Why is my computer "lagging"?

M

moleman3

New Member
When I say lag, I don't mean in the internet/bandwidth sense, I mean opening and running programs (they are responding slowly).

Here's the situation. I have a desktop computer (premade system from Dell) that has:

2.01 GHz AMD processer
2 GB ram
NVIDEA GeForce 8600 GT
Vista 32bit

The hard drive is not even half full. I am running two 24" monitors (1920 x 1200).

I realize this isn't a top-of-the-line system, however I am not doing anything at all intensive. When I run even just a few programs (say Firefox, iTunes, and Word) it starts to lag. Like windows will open/close/minimize/restore slowly, sometimes when I type it will not respond right away, and when i move windows around they will move in a choppy manner.

I hit ctrl+alt+del and opened Windows Task Manager to view the performance, and noticed that nothing was anywhere near maxing out during a period where my computer was running quite slowly. When nothing is open, about 700 MB of memory is used (presumably for Vista). And at this point it was only at 1.2 GB out of 2 total. CPU usuage is at 0-4% when idling, and while I was dragging a window around the screen watching it lag, CPU was only getting to like 35%.

I'm not computer illiterate, and I'm certain my computer doesn't have a virus. It's always run somewhat more slowly that I'd expect. So my question is, why are things running slowly and capping out well before any of the components seem to be maxing out? Is there some performance aspect I'm not looking at? If it's not using all the RAM, and the CPU isn't getting maxed out, why are things running slowly?

Thanks in advance.
 
try doing a defrag and disk cleanup, see if that can helpo at all. really bad fragments can affect it to a point
 
I just read something similar from someone who said they upgraded from 2 GB to 4 GB on their 32bit vista system, and they saw noticeable improvements. My problem does feel like a RAM issue, but then why does the task manager not show if it's fully utilizing the 2 GB?
 
How many background processes are you running? Your computer might be lagging because there's too many programs running behind the scene.
 
Upgrading past 3GB on a 32bit system will do you no good...you need 64 bit for that.

What processor do you have, exactly? Just saying "2.01GHz" doesn't say much.
 
to defrag you hit the app that is located in start, accessories, system tools. both defrag and disc cleanup. analyze it first and if it says it needs to defrag, do it. does it on its own. the time it takes depends on how bad u needed to defrag
 
also make sure ur comp is really using your ram. when building mine i put mine in the wrong slots, which they only worked in the two white and not the three blue. so right click my computer and hit properties to see if the ram section is using all the ram u have installed
 
Drenlin said:
What processor do you have, exactly? Just saying "2.01GHz" doesn't say much.
Click to expand...

Yeah i realize I didnt provide specific details. I can check later but it's AMD and I believe dual-core. The point of providing the system details was just to express that I don't have a ridiculously outdated system.

MY MAIN QUESTION here is why the process manager isn't showing me any component being maxed out when it starts to really slow down. I really suspect that if I add 1-2 gig of ram that it will greatly reduce the problem, but I don't understand why.
 
Do you know how much RAM you're using right now? 2GB should be plenty...I barely ever went over 1 when I ran vista.
 
Drenlin said:
Do you know how much RAM you're using right now? 2GB should be plenty...I barely ever went over 1 when I ran vista.
Click to expand...

Typically when my system is "idling" it's using about 600mb. And last night when I pumped open a few programs and got it running slowly, it was at about 1.2GB. Again this is my point, I'm not going over and I feel like 2GB should be plenty. But SOMETHING is slowing things down and I'm trying to find out what that is.
 
open up task manager and click the processes tab. Tick the box at the bottom saying "show processes from all users" and see if any particular programs are using alot of resources.

Also, download, install and run ccleaner from here:

http://download.piriform.com/ccsetup235.exe

and the same with defraggler from here:

http://download.piriform.com/dfsetup121.exe

ccleaner is a utility that removes all the temporary files, cookies and other crap that accumulates in your system (hence the name)

defraggler is a defragmentation utility which is much better than the crap that comes standard with vista
 
Aastii said:
open up task manager and click the processes tab. Tick the box at the bottom saying "show processes from all users" and see if any particular programs are using alot of resources.

Also, download, install and run ccleaner from here:

http://download.piriform.com/ccsetup235.exe

and the same with defraggler from here:

http://download.piriform.com/dfsetup121.exe

ccleaner is a utility that removes all the temporary files, cookies and other crap that accumulates in your system (hence the name)

defraggler is a defragmentation utility which is much better than the crap that comes standard with vista
Click to expand...

I agree 100% with Aastii I was going to say exactly this but he beat me to it. It sounds like you have a lot of temp files on your system this is what ccleaner is good for and defraggler is a good program to defragment your system.
 
Maybe you should goto msconfig/startup to see if a lot programs put their startup there. I have uncheck some of the programs startup. my computer speed up a lot. You need to know what you are doing before goto msconfig, otherwise you could mess up the system. Maybe you can ask a friend to check for you.
Best wishes.
Paul
 
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