Hell i have a 3.4 dual core and 2g ram and I go thru same thing on a daily basis, maybe not as much as you do but on a fairly low end machine I can imagine theres not much ur going to be able to do about it.

One more thing: With onboard graphics, you may have shared video memory which would affect your available memory even more.

Oh, I know, vstyler. He asked for some tips, though, and I thought it prudent to give him some tips that might help.

Kona - Lack of memory. It's writing everything to the hard drive. Forums are simply more complex then the average web page.


vStyler - Sounds like a security program. Actually, it smells like Zone Alarm.


Jafo should be the one to address this....he's a virtual encyclopedia of all that can/will go wrong with a computer.

That would be from personal experience, I'd bet.

I think my similiar slow downs are Modem related but I am already in over my head here.   

call your phine company and have them do a line test!

            

Sorry, man...could NOT resist!

Kona with those specs.........it's time for an upgrade  

kona0197, your computer needs more power. Mine is almost 5 years old. It is a compaq that came with 256 and now it's got 1.2 megs of RAM. RAM is cheap right now so if you plan to keep using this machine get as much as it can hold. Mine has onboard intel graphics too. It has a Intel Cely 2.8 GHz CPU. Running XP Home. Running WB, OD, etc. etc. and that Thoosje sidebar thingie. The point is I don't have any of your issues. It flies! ok, there is some process that is causing this. Go here WWW Link and be very careful. Follow all directions carefully. This guy is an expert. I was using Zone Alarm for a couple of years but the last update really played havoc on this machine so bye bye. I'm using sygate now and it seems to do just fine and doesn't slow anything down. There could be any number of things causing this problem. I'm no expert I just have picked up tips along the way.

The answer is somewhere in there. First off, excluding Windows, you do have 'Startup's. AV, spyware, WB etc. My reference to ZA was not the firewall, but the apps that run with it. Secondly, everyone has their own opinions as to what 'useless' is and it's impact on speed, but very few actually hinder performance. Disabling some could actually have the opposite effect. Your machine should have no problems running anything.

Having said all that, my money is still on a security app that is on-access. Most likely a spyware/phlishing type. When you hit a site (as in forums) that have a lot of frames, scripting et al, your CPU instructions are off to the races. On a dual processor, it's not a problem. On a single, you're done until it's done. Since you have a dual, it's not CPU related (unless you've changed the affinity or priority), so you either have a service disabled that shouldn't be or it's app related. My guess is that your CPU, as it relates to your fan problem, is spiking more then you think.

Save your money for a few months and you'll be able to double those specs and more Kona.

yrag, all I have running at start up is WB.. nothing non-MS is in services in Msconfig and nothing at all is in startup. The only services I disable are print spooler, messenger and error reporting.

As far as AV.. I install it periodically, scan fully, then uninstall, same with spyware removers. I keep my PC updated and use windows firewall only. I only frequent 5-10 safe sites, I dont open anything suspicious and have learned to protect myself using my wits over the years as opposed to bog down protection based appz. I can promise you I have nothing intrusionary on my PC.

kona, that Duron is not going to get you far. If you have only got 120 bucks to play with you might consider waiting, saving a bit more and then having a look around. An upgrade to your current system will cost a lot of money and I would wait until you have 500 bucks and then get in the market for a new box