Memory Issues

[XMENPorsche]

Okay, I've got a 3.4Ghz processor in my machine with 4Gb of RAM, yet the thing is so DOG slow. I've run MSCONFIG to review the things that are loading at startup. I turned off a few things and rebooted but the thing still just chugs. I check my processor utilization and it shows that "System Idle Process" pegged at the top (as it should be). I show available RAM at about half free and Page File usage at 1.73Gb.

Are there any cache or buffer settings in the registry that can be tweaked? This is driving me nuts. What am I missing?

Also, I'm on XP SP2 and am current on all patches.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Maybe a dumb question, but do you have hyperthreading enabled?


And what does task manager say is sucking up resources? What are the first 10 things on the list in order of usage?

[XMEN Iceman]

SOMETHING is eating up about 1.5gb's??????

What the heck is doing that?

[XMEN Gambit]

MSConfig doesn't show everything. You also haven't said what specifically is slow. Browsing? Email? Photoshop? Start Menu?

I'm assuming you're running Norton or AVG anti-virus. Had a look for spyware? You know about Ad-aware, but AVG also has a spyware checker. Though you don't get automatic web updates if you don't pay. Never used it myself.

[XMENPorsche]

Asha - To be honest, I ordered the machine from Dell with hyper threading enabled, but I never checked to see if it was. Where do I find that? I'm guessing it's in the bios somewhere. Here are the processes that are currently running....




Gambino - I have NAV and it's up to date. My machine is virus scanned every other night and it always comes up clean. I recently ran AdAware - 57 items found - all in the IE cache.

As for exactly WHAT is slow.... Photoshop is the first thing that comes to mind, but overall system performance isn't what it should be. Web surfing is acceptable.

[XMEN Gambit]

Ok, have you got fastfind running? That thing will slow down your system, but I don't see it in your list.

The largest processes in your list, other than IE:

Explorer is eating 32 MB. But then, mine is eating 24.
You have a 41.5 MB svchost process. My largest is 32.

Neither of these is completely unreasonable - you have a bigger hard drive, more recent system, etc. But the mystery is WinLogon also eating 32 MB. Mine is using one-tenth that.

What is "retrorun?" Ah, backup software.

Overall, I don't see anything obvious. There are four trojans/worms registered here that use the name winlogon for cover, but I'd think your virus checker would catch them. All of them seem more concerned with stealing your passwords than slowing down your system. There are ways processes can hide themselves from this list, too, but I'm not familiar with them or how to find 'em.

Dunno, in short. I could come over and look at it sometime if you like, but I can't promise anything.

BTW, that link, http://www.processlibrary.com, is really handy for figuring out what processes are.

[XMENPorsche]

Whenever you want to come over to take a look, let me know.

Does anyone know how to tell if Winlogon is legit or if it is something malicious? Virus scan doesn't seem to think that there's anything wrong with it.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Winlogon should be a valid task. But I don't think it should take even remotely as much memory as it seems to like.

If you want to see if hyperthreading is enabled, it should say so in your system information:

Start > Programs > Accessories > System Information

Then look for the folder called, "System Summary" and look for the item named "Processor". It should say something like "x86 Family Genuine Intel Pentium 4 Hyperthreading blah blah blah". Or it will be in the next line. Also, if you open task manager and see two processor windows it means that your OS has recognized that your processor has either hyperthreading or it is a multiple-core processor or dual-processor system.

If it is not enabled, which I doubt if you say it came from dell, then you'll have to modify some registry settings and/or download a set of drivers.

Chances are that it is enabled, and whatever your computer is choking on is killing either the task scheduler or not allowing the processes to be divided up. Either one is the case: one is bad programming, the other is probably still bad programming.


I don't recognize "MsMpEng" in your task list. Though I do have a Win2k system, not Win XP.

Gambit's link should help a lot.



Here's another question for you, do you leave certain things on while you are using your machine? Like a scanner, or leave your camera plugged into your machine? When those things are there, the OS has to poll them to see their status.


The best way I have found for managing your Windows computer is the following:

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel, and Click on "Administrative Tools". Then click on "Computer Management".

That should open an MMC console that lists various categories of your computer's operation. Go to "Services and Applications" in the left window and at the bottom, expand that topic, and click on "Services". That should open up an alphebetized list of all of the potential things that can run on your system. There is a description for each one as well as columns for telling if it has started and whether it's an auto or manual start.


Also, if you look in the left window again, and look at the top at "Event Viewer" and expand that topic, you'll see a couple of items, "Application", "Security", and "System". Clicking on each of those will tell give you a log of the events that the OS has recorded. Most of the time you can find events in there that are pretty routine, but occasionally you'll find something that's generating a lot of errors or warnings. Or something times out, or whatever. THe point is, you have a kind of history for your machine.

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