RAM: can I increase w/out changing other hardware?

Gosh, I guess a few years in hardware can make the difference between vintage and rip-you-off-your-chair speed :D You all kind of got me thinking about upgrading even more... but I'm going to try to restrain myself (weird things happen as soon as I open the case, and more often than not it turns into a multipage saga here).

SS, thanks for looking at the screen shots. I'm kind of surprised at the high value for Sys Idle being a good thing. All this time I thought my power settings were out of kilter or something. But you're smart, so I'll take your word for it :) I have no idea why IE started hogging resources all of a sudden.

All things considered, since it's been three years it probably is time for a format C:\. I so dislike that task.

lgbpop, thank you for the ebay referral. I'll bookmark it. (Although I will readily admit I'm chicken to purchase hardware from ebay ;) )

OK, I'm about ready to pull my hair out. IE is hogging resources now on a daily basis. I just had 3 IE windows open, OE, and then launched Word so I could get some Tsk Mgr screen shots. It took a full 10 minutes to launch Word and get those screen shots saved, IE has just slowed my machine to an anemic crawl. (low 80's to high 90's CPU usage)

I would think new/more RAM would have had an impact on this. But this is a relatively new development, even with 2nd stick of RAM.

Thoughts: New RAM isn't doing the trick? Repair IE (running IE6 SP2) or just ditch it and go for IE7? (Firefox got too glitchy on me, and so I quit using it.)

New screen shots attached showing CPU usage. Appreciate any input. It's taken me 20 minutes start to finish just to gather the attachment and get this typed/posted :confused:

You need to zap some of thos processes Kat, 52 is a lot, have a run through the list of processes and if you recognise any, see if you need it to be running, if you can get another screenshot of task manager maximised to show all of them, then we could find out if most of those 52 are needed or not.


Liam

Thanks, Liam, very much. I've been meaning to get to that too, just always something lately. (After I post this I have to run, won't be back till later today. Have a multi-ton tree uprooted from a storm, it's now sitting on top a rental property and tree service is on the way :eek: )

Attached is shot of all processes, I overlapped by a couple so none would be missed. I closed all IE windows, then reopened. Oddly enough, IE usage is down but CPU still high in high 90's.

I agree 52 processes are a bit too much. I have only 23 running on this one and could probably pare that down too.

As for ram helping with IE, that's really not the issue, because IE is dependant on your internet connection on how fast it loads and lets you send messages on here.

I bet you have too much in start up also that could be eating your memory.

There is some problem with IE, most likeluy something is corrupted. First of all, get your WinXP CD handy, then go to Start>Run and type "sfc /scannow" without the quotes. That'll replace any missing or corrupt system files.

Thanks to you both for responding. First, SS, I started with your suggestion. Only I had trouble. And before I elaborate further, if you want to bail out now, I'll understand. I suspect we are about to enter what DrMDJ used to teasingly refer to as "the KatMac zone". It is a place of weird tributaries and side routes that occur when enroute to a solution, and it can get ugly :rolleyes:

OK. So I closed programs and did sfc /scannow, and the black command prompt screen flashed and disappeared. Tried a couple more times, same thing. So I rebooted so I could do this in safe mode. (Here's where the wierd stuff comes in.) I didn't hit F8 in time and it stalled at the screen that lists Energy Star Complaint, my mobo, etc. On the upper right screen was a white half-box, inside was typed "Post Code 7F" (no quotes) . Then, over on the left middle of the screen, I see "CPU was changed. Please re-setting CPU information in CMOS set up" (no quotes, but that's typed verbatim). Immediately I thought of a virus because, well, it's just not proper English (and CPU was not changed). So I did a reset, got into Safe Mode, popped XP CD in, did sfc /scannow, and the same thing happened: Command Prompt screen flashed and disappeared.

I'd appreciate any thoughts. If you want to save yourself and run for the hills, I will understand :D

Actually what you should have gotten after the cmd prompt window disappeared was a small normal window titled Windows File Protection, within that there would be a bar moving across the screen. See the website below and scroll down about with 1/4 the page. It might take a few minutes for the small window to show up.

http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html

Thanks, PL. I'll try it again. (This is the first time I had a successful boot up since last night. Tried multiple times, would get stuck at the screen prompting whether I wanted Safe Mode, Normal, Last Known Good Config., etc. and just kept going round & round. I was able to get into Safe Mode this morning, however, and only from there reboot and XP started normally. At the bios screen it kept displaying "Post Code 75", don't recall seeing that before. So I've now definately got some extra issues going on here.)

I think your CMOS settings have been corrupted. Try clearing the CMOS - that will reset all the BIOS defaults. There should be a jumper on the motherboard to do that, if there isn't or you can't find it then pulling the motherboard battery out for a few minutes will achieve the same result (unplug the power lead as well).

Thanks SS. I'll try that next. I did successfully go through sfc /scannow.

It's been a long time since I cleared CMOS. I need to jot down my current BIOS settings first, since clearing it will change them all, if I recall?

I'm beginning to feel silly and incompetent for not getting this issue under control, but I'm back again with that issue of IE hogging recources. So bad it took multipe attempts to get Task to even open.

Nearly fell off my chair. Not only is IE running in high 80's to high 90's, Page File is a whopping 1+ GB. :eek:

Screen shot attached. IE did clip along as it should (on Comcast) for a couple days after doing sfc /scannow, but it's reverted back again.

No chance to reset CMOS yet, have a work deadline looming I have to address. But this is giving me tons of grief, have never encountered this before, so if someone has thoughts, I'm grateful!

~Kat

I think it might be worth repairing or re-installing IE:

Repair or re-install IE & OE in WinXP

Repair IE & OE

I wouldn't worry about the value for the page file, that isn't unusual, and doesn't always mean what people think. As long as you have sufficient RAM installed, all the PF is doing is storing unused memory addresses that have been allocated but aren't actually needed - it isn't holding any real data at all.

Thanks, SS, for the reassurance on page file.

I haven't had a chance to do a repair yet (work deadline) but IE is behaving OK again (I suspect that's temporary, tho). You know what, I think I'm going to try IE 7. Have not heard gripes yet, those I know who've tried it seem quite pleased.

So would it be necessary to still do a repair of IE6 if I upgrade to IE7? (Don't know if IE7 is a 'separate' entity, or built on the foundation of IE6. If it's the latter, then I can see how repair of 6 would be justified before going to 7.)

Moving to IE7 would be a very good idea. You shouldn't need to repair IE6 first, as IE7 will replace it completely.

FWIW, I've been using IE7 since the early betas and it is a very nice browser indeed, all the bugs in the betas have been minor. If you can be patient though, I think the final release of IE7 is very close - within the next 2 or 3 weeks hopefully.