[ExcessiveEvil]

Okay guys, this is going to take some time for me to explain, so please be patient and read, i'm pulling my hair out here , not sure where to post this as it has elements of a lot of potential areas.

I have XP Pro, service pack 2. 2GB of RAM, 3.0gz ht intel processor, nvidea 8800 gt.

Almost 2 months I moved to my university city, I live in a flat in the city center (not on campus).

Ever since my fps on games like team fortress 2 and counter strike source have been really bad. I don't know whether it's anything to do with internet connection, my bandwidth here is better then home.

However, my pc takes forever to start up once I log in, and it can take over 15 mins to shut down.

I also installed another hard drive: 1TB, 7200 rpm, 32mb cache, not sure if that would reduce the performance more, but I only did that recently.

My friend said it could be a virus or memory leak. I'm no closer to finding an answer to this, hence joining a forum that could potentially help me. I know some of this is not game related, sorry about that. All help is appreciated.

[Dalo Harkin]

It seems that you have an excessive amount of startup items loading and shutting down:-
run msconfig from run or cmd.exe.

and post whats listed in there on the startup tab.
You could have a memory problem, have you run memtest?

if you press CTRL + ALT + DEL what are the main 'hogs' of RAM?

[ExcessiveEvil]

Not much is starting up in msconfig:


Here is my task manager:


I can never find what is using up all my cpu/memory when i tab out

What is a mem test?

Thanks for getting back to me

[Tootech]

Hi Evil,

I noticed Rapidshare is using 61% CPU on the info you have posted, which is alot considering you have a 3 GHz CPU

Perhaps it would be a good idea to disable all non Microsoft services and startup items initially and look at the startup/shutdown routine times.

Use MSConfig, disable all startup items, then over to Services tab, at the bottom, click Hide All Microsoft Services, then disable all that is left.

Run your shutdown/startup routine and let us know what happens.

BTW - once you have done that, go back to MSConfig and re-enable eveything. Just need to do this to ensure any antivirus software you have is functioning whilst your are tinkering.

[Goku]

Hello and Welcome to Free PC Help Evil.

You have a lot of processes running. For one, your CPU usage is full which is bound to cause lags processing other tasks. As Tootech says, try ending the processes or better yet uninstall the programs using them.

We can start by looking what is installed on your computer.

1. Download and install CCleaner (Slim) from here.
2. After the installation is complete, run the application by running clicking on the shortcut on the desktop. Click on the Tools tab.
3. It will present you with a list of softwares installed on your computer. Press the button that reads Save to text file.... It will ask you for a location to save the file to, so save it to a convenient location (preferable on Desktop).
4. Browse to the location where you saved the file and open it. Copy and paste its contents in your next reply.

And while you are at it, please use CCleaner to clear old cache and temporary internet files. It will help you recover some of your disk space, if not give a tremendous performance boost. Provide us with the required information as soon as possible.

Note: Do not use CCleaner's registry cleaning feature unless specifically advised so. It may cause more harm than good if used carelessly.

-- Goku