Q: on my laptop desktop i have the processor usage and ram usage gauge and it seems like the ram usage keeps going up a percentage every so often, i would like to know what kind of applications i could eliminate to bring down the percentage of ram usage
A: 1. edit your startups: start -> run -> msconfig-> startups. Use the list at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups to determine what can be safely removed. bear in mind that the results are case-sensitive so you need to match the capitalisation of the results from msconfig with the results in the list at bleepingcomputer.com 2. look in your system tray and check to see if there is anything running you dont need. If there's anything there you can dispense with, edit its prefs by right clicking and telling it not to start when windws starts. 3. run http://www.glaryutilities.com/gu.html and tell it to fix registry issues 4. Make sure your windows installation is up to date from windowsupdate.com 5. run an antispyware scan. Ad-aware from lavasoft is very good, as is windows defender. 6. run an online virus scan to compliment the scanner you have on your machine. There is no virus detection software that has 100% detection rate. Its a good practice to do this periodically to make sure your installed scanner is up to date. http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/ http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner 7. defrag: start -> programs -> accessories-> system tools-> disk defragmenter 8. right click your drives, properties ->tools-> error checking -> fix errors [reboot] There is no 'magic solution' to a slow pc. The trick is regular maintenance and sensible use. Running too much software concurrently and irregular maintenance of your file system are usually the two main culprits. Another sensible approach is to use applications that are less memory and cpu intensive. Hope this helps. Happy computing...