problems with my computer?

bwatt00

I have an oldish computer,well about 6 yrs old there about,think its still fine,xp all the rest,i am using aol i find at times it runs so slow in fact almost stops,But then this does not only happen with aol it can happen with whatever i am doing,feels like its doing something,or running something in the background.
It only happens from time to time and can be so annoying even just trying to load my emails page up can take forever,i have found it i restart my computer all is fine again and running fast.
I am not much into how computers work etc,but any ideas what this could be,sometimes have low memory coming up also but not always.
I am using xp.

fwor

bwatt00 wrote: »

sometimes have low memory coming up also but not always.

When you mention "low memory", do you mean that you are short of hard disk space? If so, delete some stuff from the hard disk - XP does not like running out of disk space. If you have less than a few Gb free then you are probably heading for trouble.

You can see how much memory is used/free and how much CPU is being used by hitting alt/ctrl/del when it's running slow. That should give some clues as to what might be wrong.

wakandem

could be a variety of things from scans going on to hard drive issues to some malware. certainly look at the 1st 4 posts of the security sticky & go through it

imo aol software is at best bloatware and suggest any aol security progs are removed and replaced by free progs all stated in the sticky

bwatt00

fwor wrote: »

When you mention "low memory", do you mean that you are short of hard disk space? If so, delete some stuff from the hard disk - XP does not like running out of disk space. If you have less than a few Gb free then you are probably heading for trouble.

You can see how much memory is used/free and how much CPU is being used by hitting alt/ctrl/del when it's running slow. That should give some clues as to what might be wrong.

alt/ctrl/del what should i look for here so i can post it up,maybe you say tell me if looks ok then if ok what next.

wakandem

check the processes running (how many?) That is with every prog shut, so just the desktop showing & task manager

wakandem

Also the cpu useage , is it high? is it going up and down loads?

fwor

If you have any suspicions that you might have malware then do as Wakendem suggests and go through the stickies referred to.

What you should look for in Task Manager (which you open with alt/ctrl/del) is under the Processes tab, and you're looking for are processes that are using abnormally high CPU percentage - other than the system idle process, of course. Click on "CPU" at the top of that column and it will sort them by CPU usage.

fwor

Sorry Wakendem - I'm posting across you. I'll shut up for a while!

bwatt00

fwor wrote: »

If you have any suspicions that you might have malware then do as Wakendem suggests and go through the stickies referred to.

What you should look for in Task Manager (which you open with alt/ctrl/del) is under the Processes tab, and you're looking for are processes that are using abnormally high CPU percentage - other than the system idle process, of course. Click on "CPU" at the top of that column and it will sort them by CPU usage.

Not sure what i am doing but not shut down anything but idle is the only one high about 95/99

The cpu at bottom changes from 2/4/7%

other than that i am not sure what i am looking for

wakandem

fwor wrote: »

Sorry Wakendem - I'm posting across you. I'll shut up for a while!

don't worry bout me,
it is handy having someone confirming my advice and adding to it, to help the op understand better what we are teling him to do.
By that same token I may just be giving bad advise as I am generally in cloud cookoo land or someone may know a better way of solving the problem, either way it helps me learn as well.

wakandem

bwatt00 wrote: »

Not sure what i am doing but not shut down anything but idle is the only one high about 95/99

The cpu at bottom changes from 2/4/7%

other than that i am not sure what i am looking for

Nothing particularly strange there. You need to check this when you get the problem and see what the cpu is doing if anything.
How many processes have you got running? Under the processes tab it states how many processes are running.

do you know how much ram you have? right click 'my computer' and select properties