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my pc is a memory hogging beast

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 12:37 am
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?

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:43 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Your PC is not all that bad - granted the Graphics suck all the way to hell ;). But unless you're a gamer it's unlikely to make a difference. Chances are you just have a noisy/wornout fan - go buy a quiet Zalman or something and stick it in. I have one here for a dual core AMD and it's quite silent. Hard drives can also be a bit noisy depending on the type - older ones range from mad clicking to a constant whirring source when accessed. I've heard a soft mat under a Tower Case can reduce a lot of the noise caused by sympathetic vibrations - esp. if the Case is on a wooden surface.

My own base score is something like 4.0 - my RAM is the culprit at 1GB which nevertheless can power through Bioshock with just a few delays for loading levels. Other than that, 1GB of RAM is good for almost anything.

AVG

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:57 am
by ICed_tea
Hi,

First of all .. did you know AVG uses a lot of CPU ?
If you would replace your AVG with another (free) anti-virus (ie: NOD32, Avast, Caspersky ..)
The simple reason it is using so much CPU is because from the moment you boot up
It is scanning everything over and over again and when you have a lot of data it gets harder,
And it has too many modules running at the same time (scanning, updating, emailcheck etc ... )
Most antiviral have efficient memory/cpu use, but this one hasn't. :)
Just replace AVG with another ... and your computer should have less use.


How do I know this ?
Because I used to have AVG too .. It's not bad, it just uses a lot of CPU/memory. :wink:

Re: AVG

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:27 am
by s.dot
ICed_tea wrote:Hi,

First of all .. did you know AVG uses a lot of CPU ?
If you would replace your AVG with another (free) anti-virus (ie: NOD32, Avast, Caspersky ..)
The simple reason it is using so much CPU is because from the moment you boot up
It is scanning everything over and over again and when you have a lot of data it gets harder,
And it has too many modules running at the same time (scanning, updating, emailcheck etc ... )
Most antiviral have efficient memory/cpu use, but this one hasn't. :)
Just replace AVG with another ... and your computer should have less use.


How do I know this ?
Because I used to have AVG too .. It's not bad, it just uses a lot of CPU/memory. :wink:
That may be true, and I'm sure it is, but like I said.. I like the settings I have now, and would like to get hardware to suit my settings. And, avg wouldn't be the only program that uses cpu =] a lot of the other programs do it too. But thank you for your input!

Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 10:29 am
by s.dot
Maugrim_The_Reaper wrote:Your PC is not all that bad - granted the Graphics suck all the way to hell ;). But unless you're a gamer it's unlikely to make a difference.
Windows Aero is pretty graphically intense, right? I'm wondering if my graphics are having a hard time (since my card sucks).. would this use up cpu?
Chances are you just have a noisy/wornout fan - go buy a quiet Zalman or something and stick it in. I have one here for a dual core AMD and it's quite silent.
Quite a reality. It's running all the time.

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:07 pm
by swiftouch
-Try disabling as much of the graphics in windows as possible. You'll find your computing speed improves 5-25%.(at least it does in XP)
-Don't use an anti-virus. (all of them are nightmares anyway) If I could add up the amount of headaches associated with anti-virus software, I'd have a really large number. Compare that to how quick Ghost is for reinstalling windows. I should have purchased it many years earlier than I did.
-Uninstall about 75% of your firefox addons. I did, starting with adblock, and flashblock which seemed to eat up the most resources. Maybe they had memory leaks. Use only the essential addons.
-go into "msconfig" and shut down anything unecessary programs that are running.
-uninstall programs you haven't used in the last 6 months. Give no thought to uninstalling those programs "you might use"
-dont use cs3. That program is a monster and probably does only 10% more than CS does. I've seen a lot of comments on forums where casual web designers haven't upgraded from version 7 because of performance issues with the CS series(especially cs3).
-remove the background/wallpaper picture. You'll be surprised if you dont already know how faster it is to NOT have a background.

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:44 am
by Kieran Huggins
Can it be true? Am I the first to advocate ditching Vista in for XP?

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:32 pm
by s.dot
swiftouch wrote:-Try disabling as much of the graphics in windows as possible. You'll find your computing speed improves 5-25%.(at least it does in XP)
No, I like them.
-Don't use an anti-virus. (all of them are nightmares anyway) If I could add up the amount of headaches associated with anti-virus software, I'd have a really large number. Compare that to how quick Ghost is for reinstalling windows. I should have purchased it many years earlier than I did.
I'm very happy with my anti-virus. I do create image backups, also, so sort of the best of both worlds.
-Uninstall about 75% of your firefox addons. I did, starting with adblock, and flashblock which seemed to eat up the most resources. Maybe they had memory leaks. Use only the essential addons.
I only use greasemonkey.. for these forums. That's the only addon I have.
-go into "msconfig" and shut down anything unecessary programs that are running.
A lot of them are unnecessary, but I like them running.
-uninstall programs you haven't used in the last 6 months. Give no thought to uninstalling those programs "you might use"
I don't believe I have any programs I don't use within any given 6 month period. ;) Other than windows stuff (like mail, ie, etc)
-dont use cs3. That program is a monster and probably does only 10% more than CS does. I've seen a lot of comments on forums where casual web designers haven't upgraded from version 7 because of performance issues with the CS series(especially cs3).
I paid for the upgrade! And, I want to use it.
-remove the background/wallpaper picture. You'll be surprised if you dont already know how faster it is to NOT have a background.
I like my background.





See, the thing here is, I like everything exactly the way it is (including vista over xp). I just want better hardware to suit my settings! Seems to be a hard concept to grasp :P

With this topic I was hoping to get hardware suggestions (thanks for the fan suggestion ~maugrim). I'm also wondering if getting a better graphics card would ease the cpu!

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:20 pm
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
For Vista? A GPU probably would help - I say that very quietly; get a budget card from the last generation. Probably even at that it will send your current one to its final resting place, and leave your CPU a little freer on Vista. But also - a very modest GPU will have it's own dedicated RAM for textures which tends to help a bit too - less RAM and Disk swapping.

Do upgrade the fan at the same time - GPUs are hot little devils at times. My top-model 8800 is a friggin' demon racing around at 75 Celcius doing squat all. If I didn't use my laptop so much my power bill would be ridiculous!

Re: AVG

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:02 pm
by califdon
ICed_tea wrote:Hi,

First of all .. did you know AVG uses a lot of CPU ?
If you would replace your AVG with another (free) anti-virus (ie: NOD32, Avast, Caspersky ..)
The simple reason it is using so much CPU is because from the moment you boot up
It is scanning everything over and over again and when you have a lot of data it gets harder,
And it has too many modules running at the same time (scanning, updating, emailcheck etc ... )
Most antiviral have efficient memory/cpu use, but this one hasn't. :)
Just replace AVG with another ... and your computer should have less use.


How do I know this ?
Because I used to have AVG too .. It's not bad, it just uses a lot of CPU/memory. :wink:
Hmmm. I use AVG and I have suspected that it's consuming a lot of cpu cycles, but when I googled, all I can find are statements (mostly from the software vendor, to be sure) that AVG is exceptionally LOW in cpu/memory usage. Maybe it's just their hype, but I didn't find any articles complaining about its performance at all. I wish I knew what the facts really are.

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:07 pm
by califdon
Kieran Huggins wrote:Can it be true? Am I the first to advocate ditching Vista in for XP?
Maybe in this thread, Kieran, but I know several people who are thoroughly disgusted with Vista. I'm holding off replacing my desktop because I can't buy a new one with XP installed. Maybe I'll have to break down at some point, but I'm seriously considering dumping MS entirely and going with a good Linux distribution. I'd miss some things, I'm sure, but there's a lot that I wouldn't miss at all!

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:33 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Very soon it will be Linux 100% at work for me. I can't wait.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:59 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Can it be true? Am I the first to advocate ditching Vista in for XP?
Maybe - You can only advocate such for a limited time (granted it's been extended now with XP getting a longer life due to all the Vista bashing). Vista is problematic - on a high powered PC (I can play Bioshock with nary a slowdown at full detail!) it feels clumsy and slow. A lot of it seems to be Explorer which has been revamped for a media style look, so previews and icons take longer to load up, which can really irritate you over time. I'm waiting for SP1 before searching around for any switches to selectively disable a few Explorer things and drag it back to the XP way...

Not sure really, I used AVG previously and it never seems a problem. One of its modules could be worse than the rest together though... Isn't there a setting for scanning everything continously on AVG? That could get messy on a slower PC.

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 10:41 pm
by s.dot
I've ordered the following:

video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161178
fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835185046

Hopefully this'll help my experience a bit. :-D

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 1:33 am
by s.dot
Wow!

It's so quiet now. I'm guessing the fan was making all of the noise, but the new video card is fantastic! Not only does the built in memory help on my ram usage, but the colors are so vibrant! I thought I had good color before, this is almost breathtaking (okay, exaggerating maybe just a little :P)!

I'm seeing things a lot differently. A lot more.. contrast, I would say. I can see the little white lines between table cells on this forum really clearly now.. didn't really notice that before. Crimson Editor highlights PHP code in light gray! I thought the whole file was just white before. I thought yahoo messenger got a new skin when I logged in.. but it's just the color appearing more vibrantly. ;)

I am overly satisfied.

Now, I'll have to watch some dvds and other HD materials. :)