my pc is a memory hogging beast

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s.dot
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my pc is a memory hogging beast

Post by s.dot »

Okay, so I'm trying to diagnose why when simple things like AVG anti-virus runs.. my cpu usage goes up into the 60th+ %, making my fan overwork itself, and most annoyingly.. sound like a UFO taking off.

It's not just the anti-virus. Same goes for when firefox stays open too long (but I think that's a given), when I open Photoshop (which I just upgraded to cs3.. i hate to use it for fear of the hum).

It used to do this before, too. That's when I opened my tower and took out the tons of dust that had collected on my fan and vents. Problem fixed. So I figured that was the problem again, but it's not. The inside of my tower is as clean as it's probably ever been.. since I cleaned it thorougly.

So, here's my system specs and my thoughts:
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium version 6.0.6000 Build 6000
System Manufacturer: HP Pavilion 061
System Model: EL456AA-ABA a1328x
System Type: x86-based PC
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06 GHz 3066 MHz, 1 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
Total Physical Memory: 1,469.94 MB
Available Physical Memory: 878.89 MB
Total Virtual Memory: 3.11 GB
Available Virtual Memory: 2.00 GB

Display/Graphics Card (I'm Assuming) RADEON XPRESS 200 Series (Microsoft Corporation)
My thoughts are: the quick solution would be to add more RAM. But my PC goes up to 2GB, of which I already have 1.5GB.. so I'm not sure how much difference 512MB more would make.

Windows has a thing called a "base score", which grades your computers hardware on a scale of 1 to 5.9.. with 5.9 being the best. Here's what it says about mine:
Processor: 4.2
Memory: 4.0
Graphics: 2.1
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
Primary Hard Disk: 5.2
So, my base score is 2.1.. based on my lowest subscore. Which makes me think.. does graphics display use up a good amount of cpu? Such as replacing my graphics display (would this be my graphics card?) would make for a much better performance?

I don't want to tune my computer for performance. I like it the way it is. I'd like to have sufficient hardware to suit my settings I have now.

Another thought would be.. maybe I just need to replace my fan? Although that doesn't keep my memory usage under 60%, it may be quieter.

Thoughts/suggestions on what hardware to upgrade?
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