What's slowing my computer?

Win 10Pro 64, gigabyte socket 1156 mobo, 24g RAM, GeForce 710 nVidia graphics, Sandisk SSD C drive

My computer's old but continual upgrades have kept it going for more than ten years. I noticed recently that when I changed my graphics choices in browsers from white to a dark grey,the computer slowed way down. I like the darker color and don't want to return to the eye-throbbing white backdrops. The question is this: can it be my graphics card that's the bottleneck? The Geforce 710 is an $80 card. If I replace it with an upgrade will I get some speed benefits? Or is it just an aging computer? Thanks in advance, you guys always have the answers.

Arthur

When you say the computer slowed way down you're only talking about page loading time via the browser aren't you?

Have you tested this a lot? Does the loading of your favorite site go from a second or two to MANY seconds to load? Does a reboot help? Which browser are you using?

But yes, it would sound like a graphic card issue.... And hopefully the power supply is big enough to handle a newer video card.

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I noticed recently that when I changed my graphics choices in browsers from white to a dark grey,the computer slowed way down.

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Exactly what setting are you talking about? Which browser and version are you using?

I would be inclined to reverse whatever switches you made temporarily to see what happens speed-wise.

Also, many computer monitors have their own settings to adjust white/blue brightness to make it easier on the eyes. I've dialed my blue-light brightness back 50% and find it makes a huge difference on eye comfort.

https://www.benq.com/en-ca/campaign/...-it-works.html

Mostly I'm on Firefox. I am talking about the page loading time. On Chrome I retain the original settings and and my mail loads, ZIP, whereas with the color dampened on FFox it takes 20-30 seconds to see gmail. I'm betting you'll have some feedback on this. It's quite striking and I'd like to know why. The suggestion to work with my monitor is excellent. I'll dial back some brilliance and hue and see how my eyes like that.

If it only affects Firefox, then it's probably not a hardware issue.

What setting did you change in Firefox? If you change it back, does Gmail load quicker?

What version of Firefox are you using? Are you running any extensions?

You think it might be because I have almost a hundred websites open on Firefox? I mean. It's hard to shut them all down when each of them is a map to my head space. I think you understand what I'm saying. I try to limit the number...

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You think it might be because I have almost a hundred websites open on Firefox?

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Yes. I avoid having more than 8 or 10 open at once. Usually less than 4. Every window or tab open uses more and more available resources until eventually the computer can't keep up.

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You think it might be because I have almost a hundred websites open on Firefox?

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YES. Each tab takes system resources, especially RAM.

Why do you have to have that many tabs open? That's what bookmarks are for.

This is the standard message one gets when you try to open a lot of tabs in Firefox. I'm sure it's the same with other browsers too. Out of curiosity I opened 25 random sites/tabs and had a look at task manager (Win 7 in my case but I doubt it would be much different with Win 10). Note that the warning says while the pages are loading but that definitely also covers browser behavior even after all the pages are loaded.

It used all of my available RAM... 3Gigs (4G installed w/1G used by my secondary GPU card) and my CPU kept running at around 20% average with higher peaks. With one tab open RAM usage drops by about 80% and CPU drops to about 3% average.

Even with a lower tab count Firefox is slow. I've switched to Chrome and stuff loads with a SNAP. I have 24 g RAM and a SSD. I looked at FFox and couldn't discern why it's so slow. There are two plug-ins that seem to be default. I never installed them. There are a couple of extensions that I removed. No difference. For now, I'm done with Firefox.

How to Troubleshoot extensions, themes and hardware acceleration issues to solve common Firefox problems

I''ve done some troubleshooting with F Fox and it has improved. It still lags a bit but I'll find out why if I keep probing. You have been a great help.

Did you test Firefox for a bit after doing the "Start Firefox in Troubleshoot Mode'?