Sudden drop in resources

[jhona]

I am experiencing a sudden and major drop in resources when I go onto the internet. I open with about 88% and work through most of the day between 77% and 82. Now it dips down as far as 44%. I am careful not to install resource gobbler software, so is there a way to find out the culprit that may be the source of this drop, or could it be many things going on all of a sudden?
any suggestions would really help in this mystery
thanks in advance
jhona

[Cricket]

How many browsers do you have open at one time?

Have you scanned for spyware?

Cricket

[jhona]

I have only one browser, IE, and I just got SpyBot, but I wasn't sure if it was safe to run it. Do you know if it is a good program. And will this spyware be the possible drain of resources?
thanks for the fast reply
jhona

[Cricket]

Spybot is a good spyware scanner. Yes, it does use some resources, but you don't leave it up and running all the time. You just run it when you want to scan for spyware.

Ad-aware is another good spyware scanner. I run both after I log off the internet.

How are you going on-line? Modem or broadband?

When you're on-line have you checked Task Manager to see what's running?

Cricket

[Sharpened Metal]

How many IE windows do you have open at one time? The more you have open, the less resources. If your the type that likes to look at many at one time, I strongly suggest a better browser like Opera.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Originally posted by Sharpened Metal How many IE windows do you have open at one time? The more you have open, the less resources. If your the type that likes to look at many at one time, I strongly suggest a better browser like Opera.

I stronlgy suggest a better browser like mozilla or mozilla firebird.

[KHT]

SpyBot is most definately a good program to run.

Try running MSCONFIG. (start\run\msconfig) Open the start up tab and trim off any progs you don`t need to have running. All you need to have is systray and Windows will run fine and your resource problem will be much better.

Make sure to have your AntiVirus and Firewall program running as well.

[jhona]

I ran spybot once and did see a little better performance and less gobble of resources. I use dial-up and you suggest I run spybot before I shut down at night? sounds right. I will look into this Task Manager, I have heard of it but have no idea what it is supposed to do. I thank you for your advice and in such a timely manner!
Off I go in search of this Task manager and we'll see what we can find out with this baby.
thanks again Cricket,
jhona

[jhona]

This MSCONFIG thing drives me crazy. What exactly really needs to be in there and what does not, since I don't know what some of the things are I leave them as is, here is an example:
ScanRegistry:C:\WINDOWS\scanregw.exe/autorun
SysTray.exe
Eventmgr.exe
Taskmon.exe
Rundll32.exe powerprof.dll,LoadCurrentPwrScheme(listed 2X)
mstask.exe
Startup.exe

These are just the generic ones that I cannot delete from showing up here and have been nervous about unchecking.

I have been using the computer for years, but mostly artistically and for web design, haven't made the time, which I will now begin to, to learn about such things. In the mean while, can someone help me here, what can I safely take out, and if not remove, then uncheck?
Grateful to KHT and others who may reply to my absurd questions,
jhona

[Miz]

There's a complete list..and it is most definitely a complete list...of things that might be found in msconfig's startup on this page.

You can check what's in your msconfig against that list to get an understanding of which things need to be left checked.

Since more and more users are learning how to use msconfig, more and more software developers...especially spyware developers...are writing their stuff to ignore msconfig and start up anyway...putting yet another entry into msconfig's startup list.

The best way to keep a program from loading on startup is to open the program itself and poke around it its options or preferences or setup (whichever that progarm calls it) to see if there's something to check to disable it from loading on startup.

Use msconfig only for those which don't offer that option to disable loading on startup.

In addition, if you have something unchecked in msconfig and then uninstall its program, that entry will usually be left in msconfig's list...which isn't going to hurt anything but it really annoys me.

[KHT]

What you show running now shouldn`t gobble up resources.

What you want to look for are things such as Microsoft Office, Printer "Suites", or any other programs you have installed that may be running in the background automatically. You can still use these progs but don`t need them running all the time. Real Player is a notorious resource gobbler.

If you`re not sure what a program is, do a search for it (start\run\search or it may say find) and look at what directory it is in by right clicking on it and looking in properties. For example, in my task manager I have minilog.exe running under processes. (I have Windows 2000 but the same principles will work in W9x). A search reveals that it is in the C:\WINNT\system32\ZoneLabs directory so now I know what program is using it and whether or not I want it running.

You want the little icons at the lower right corner near the clock at a minimum.

[jhona]

to a minimum, eh KHT. I think we might have found the culprit. there are quite a few of them. I guess I keep the anti virus, and the cacheman, and filenotes manager but after that, really everything else can go to fast launch or just the desk top. It is laziness that has taken over this back injured, homebound, bored out of my skull, mid life crisis chick with cats! Who has been procrastinating on updating the ole website. well, since I'm in the mood to play, I will try getting some of these things off my system tray. I have just spent the better part of the past 2 hours undoing an email worm, ScanWorm, I think it was. What a headache, but it seems to have been squashed. thanks for your help, and its nice talking english for a change. I have a very talkative cat who won't shut up until you play the fool and meowspeak back!
Have a great day,
jhona