help a noob out...

[Graphcsguru]

ok, heres my deal, im a student, and i do a lot of editing, both audio, and video... but my computer keeps locking up. i know its not the software, its my cpu or RAM, or i think it is...everytime i look at my "performance meters" my CPU meter is at 100% most of the time... i installed new RAM, all of them are DDR400 (i have a total of 1.5 gigs), but i don't see any performance increase... any help would be great!!! here are my specs, just incase you need them:

motherboard:Gigabyte K8 Triton AGP8X/DDR400

Processor: AMD Antholon 64 ( its says 2800+, socket 754 on the box, i have no idea what it means) ... 1.81Ghz

video card: ATI radeon 9550

200gig harddrive

1.5 gig of RAM

if you need more specs let me know and i'll try to find them out...

any advice would be great!

thanks in advance

 

[GoodNews101]

I am wondering if it possibly might be 2 things: 1) a heating issue or 2) a power supply issue. Can you test your cpu, etc., tempertatures? Also, what power supply do you have and how much wattage does it supply?

 

[Graphcsguru]

i just restarted my comp. and went into bios to see my temp. it said : 32deg. C, and as for my power supply its a regular 350. ... and maybe you can explain something to me, when my comp. started, it said my CPU speed was 2ooMHz, should it be faster?

 

[vaderpro]

How about doing the usual maintenance stuff, like scanning for viruses with updated antivirus, scanning for spyware etc, defragging hard drive, running scandisk, shutting down unnessasary background programs.......etc..

Otherwise if you think your cpu temp is ok. Use this to check it:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=3846&file=10&evp=f6e0f0c2742c5337508369751fbfc879

Then check your video card temps too:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=737&file=9&evp=c06b74d96584231b751c5f664e0110f7

Also double check all your connections inside your pc are secure....with the system off and you grounded...

 

[Graphcsguru]

i D/L-ed those things and evrything looks fine... i got a question about one of them, it said im able to overclock my video card, would that be a wise thing to do, and if so... how much? right now its at
core clock: 249.8
memory clock:195.8

 

[beluga]

thats weird my neighbour had a similar problem he had a celeron 2.4ghz, and the CPU was always just at 100% and it was really slow even without anything running... even installing extra fans it never helped... we never found out the problem...

 

[Alex81388]

How about doing the usual maintenance stuff, like scanning for viruses with updated antivirus, scanning for spyware etc, defragging hard drive, running scandisk, shutting down unnessasary background programs.......etc..

Yeah, I'm definately suspecting background programs...


How many processes are you running in your task manager buddy?

 

[Graphcsguru]

ok, it says i'm running 43 processes... but when im editing i usually close about 5... the ones that i know i don't need to be running... the others... i have no idea what they do, how do i know which ones to keep on, or kill?

 

[macdawg]

go through pages 87 and 91 of the tweak guides tweaking companion too disable unnecessary startup items and services, you can download it at www.tweakguides.com

Go through the whole guide if you have time, it makes a huge difference.

 

[vaderpro]

I have 24 running processes after a fresh reboot and my cpu usauge is 0 to 2%.

Go to start/run and type 'msconfig'. Go to the start up tab and disable everything except your antivirus. (hopefully u are using something like avg antivirus/ do not use Norton as it is a system hog). Then reboot your system. You will not lose these programs but will just have to start them manually when you need them. After doing this tell us what your cpu usage is.