Programs lag alot, help!

So I'm running WinXP Pro, P4 2.5, 768 MB RAM. I have my page file on a seperate partition from my system. Program lag a lot, take too long to load, makes Winamp skip while doing something simple. Firefox, for example, can take up to 8 seconds just to load. Is there anything I can do? I'm running FreeRAM XP, I have a good 500+ Megs free most of the time. Can anyone help me? It seems this computer has this problem on every OS I put on it. Could it be bad hardware? Thanks for any help!

 

I also have a few partitions, which might contribute to that.

C: - 9.75 GB
D: - 9.82 GB
F: - 29.2 GB
L: - 204 GB

 

Hi,
First off, from my research Firefox loads slowly because it's components are not pre-loaded at bootup (IE loads components at bootup). I don't mind the wait, since I know it's not taking up memory space. If you would like it too load at bootup, add it to your Startup folder.

Possible causes for the lagging:
IRQ allocation. Change the position of the PCI cards in the PCI slots. Windows should automatically reinstall the drivers for them. Put soundcards and internal modems in the last slots (closest to the edge of the motherboard).

Update the motherboard/chipset drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website.

If you are running old or very new graphics drivers consider running some that are "in between" (do a search of your graphics card model number and "drivers" see what others...especially gamers...recommend).

Most basic...the drive may have partitioning problems. Run CheckDisk...if it is slow or stalls, run it in Safe Mode.

Are you doing occasional clean-ups and defrags of the drives?

A badly written program running in the background? Shut down all unnecessary programs after a fresh boot and see if major programs run smoothly.

Matt
(EDIT: run the system monitors)