DH's laptop is very slow - can I do anything to speed it up?

[Katymac]

I have done
Disk Clean up
Defrag
Uninstalled everything he doesn't use

What do I do next?

TIA

OK when it's running slow bring up that Task Manager Window and sort it by CPU usage from high to low. Watch for a while and see what pops up near the top.

Also what is the total "CPU usage" and "Commit Charge" as shown at the bottom of the window?

If it's still slow and nothing of note is showing then it's possible that you've got a particularly nasty type of virus/malware. It's perfectly possible for things to take advantage of Windows' many security holes and hide themselves from appearing in that list.

That's only a possibility mind, let's see if we can find something first.

CPU Usage 47%

Commit charge 651M/2166M

System 88500
fiefox.exe 84408
SVCHOST.EXE 51572
EXPLORER.EXE 47568
wmiprvse.exe 31368
SVCHORST.EXE 30580
ehRecvr.exe 29892
spoolsv.exe 29520
DLLHOST.EXE 27364

I think there about another 10 or so with number above 10,000 - do you want them all?

Actually there about 12 SVCHOST.EXE - that is bad huh??

apparently thats quite normal if you read here

Yep - I'd worked that out - I've been googling all evening

So I'm still no wiser

its so bloody annoying isn't it, i'm hooked on this thread wanting to know the answer !!
think how much you've learnt though!!

have you tryed posting on pc advisor about this? I know they always seem to get people to use a prog called hijack this or something where it takes a snapshot of your system processes and stuff and you post it on the thread so all the geeky types can work out the prob.

ok so right now my netbook is using between 1 and 4 % cpu usage so thats a massive diff to 47% but don't know if that depends on how much RAM memory it has.
Also my system in processes only uses 220k its right at bottom of list!!!

I'm on PC Advisor now

katymac,what firewall/antivirus software are you using/have installed on laptop?

(Paid for) AVG

Is that you over there?

yes!

Stupid computer - should I run AVG now it's updated or the MalwareByte thing?

either really.

I just found 31 start up ticks - do I need to list them or do I just untick everything?

only untick one you don't need running automatically when laptop starts, and don't untick it if you don't know what it is. google the ones you don't know.

I got rid of 16 ticks using this

CPU Usage at 47% is really pretty high, especially if you're not meant to be doing anything at that point in time.

Sort that Task Manager list by the CPU value and list the top few processes with their CPU usage.

CPU Usage is somewhat affected by free memory as when memory runs low Windows will begun to shunt chunks of memory to and from the disk and that will take up CPU time. But 47% is still a lot...

Svchost.exe is a generic "bucket" in which all sorts of different things can actually be running.

If you do see a Svchost.exe taking up a lot of CPU time or memory then not down the PID value of it.

Then go to a DOS Window (Start/Programs/Accessors/Command) and enter the following command:
Tasklist /SVC

Then find the svchost.exe that has the matching PID and the final column will list exactly what services that Svchost.exe bucket has within it.

So for now try and find out what's taking up the 47% of your CPU...

Just found 259 files in my windows folder starting kb with 6 numbers after does anyone know what they are?

I think that they're backup files from the various updates and hotfixes that Windows will download and install.

You certainly shouldn't just delete them as they are also tracked in your "Add/Remove Programs" options.

There are tools out there to clean them up properly but unless they're taking up a lot of space I wouldn't bother.

Yeah - I find I ask a question after googling & not finding anything, then I change something google again & get an answer

At least I'm now getting the same answers as you - at the start I didn't have a clue

But the learning curve is steep and high - I do appreciate your help

Welcome to the world of Windows I love it for work because it's so powerful and flexible, but at home I use Macs.

Any luck in tracking down what's chewing up that 47% of CPU usage? Thinking of it some more if you've got a dual core machine then that's pretty much one processor belting away on one thing.

I have firefox open (on active conversations)

There are 54 proceses % 47-61% CPU usage