CPU maxing out with basic tasks

[Scottyy]

The machine in question is an IBM that we use in our production it has a P4 at 2.40ghz and 1.25 gigs of ram the ram unfortunately is only pc2100 due to the IBM only supporting pc2100 as it is an older machine. I received a complaint that the machine was running slow so when I went to inspect it I opened up task manager and watched performance tab when I opened up documents and just did the usual pc usage. I noticed that eve simple things from just opening up files were causing the machine's cpu usage to sky rocket its barley using the memory at all. The machine is fully up-to-date in terms of Microsoft software.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[Baez]

Does it stay at 100% or just when it's loading the file? If it's the latter it's fine. Otherwise it might be a page file issue in terms of speed. What does the number beside Commit Charge: at the bottom of task manager read?

Analyze the hard drives for fragmentation as well.

 

[Scottyy]

I turned off some of xp's bells and whistles and this seemed to help. Thank you for your help though.