Mal: Yeah, well, just be careful. We cheated Badger out of good money to buy that frippery, and you're supposed to make me look respectable. Kaylee: Yes, sir, Captain Tightpants.

'Shindig'


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SailAweigh - Apr 25, 2005 6:27:48 pm PDT #2597 of 10003
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb

Downloaded the process explorer, but I don't really know what I'm looking for. Any hints as to what all the gobbledy-gook means? It says that system idle is using about 95% of the CPU? Does that make sense?


evil jimi - Apr 25, 2005 6:33:18 pm PDT #2598 of 10003
Lurching from one disaster to the next.

Nope, That's way too high. My XP box is jumping between 0-8% and that's with Azureus, ICQ, MuM, InCD, WordWeb, AsusProbe, and Opera running.

Strike that, I misread the post. What OS are you using, SailAweigh?


dcp - Apr 25, 2005 6:35:45 pm PDT #2599 of 10003
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

I just did a quick test, launching Word used 5% of my system resources, but opening a relatively small document briefly required 51%.


Hil R. - Apr 25, 2005 6:35:55 pm PDT #2600 of 10003
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

SailAweigh, I was getting some stuff like that when there was some spyware on my computer. Have you tried running SpyBot and AdAware to see if they catch anything?


dcp - Apr 25, 2005 6:41:56 pm PDT #2601 of 10003
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

The number in the "CPU" column in the "system idle" row is the percentage you have to spare. Higher is better.

Each line in the display that shows a number in the CPU column is a program that is using CPU cycles.


SailAweigh - Apr 25, 2005 6:42:25 pm PDT #2602 of 10003
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb

Haven't run AdAware for a week or more. Might have picked something up. I think I'll try that.


SailAweigh - Apr 25, 2005 6:43:06 pm PDT #2603 of 10003
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb

"system idle" row is the percentage you have to spare

Then I should have plenty to spare, but it sure doesn't act like it.

ETA: jimi, I use Windows ME.


dcp - Apr 25, 2005 7:01:57 pm PDT #2604 of 10003
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

Windows' "System Performance" figure is based on more than just CPU use, but I don't know the details.

I can help translate some of the "gobbledy-gook" in Process Explorer if you like, but that's probably best done with IM.


SailAweigh - Apr 25, 2005 7:05:42 pm PDT #2605 of 10003
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb

dcp, I think I'm too brain dead to talk coherently about this right now. I ran AdAware, there was only 4 files to get rid of (I'd emptied my internet cache earlier to see if that helped.) One interesting thing, you can pull up a view of the "system information." It says I've got a total of 130,256k (128M) of physical memory (which is right), but that only around 3M is actually available. Now, that just does not sound right. But I can't see any processes running that are taking up massive memory!


dcp - Apr 25, 2005 7:12:03 pm PDT #2606 of 10003
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.

One other suggestion then, tomorrow you might run "msconfig" and have a look at what programs are being loaded at start-up.