Soooo Slooowww!!!

[MaxCottle]

HI Guys, SO I built a PC which is of a reasonably high spec but it runs unreasonable slow.
I am running XP pro SP2
I have the following setup
MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester
Crucial Ballistics Memory 4x 512MB RAM
2x Maxtor Diamond Max 9 250GB HDD
1x Seagate 700GB HDD
Gainward GeForce 6800 GT Gold Sample Graphics card

I think that is all that is relevant.
I don't believe I have a Virus or spyware as I run Kaspersky internet security, Pest patrol, Adaware SE and SPybot very regularly.

I do use emule as my P2P client I often get 100% utilization on my PC when this is on (which is most of the time) but I also get 100% utilization when Emule is not on.

can you help?

Thanks

Max

[ktkendall]

How long have you had this PC up and running, and has this problem been since you first built this PC? If you open task manager and look at the processes tab, and view it for a bit, you may see which processes are hogging up the CPU. If you also run the msconfig utility and look at the startup tab, how many things are checked there?

[Cricket]

Has this computer always performed like this or did the problem just start recently?

What have you tried to do to fix this computer?

Have you tested the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility yet?

Have you tested the RAM with a memory tester yet?

Have you tried running the computer with just 2 sticks of RAM?

Have you tried running the computer with just 1 hard drive connected?

Have you tried running the computer with the opticals disconnected?

Cricket

[MaxCottle]

Hi There

Thank you both for your replies, so I have tried everything cricket suggests exept for a RAM tester. I built the PC 3 years ago but I can't remember when I first saw the problem (sorry) I have had for quite a while

In Task Manager the processes which hog resource are typically Emule, Kaspersky Antivirus and system idle process. Emule is the worst offender for both memory and CPU but if I kill emule I can still have the issue.
I looked at msconfig and unchecked the unnessary things but all in all this made no difference.

Thanks

Max

[Alaron]

If you kill eMule, and the CPU is still at 100%, is Kaspersky the process that is taking up the CPU?

If so, kill both and see if that knocks the CPU down. If it doesn't there must be some other process in use.

System Idle Process doesn't use the CPU, it means that the CPU is idling.

[MaxCottle]

Yes that's correct but the system idle process does go to 99% as well, I know what it means but that is what I see.

Thanks

Max

[LeftyAce]

If the system idle process is at 99% then your processor is doing nothing; does it stay at 99% for very long (or close to 99)? What makes you say the processor is still being used once kasperky and emule are closed? What does the processor performance graph look like?

[MaxCottle]

Hi Lefty

So I looked at the System Idle process, it stays around 99% but will drop down and back up etc.

I checked the pp Graph it looks erratic with hi SPikes.

Cheers

Max

[rave]

how much of diskspace do you have in your C: drive? (the drive you installed windows on?)
if you have probably less than 512MB there will be some performance issues as there is not enough hard drive space for the virtual memory.

also check in TaskManager what is using up most of your ram and your Virtual memory (to enable the Virtual Memory column go to View-->Select Column --> Check Virtual Memory Size)

[MaxCottle]

Hi There,
So I have 250GB for my C Drive with 220GB free

I checked the Virtual memory and Emule is using the most.

Thanks

MAx

[LeftyAce]

With 2 Gigs of ram, I can't imagine that you're running into memory problems (but it is possible, what's your memory usage?)

Have you tried defragmenting the harddrive?

[rave]

just maybe (small chance), windows isnt using all that memory.
start-->run--> type "msconfig" --> boot.ini tab --> advance options --> check /maxmem and set it to 2048 or something if it not already 2048

[MaxCottle]

Thanks Rave I looked at that it was unchecked but when I checked it it went straight to 2048.

Thanks

Max

[rave]

im sorry to say that doesnt necessarily fix your problem. but keep an eye on it

[MaxCottle]

Will Do thanks

[MaxCottle]

hi lefty sorry i missed your reply.

yes i schedule diskeeper to defrag my disks over night so no problems there.

cheers

max