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Ever wonder why your computer is so slow? Well, here are two images, this is my computer when I boot up and login to Windows XP. Notice that the memory usage is below 300MB and also notice that there are very few processes running. Check your own system: Right Click an open area on Start Bar -> Left Click Task Manager -> Then you can look through your own tabs. Top 2 causes for slow systems: - Low memory, if you only have 256MB of RAM (or 512MB) Windows XP is either using all of it up or nearly all of it up once you boot not including running any other programs. To avoid normal slowdown, 1GB of RAM should be installed at the minimum.
- LOTS of processes starting when you login - This is due to all those little programs that you install, they put a auto running .exe and kick that off when you login (this can also cause a VERY slow login).
Solutions: #1 - Buy more RAM :) It is a really good idea to have enough RAM, the reason is because even though you may only have 256MB of RAM, the system has to act like it has more to run some programs. So it sections off part of the Hard Drive to use as "virtual RAM" but the problem here is that the Hard Drive is REALLY slow compared to actual RAM. So not only do you wear out your Hard Drive sooner, you see things like studdering and reallly slow system/program performance where you have to wait to switch windows, games studder, and in general things just don't load quickly. #2 - Check your add/remove programs application under your control panel and see if there is anything you can uninstall (keep an eye out for "toolbars" or "ad" programs). After uninstalling all of those, look in your systray (bottom right near the time) and go through each of the icons there, if you don't need that program running all the time see if there is an option to have it "not" start automatically. If all else fails, you can do: Start -> Run -> "msconfig" and hit enter...then select the startup tab and look at all the little applications that start when you boot. Some are needed (Virus Scanner) but most are not. Well, I just thought that was interesting and I know not everyone knows this so I figured I would post it! Happy Computing!! JP BTW - If you want to get an idea of what a multi-core CPU system can do, click here: Multithreading Pic - This was running ~30% total CPU usage and under 700MB of RAM, but you can see one of my cores was just over 50% (probably either doing the video or World of Warcraft). And this is only a 2 core system with Hyperthreading, not one of the new Core 2 Duo's. - Programs that are running: WoW, Windows Media Player (the video), Firefox (surfing the Internet), Windows Explorer and Command Window (ping test). Really the only CPU intensive things are the game and video...but still a good idea of what you can do :). Also my Geforce 6800GS is driving two monitors.
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