computer blues.....can anyone help?
 

my laptop has this irritating problem and i can't get to the bottom of it. when i type a password or search topic etc or when i am deleting lots of text there seems to be a noticable delay every couple of seconds where the computer sort of pauses, then catches up with what im typing/deleting. i even see the same 'pause' if im watching a clip on youtube or in windows media player etc. the image will run for three or four seconds then pause for a second then resume playing then pause etc etc...its almost like the laptop has this continual hickup in the processor that affects every running task.

its a dell ispiron 6400, 6months old with a due core processor, 2gig ram running vista ultimate. ive switched off all the pretty stuff that kills performance (or at least i think i have) and i have norton 360'd and adaware'd it and although it found a couple of threats they have been removed so it is in theory clean.

anyone seen this before?

Welcome to Vista.

http://www.ubuntu.com/ - it's free, easy, fast, and stable.

Here's another
http://www.thinkgos.com/index.html

something is a miss...even with Vista it shouldnt be that way...perhaps you have a virus/spyware/malware that has installed itself on your system and is affecting your computers performance. You can try downloading Adaware from Lavasoft.com to eliminate any adware.... or try downloading the free Avast program...it wouldnt hurt to check.

Another thing you can try, if this is a recent situation.... do a Windows system restore and restore the operating system back to when it was working well. You will need to reinstall any programs that you had installed after that restore point was noted in Windows.

To do this go: Start/allprograms/accessories/systemtools/systemrestore and choose a restore point on the calendar that shows up there.

Dont' forget that Vista uses a lot of cpu cycles, etc. to make sure you aren't possibly something that may possibly have a copyright on it...

/ one more vote for www.ubuntu.com

I thought I had something by Jimmy Thackery but haven't been able to locate the track.
Jim

Do you live near Jimmy? I've been watching him play for 30 years (since his days with the Nighthawks)...one helluva guitar player! On a "blues cruise" several years ago, I spent the better part of the day sitting at the "ship pool bar" (while most went ashore in Jamaica) with Jimmy and his wife shooting the breeze...nice guy to boot :)!

The last I heard he was located out of Eurika Springs (hour & 1/2 away). I can only blame my unusually large moment of inertia for my failure to see him live. Some friends of ours have done the blues cruise thing, they had a great time also.
Jim

Have you tried Defragmenting the disk?

ctrl>alt>delete
Task Manager
Processes

What is the %CPU usage after you watch it for 30 seconds or so?

Then switch to Performance

How many MB's on the Memory graph?
What is total Physical Memory?

hi blokes, thanks for all your replies. I had another look for any old apps that i didn't need/use and deleted them. also i had a couple of things running on startup that i didn't recognise so i deleted them. I had already run a full norton 360 scan and adaware scan (lavasoft) they both came up with the same issues-two tracking cookies. they were deleted but the problem was still there.
sonic, I went to system restore but the only restore point was at a time AFTER the problem! im sure i created a restore point when a bought the computer a few months ago but it wasn't there.
450, just did a defrag. thought it was being done automatically but it wasn't scheduled.
gr8, in 'processes my cpu usage is jumping from 0 to 60%! and yet none of the processes in the list are doing anything more than around 5% max!
physical memory says 2037mb, don't really understand what you mean by 'how many mb on the memory graph' sorry!

You have 2 gigs of ram which is fine for Vista.
I was just curiuos how many MB of your ram is being used while the computer is idling.
Doesn't really matter much to your problem.

If your cpu is hitting 60% as you watch it for a minute or so, with no major programs running, then you have some kind of program running in the background. This will slow down your computer just like trying to run too many processor intensive programs at the same time.

You have to find out what is running. Google is your friend if you get stuck..

Turn off Norton.
Boot into safe mode with networking if you use a router or just safe mode.
Download and install AVG anti-virus - its free.
Make sure it is up to date.
Run a virus scan. Norton may work but Norton may also be the cause of your problems. I have never had much luck with the big bulky anti virus programs.
Update and run the adaware program.
Download, update and run Spybot search and destroy.
Eliminate everything they find.

Reboot and see if there is any improvement. Lots of spyware and virus' cannot be deleted while they are running - hence the safe mode function.

+1 ! definetly

I agree completely and avoid those too. Keep your data secure (i.e. removable drive for example, and a MUST DO anyways), have the ability to "restore" the machine back to its origin, and simply don't use those PIGS at all. IMO, the "cure" is worse than the disease with Norton, et al. Keep your machine "lean & mean" and rebuidable (if it does get compromised), and you'll be happier :).

Assuming the virus/spyware scans as recommended above don't show anything unusual....

When you go into Task Manager (ctrl + alt + del and select task manager), switch to the processes tab. How many processes do you have running? 50 is a good target. Next, sort by CPU by clicking on the column header. See which apps are hogging the CPU cycles. If there are things running there that you don't recognize, Google the Image Name. Lots of times, you can find errant programs this way. You may also see that some "friendly" applications have their launcher helpers running too. Stuff like Quicktime, Real Media and others run these little hog programs that can cause all kinds of issues too.

+1. I fought the "I have a virus" battle for a few months and kept seeing "get rid of Norton" advice. Thinking on it I realized the problems started when Norton updated it's version.
Got rid of Norton for the free AVG and I haven't had any problems since!

Getting Linux to run on a laptop is nontrivial.
Blackviper.com has lists of processes and sample Vista setups that can be useful. Still a matter of trial and error, I'm afraid.
+1 on removing Norton. I just spent on couple of hours on figuring out why my brother couldn't log on to EBay. Norton firewall was blocking it.

Get a second computer for porn, so that you can just reformat it every month. :D:p:D

I no longer run Norton or McAfee on any of our machines. They are both pigs.

AVG.