Hi Ron,
The first thing to do is to see what is taking 100% of the CPU. This is
what is slowing it down. It could be a rogue program, virus, spyware,
etc. Use the task manager to see this (right click on the icon bar on
the bottom and select "Task Manager". Click on the "Processes" tab. You
can click on the column headers to sort using that column. If you sort
from high to low on the "CPU" column, it is easy to see which process is
using the most CPU (ignore the "Idle" process).
If the CPU truly report 100% usage, then it is unlikely to be a lack of
RAM, because the slowness due to lack of RAM results because of heavy
paging. Paging and waits for disk access DO NOT add to a processes CPU
usage, only when the process is actually executing instructions does it
represent usage. If a system is slow, and the disk activity is high and
the total CPU is not all that high, then that would indicate that disk
access is thrashing, likely because of heavy paging due to lack of RAM.
HTH
Russ Poffenberger
[log in to unmask]
>
> I am running xp Pro on a PC with an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.53GHz,
> with a CPU speed of 2523MHz, and 1G of RAM. My hard drive is 300G
> and is still mostly free space. I use Zone Labs Security Suite, with
> anti-virus scanning daily. Spyware Doctor runs upon bootup, I
> regularly use Spybot Search & Destroy and
> AdAware for spyware, CC cleaner for "tuneups", and Auslogics for
> disk and reg. defrag. Still, though, my PC can be terribly slow too
> much of the time. More often than not, when it's slow, the Task
> Manager shows 100% CPU usage. Nevertheless, I'm wondering if adding
> 1G of RAM could help. A computer savvy friend says that with my CPU,
> more RAM will not help. The service dept. at 2 Fry's stores said
> that was not true. Any educated guesses as to how good the chances
> are that an extra G of RAM would help my PC's speed? Thanks very
> much in advance for any assistance.
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