How do I find out what's running on my computer ...

MimiJane

I have Norton installed, which I know can be notorious for slowing computers down. There always seem to be things going on in the background to slow it down (which I can tell from the noises). How do I find out what's running at any given time please?

Thanks.

James240

do control, alt and delete and then go into processes tab that will tell u what is running in the background MimiJane

MimiJane

Many thanks to you all ... there's loads going on here!

MercilessKiller

http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html

HiJack This is a program which displays every single current running process on you're computer.

You can stop certain processes, but it does not permanantly stop them from starting after a computer restart, thus it should be used for gaining information rather than stopping processes if you see my point.

Hope this helps.

albertross_2

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html

Neo_2080

If you click on the start bar, then click Run and type in "msconfig", the System Configuration Utility will load up. Then if you click the Startup tab, it'll let youeasily edit which programs load up when windows starts. This should help speed up your PC.

*Note* Be careful not to stop windows system files from loading though.

peter_the_piper

If you run a scan with hijack this, try running a quick analysis here http://www.hijackthis.de/
it will tell you if anythig is dodgy on your comp.

chem14346777

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

This is handy, and it runs off a USB key.

" Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you’ll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you’ll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work. "

MimiJane

I've now determined that the almost permanent "chuntering" in the background is "System Idle Process" according to the task master. This is slowing my computer right down, but it's only a fairly recent thing ...

Can anyone tell me what this is and is it safe to stop/delete it??

Any help much appreciated.

dealwala

MimiJane wrote:

I've now determined that the almost permanent "chuntering" in the background is "System Idle Process" according to the task master. This is slowing my computer right down, but it's only a fairly recent thing ...

Can anyone tell me what this is and is it safe to stop/delete it??

Any help much appreciated.

System Idle Process is an internal windows process. i dont beleive you can stop or delete it. it doesnt actually use up system resources but is basically being utilised when nothing else is using the resources. hope i explained that ok. it basically means the computer is idle

albertross_2

By chuntering, do you mean the disk is being accessed? If so, you can use filemon to see exactly what is doing that.

As dealwala said, system idle, means that nothing is happening, so this is not the cause of your chuntering.