Possible memory problem?

My pc seems to have slowed down and I am wondering if it is a memory problem. Currently I have 512mb and I can upgrade to 1024mb.How can I tell how much of my memory I am using? Ran a full scan with NIS 2007 and no virus' or adware was found.NIS was only installed a couple of weeks ago and problem started about a week later.

 

System Information

System information should tell you "available physical memory "
start > programs > tools > system information

 

Hello Rackster,

Have you looked in Task Manager? alt+ctl+del

Look in the process tab. Clicking on any column headings will order the columns entries. Clicking on the Mem usage will order it low to high, click again will order it high to low.

If you look in the Performance tab, you can see see the page file usage and CPU usage.

In this thread, explanations for the usage numbers in the performance tab:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=49621&highlight=memory

Regards - Charles

 

how many things are running in your taskbar next to your clock?
I notice that you are running Norton As well, This AV is a system resource
hog and will slow down your computer. you can go to start/run and type in
msconfig and then start up, and uncheck everything you don't need.

 

Thanks for the quick responses guys....Visionof... my system information shows 149 out of 512mb still available.

Charlesvar...the task manager shows the same thing in the performance tab (shows a range of 150-200mb available) but my next question is,how come it shows svchost.exe 4 times under user name SYSTEM,twice under NETWORK SERVICE and once under LOCAL SERVICE?There also is another process named CCSVCHST.EXE under SYSTEM.

Centurion...I have only a few icons in my taskbar,already had run msconfig.

Now I'm thinking its not a memory problem,seems a minimum of 150mb of available memory should be sufficient. Thinking now maybe NIS2007 or the svchost.exe is the culprit.Actually just noticed NIS2007 didn't start when I booted up my pc this morning,first time that has happened.

Any other thoughts or suggestions? Would a registry cleaning program help?

 

That's normal. A description of Svchost.exe
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314056

Belongs to NIS - a process called Symantec Service Framework

You're right, 150MB is sufficient.

I think your basic problem is NIS, there's somthing wrong with the way its interacting with your system. RAM is not the only factor in the speed of a system. If a process chokes the CPU, all the RAM in the world is not going to make a system faster once its established that the sysem is not using the page file excessively. You don't mention the CPU usages.

You can try - RegSeeker http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm and before you use it, create either a System Restore point and/or backup the Registry.

Start > run > type regedit > ok

In the upper left tool bar > File > export > to a file name, for example regbackup. Double clicking on that file will restore the registry.

Regards- Charles

 

Today the CPU usage range is 7 to 20% but yesterday the range was 3 to 10% but occasionally jumping all the way to 88%.

The page file usage is a pretty steady 328mb.

 

Rackster,

I have to agree with the others that NIS2007 is a big part of your problem.

Since I installed it my system has slowed wayyyyy down.
Even when I'm not doing anything and the computer's sittng idle there's always a bunch of disk activity going on.

I disabled LiveUpdate and that has helped a bit.
I now run it manually.

~

 

Well I uninstalled NIS07 and seems to working faster. Now I have to decide if I want to reinstall or find another anti-virus program.

 

Hello Rackster,

An additional tool to use:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/processmonitor.mspx

Regards - Charles

 

I would not reinstall Norton,Unless you want to be back where you where.
Also stay away from McAffee, You could try AVG/AVAST or Comodo or Bitdefender.. I am using Bitdefender std v.10 , it works great. Low on resources.

 

Well I didn't reinstall NIS,but while searching on how to uninstall EVERYTHING that has to do with NIS I came across someone who suggested to use Microsoft Care One for a security suite. I downloaded it and so far so good. It was a trial download good for 90 days,so I figured it couldn't hurt,I'm just leary about the quality of protection it offers. Does anyone have any info on this product? Is it any good? Reliable?

 

heck that one is just as bad as Norton,Probably even worst.
You need to stick with some ALLOT lighter. Check out AVG all in one or
Bitdefender internet security, There are allot of AV's out that make There version of Internet security. You will notice the difference when you startup your computer,or by just the way it runs.