computer really slow...

[mankymummymoo]

and getting slower, not too bad when first booted up. Any ideas for what I can do, software or anything? Im running XP. Thanks.

do you have a virus checker and is it running?
Have you tried restarting?
when was XP installed? Has it been like this since then?

The first step is to press ctrl, alt, and del all together so the security pop up appears. Then select "Task manager" to bring up "Windows Task Manager", click on the button at the top of the CPU column, twice I think, so that the process with the highest CPU usage are sorted at the top.

What's up there?

However some things, usually malicious, can hide themselves from that so I'd recommend checking for any malware on your machine.

I recommended this the other day to someone else:
www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

It's a very good, and very free, package that will try and see if there's anything "bad" running on your computer that could be slowing it down.

Also have a look in the Start Menu under Programs (or All Programs) and then Startup, what's in there? Anything that you know that you don't need?

have a virus checker and all is working.

it happens every time i boot up the computer, its gradually got worse over time.

it is quite old (prob 6 years), XP been installed from outset and it was fine, just seems to have been getting slower over the years, but markedly in the last few months.

thanks for your help.

thanks badger... cpu usage is...

system idle process - CPU varying between 40 and 90
avgcsrvx.exe - varying CPU around 11
task manager
iexplore - around 2
lots of others but they are 0

they are changing all the time though.

I'll try the link you've suggested.

I've already removed any un-necessary software.

thankyou.

avgcsrvx.exe is AVG anti-virus, I presume that's what you use? It taking up 11% of the CPU usage isn't exactly good, but it's not awful either.

How was the computer running when you did that ctrl-alt-del? It might be worth trying it a few times when your machine is running slowly and seeing what is taking up the CPU figure.

At times it's only 40% idle so I'm wondering what the other 60% is doing....

You might well think you've got rid of all unnecessary fluff but Windows not only has a bad habit of allowing it to accumulate in hard to find places but also of allowing bad things to hide themselves.

Do try ad-aware and see what it finds.

i've installed and run ad-aware and it does seem improved. interesting to see whether it slows up again after a while.

thanks so much for your help.

i will do the ctrl-alt-del thing if it gets slow again.

Did ad-aware claim to have found anything?

The ctrl-alt-del thing is useful when you have a computer that's periodically slow, post back anything it comes up with...

yes it found two major problems which i pressed the fix thing for. its still miles faster (touch wood).

i shall be over the moon if it stays this way !

you are a genius - are you a techy person?!

ooh no, walked away and left the pc for a bit, came back and it is massively slow again. cpu is showing 99 percent, changing to 97, 95 but all high 90s. next thing is wuauclt.exe but thats only 2%.

thinking about it, it is probably IE thats massively slow, maybe it slows up other aps when its running?

any ideas please?

What was showing as 90+%? System Idle?

Anything running in the 90+% mark is of interest so let us know what's popping up.

Run Ad-Aware again and let us know exactly what it finds. It's a great package for letting you know what's bad on the machine but in the end something is letting that bad stuff get on there and it's that that we need to find.

Hi, sorry was dealing with DS last night !

Yes system idle in the 90s. will run adaware again, thanks for all your time.