems.
 
What is paging file? I wasn't able to find much about it.

What effect does repeated hibernation do?

It is not just web browsing that causes issues. There are other causes of "gear spinning";if I have IE and firefox open at the same time, having multiple Microsoft Office applications open, having ANY adobe product open also makes things run terribly.

I have a lot of old software and older versions of new software installed on the machine, could this be causing problems as well?
 
Is the CPU usage high when it does this or is the drive access light on constantly? You need to identify if you're CPU or I/O bound.
 
Originally posted by: legocitytruck
What is paging file? I wasn't able to find much about it.

What effect does repeated hibernation do?

It is not just web browsing that causes issues. There are other causes of "gear spinning";if I have IE and firefox open at the same time, having multiple Microsoft Office applications open, having ANY adobe product open also makes things run terribly.

I have a lot of old software and older versions of new software installed on the machine, could this be causing problems as well?
Click to expand...

You have almost no space left and going into hibernation all the time could be one of the many problems with your system. Harddrives usually need at least 15%-20% free space. Delete old programs to free up space. Pagefiling is important to basic system stability. Hibernation writes whatever was on your RAM to your harddrive and having no space causes problems for that as well.

After you delete all your old prgrams, try downloading this program called ccleaner. It will clean up a lot of old junk left over.

Link

After cleaning all the crap out of your computer, run harddrive defrag.

This is a good start but no where near everything.
 
Originally posted by: zerocool84
Originally posted by: legocitytruck
What is paging file? I wasn't able to find much about it.

What effect does repeated hibernation do?

It is not just web browsing that causes issues. There are other causes of "gear spinning";if I have IE and firefox open at the same time, having multiple Microsoft Office applications open, having ANY adobe product open also makes things run terribly.

I have a lot of old software and older versions of new software installed on the machine, could this be causing problems as well?
Click to expand...

You have almost no space left and going into hibernation all the time could be one of the many problems with your system. Harddrives usually need at least 15%-20% free space. Delete old programs to free up space. Pagefiling is important to basic system stability. Hibernation writes whatever was on your RAM to your harddrive and having no space causes problems for that as well.

After you delete all your old prgrams, try downloading this program called ccleaner. It will clean up a lot of old junk left over.

Link

After cleaning all the crap out of your computer, run harddrive defrag.

This is a good start but no where near everything.
Click to expand...

The paging file is an area of the hard drive that Windows reserves for use as "virtual memory". It's necessary, but not nearly as fast as physical RAM.

The standard size is 1.5 times your amount of physical RAM. I also have Win XP with 2GB, and my page file is 3069MB.

You have plenty of physical RAM, but you didn't mention what your processor is. Seriously though, if it's pegging at 95% when running Firefox, I would be running an antivirus scan too. There's no way you should be using that many CPU cycles for web browsing - could be a virus/malware.

Those are good first steps zerocool84, but at this point, I think he's almost better off to back up his data and reinstall Windows with only the necessary programs (i.e. no old versions installed).
 
I was mistaken about my specs, they are:

Intel 1.73 Ghz Pentium M processor, 1 GB ram

I have freed 6 GB of space on the HDD, about 7.5% of the total space, and also used ccleaner. The issue of constant hard drive activity has gone away.

However, after running firefox for about an hour or two with multiple tabs in one window, it will begin to use 100% of processor power. Could it be something else?
 
Originally posted by: legocitytruck
I have freed 6 GB of space on the HDD, about 7.5% of the total space, and also used ccleaner. The issue of constant hard drive activity has gone away.

However, after running firefox for about an hour or two with multiple tabs in one window, it will begin to use 100% of processor power.
Click to expand...
* 7.5% is still too little free space IMO.
* Did you defrag your HD after freeing up the extra space?
* Is your HD a 5400 or 7200rpm model?
* Have you considered upgrading your HD or bumping your memory up to 2GB?
* What version of Firefox are you using?
* Do you have lots of plug-ins installed in Firefox?

 
And, . . . have you ever defragged your free space (what little you have)? Try closing tabs you are not really using. Every open tab is a drain. Surf more efficiently.
 
I am currently removing programs to get to 15% free space so that I can defrag my HD.

When using process explorer, there are two graphs for commit charge and physical. What are these measuring? Also, when starting Adobe acrobat, the I/O spikes significantly and repeatedly for about 10 seconds, and the hard drive light stays continuously lit. Is this normal or is it the sign of a problem?
 
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