PC Slow Again - CPU issue?

[LIZS]

Slow on start up and running Word, printing, Internet Explorer etc although the Broadband seems ok on other devices. Task Manager shows CPU is at 100% with 47 processes running, including Apple Mobile Device using over 90% and something called Rapport Management Service at 25.260kb Memory Usage. Are these auto updates or background programs ? There is an option to selectively End Process but am not sure what the consequences of doing so might be. Any advice please ?

Rapport Management Service This can be safely removed.

A fix for the Apple Mobile Device problem is here

Rapport may be recommended by your bank, it is by mine (Smile). But it sounds like getting rid of the Apple Mobile Device problem would be your first port of call.

If you want to selectively end the process, you can do and you can always restart the PC if you want to put it back into a more pukka state, or 'turn it off and turn it back on again' aka the default IT support recommendation on just about everything (Windows-related anyway, I am appalled when I have to do it on my Mac).

It's most likely to be a couple of devices bickering over CPU run time. Can you give us any more details on the specification of the PC?

Stopping Rapport seems to have helped. It is a Dell Dimension 2400 running Windows XP. We replaced the hard drive a couple of years back -total 149GB of which 99 is "free" (whatever that means!)

Black box, grey shield-shaped front? That means it'll be running a Pentium 4 processor and unless you've upgraded the RAM - which you surely must have done - 256MB or 512MB RAM. Mid-2004 date?

If my guesstimate of the specification is right I don't think there's going to be much you can do to give this machine more legs. More RAM might do a bit, changing your antivirus to something lightweight and uninstalling some programs might do a bit, but it's really time to start considering another machine. Sorry.