Kurt123

(I suspect this is a memory/app issue, so I'm posting here.)

I'm running a Gateway Laptop with Windows XP Home 2002, SP2 - 1.40 GHz, 224 MB of RAM. It has a 35 GB hard drive with about 20 GB free. It connects wirelessly to our home network with a network adapter card. I use IE 6 and run Trend Micro Pc-cillin Internet Security 2007 for anti-virus. (The problem I'm having occurs while running IE 7 and Trend Micro 2006, too.)

The laptop used to run fine but for the past couple of weeks it's been running extremely slow. I can't pinpoint if performance dropped suddenly one day (e.g., after installing something) or if it's been a gradual deterioration. According to a performance monitor I'm running, during very, basic use (i.e., browsing the web with no other non- essential apps running), Disk Usage averages 95-100% (Read) and anywhere from 15%-60% (Write). Memory Usage averages 80-90% (Physical) and 80-90% (Paged). CPU Usage is at normal levels.

The high usage numbers should give you an idea of just how slow things are running. The Laptop takes approximately 8 minutes to fullly boot up to the point where it actually responds, but even then applications open extremely slowly and the system sometimes seems nonresponsive.

I've scanned for viruses using Panda Online and my Trend Micro virus scanner (nothing found), and scanned for spyware in Safe mode using Spy Bot and Ad-Aware (nothing found). I've cleaned and defragged the hard drive. Nothing improved.

I've noticed it takes a while to connect to our home network, and that the network connection status is sometimes inaccurate (e.g., the icon in the task tray says I'm not connected, when in fact I'm online browsing. It eventually shows the correct connection status.) This behavior seems new, but I'm not sure if this is the culprit or not.

Any ideas? If there is a good, free disk usage analyzer someone could recommend I could run that to find out exactly what's using up all the disk space and memory.

Much thanks.

Kurt

Rashiki

When you press ctrl + alt + del, are there any processes that are eating up lots of memory, or CPU usage? How many processes are running?

You could also use the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic/health utility to check for any errors on the drive itself. You can get these utilities from the manufacturer's website.

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MaverickUK

Hi,

Have you added/removed a lot of programs lately? If you have this can cause your drive to become very fragmented and therefore increasing access times. It could be an idea to defrag your drive and see how much, if anything, this helps.

Nick.

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Kurt123

The processes that start up are mostly essential; I've disabled most non-essential processes at start up. And when I hit ctrl + alt + del, nothing is eating up a lot of memory or CPU usage.

I'll try this. Thanks.

Kurt123

Already defragged with no improvements.