Using an Inspiron 2200. I have a 1.4GHz processor (Intel Celeron M). I use
WinXP Home. 20GB hard drive (I know it's small but I have 300+ GB worth of
externals, but that's besides the point, or is it?). 1.24GB of RAM. I have
every spyware and adware program on earth (the legit ones like Ad-aware and
Spyware Sweeper) and I run them regularly. I have a paid subscription to
Norton Internet Security, and I use it. I defrag and empty my temp files
regularly. I usually have Adobe Photoshop CS2 (and work with very large
graphics), Microsoft Outlook, AIM and a web browser or two open regularly
with my high speed internet connected. Task Manager tells me on average I
have 35-45 processes running at any given time.

My CPU usage is usually at 100%, which is NOT right. In task manager the
process that is hogging anywhere from 95-100% of my CPU is explorer.exe

EVERYTHING I do lately takes forever to load, and sometimes just locks up.
Especially when using Outlook, and when loading large files into Adobe. It's
getting really bad and I don't know what to do to speed things up. Buy and
install a better processor? Is it a virus? My drivers? Should my on-board
hard drive be larger? Memory optimizer programs don't really do the trick,
but something tells me that my memory isn't a problem and that it is my CPU
and explorer.exe

PLEASE HELP!

justin wrote:
> Using an Inspiron 2200. I have a 1.4GHz processor (Intel Celeron M).
> I use WinXP Home. 20GB hard drive (I know it's small but I have 300+
> GB worth of externals, but that's besides the point, or is it?).
> 1.24GB of RAM. I have every spyware and adware program on earth (the
> legit ones like Ad-aware and Spyware Sweeper) and I run them
> regularly. I have a paid subscription to Norton Internet Security,
> and I use it. I defrag and empty my temp files regularly. I usually
> have Adobe Photoshop CS2 (and work with very large graphics),
> Microsoft Outlook, AIM and a web browser or two open regularly with
> my high speed internet connected. Task Manager tells me on average I
> have 35-45 processes running at any given time.
>
> My CPU usage is usually at 100%, which is NOT right. In task manager
> the process that is hogging anywhere from 95-100% of my CPU is
> explorer.exe
>
> EVERYTHING I do lately takes forever to load, and sometimes just
> locks up. Especially when using Outlook, and when loading large files
> into Adobe. It's getting really bad and I don't know what to do to
> speed things up. Buy and install a better processor? Is it a virus?
> My drivers? Should my on-board hard drive be larger? Memory optimizer
> programs don't really do the trick, but something tells me that my
> memory isn't a problem and that it is my CPU and explorer.exe

Uninstall NIS.
See if that alone helps.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You have a PC with a 20 G hard drive and over 1 G of RAM? I would guess a PC
with a small hard drive would have 128 M of RAM, barely enough to run Win XP.
You sure about the RAM? Open "My Computer". Right click on the white field
and click "properties". (If you haven't already!)

"justin" wrote:

> Using an Inspiron 2200. I have a 1.4GHz processor (Intel Celeron M). I use
> WinXP Home. 20GB hard drive (I know it's small but I have 300+ GB worth of
> externals, but that's besides the point, or is it?). 1.24GB of RAM. I have
> every spyware and adware program on earth (the legit ones like Ad-aware and
> Spyware Sweeper) and I run them regularly. I have a paid subscription to
> Norton Internet Security, and I use it. I defrag and empty my temp files
> regularly. I usually have Adobe Photoshop CS2 (and work with very large
> graphics), Microsoft Outlook, AIM and a web browser or two open regularly
> with my high speed internet connected. Task Manager tells me on average I
> have 35-45 processes running at any given time.
>
> My CPU usage is usually at 100%, which is NOT right. In task manager the
> process that is hogging anywhere from 95-100% of my CPU is explorer.exe
>
> EVERYTHING I do lately takes forever to load, and sometimes just locks up.
> Especially when using Outlook, and when loading large files into Adobe. It's
> getting really bad and I don't know what to do to speed things up. Buy and
> install a better processor? Is it a virus? My drivers? Should my on-board
> hard drive be larger? Memory optimizer programs don't really do the trick,
> but something tells me that my memory isn't a problem and that it is my CPU
> and explorer.exe
>
> PLEASE HELP!