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Maximum use of resources. 1

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audiopro

Programmer
Apr 1, 2004
3,165
GB
I am finding my WIN10 computer very slow these days and would welcome some advice on how to sort it out.

When I run a couple of memory intensive programmes, the machine slows down to a crawl.

If I have Facebook and Photoshop open at the same time, Task monitor reports 60%+ CPU usage even when it is processing very little. I appreciate that applications like Facebook are very demanding with regards to resources but I have an XP box which handles both of these programs without breaking into a sweat.
If I open more than 3 websites up, at least one of them fails to respond. Even the Tek-Tips website takes ages to load and I am informed it is fine so what could be wrong?

I have done all the malware checks and very little is activated at start up so I have no idea why it is so slow.
What can I do to make this new computer work at a reasonable speed and not like a 20 year old antique?

Keith
 
audiopro said:
A faster computer would simply mask the inadequacies of a poorly written OS

So by that logic, Windows XP was poorly written in comparison to Windows 2000 and Windows 98, simply because it couldn't run as fast on the same hardware? I don't think so. The truth is there is a lot more going on in the background with each newer OS release, not to mention more bells and whistles. Aero is a good example of something that was added in Vista bumping up system requirements from the XP era. Comparing how XP and Windows 10 run on the same hardware is not a very good comparison any way you look at it. There were 3 iterations released between them (Vista, 7, and 8).

I only run antivirus from startup

Indulge us and uninstall it. If you're truly interested in getting to the bottom of the issue, then this is worth the 20-30 minutes it would take to remove, test, and reinstall. If you're not willing to take chances at this point, then don't waste any more time here.


And finally, you have yet to say what you found using Process Explorer, as I suggested above. If you've never used it, it's worth a look. No installation necessary to open and run it.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

[tab][navy]For this site's posting policies, click [/navy]here.
 
Pretty much what it sounds like - a thread that gets scheduled to run whenever a CPU core isn't able to schedule any other actual thread, i.e. is idling, waiting for a real thread to be scheduled. It doesn't really use the CPU, the CPU usage value really just indicates how much CPU time is not being used by other threads.
 
Indulge us and uninstall it.

Not a bad idea. I saw a Windows XP PC that ran like it had molasses poured in it that perked up immediately after a-v removal. Something was wrong with the a-v program due to a damaged installation or something. It was remarkable.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.
 
Removing the AV did speed it up but I would expect that as all downloaded material is scanned before it hits the machine.
Even with the AV removed it is still noticeably slower than it was this time last year (before the bloaty upgrades).

Keith
 
Let's get this straight - System Idle Process
System idle process is the percentage of the CPU that is not doing anything. If system idle process is using 98% of your CPU, that means you're actually only utilizing 2% of it. You'll notice if you start up a game or something, system idle will go down and the game will go up. You want it to be as near to 100% as possible.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.
 
Here's another thought. It can be time-consuming at times, but you may be able to find a few quick hit items right off the bat. If you disable some unnecessary services for what you're using the computer for, you may see a rather large increase in performance. I know when I'd tweak older computers even to run Windows XP, I'd go through and disable several processes I knew were not going to be used. Some, of course, have bigger impacts than others.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57
 
Install a 32-bit Windows 10. It makes more efficient use of nearly every hardware resource and there may be better driver support for your video adapter and other peripheral devices. Unless you are doing things that specifically benefit from 64-bit Windows it is usually the wrong choice.

The performance issues you are seeing may stem from that far more than other changes you have made. You are comparing apples and oranges unless you were running 64-bit XP, which seems unlikely since hardware vendors hadn't pushed Microsoft to help them sell more through that marketing manipulation yet.
 
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