Why 80% of my machine's memory is used up while I am only opening my browser? It has almost stoped working.

Question

Windows XP. It was working all right until recently.

it took me around 10 minutes to post this question. when I scroll down or up each time it goes for and inch and then stops for about 2 or 3 seconds and then again goes an inch and so on. THIS SLOW!!!!

Thanks. I installed it but the only big number there is system idle. It does not matter which program is working. Even when I open only words it is as slow.

It also takes around 6 to 8 minutes after I switch on the machine that the machine can function!!!!

Btw, I use Mozila and not IE.

Answer 1

maybe you need to empty your browser history and cookies, temp files etc/. do you know how to do that?

Answer 2

Click start, click Run, type msconfig. Click Startup tab. Uncheck unnecessary startups. They occupy RAM even w/out doing anything.
By the way, you did not indicate how much RAM you have and whether you have integrated graphics or a video card that shares system RAM through Turbocache or Hypermemory. For all we know, a big chunk of your RAM has been allocated as v-RAM.

Answer 3

There are a huge number of reasons for this to be happening.

Download process explorer from microsoft and run it. This will tell you exactly which program is using your CPU cycles.

Process explorer can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

If it is an svchost process it is likely to be windows update.

If it is explorer.exe it is like to be the file indexing.

Anything else is either going to be a badly written program or some form of malware.

Update your question with your findings and I will try and assist.

Answer 4

is it possible that maybe your computer needs to be reinstalled,coz i have a friend who says that it can just stop working and can wipe everything off your computer.you get so far with it,and then it just wont load,maybe that doesn't apply to you i don't know,personally i dont know much about the technical side of it at the moment,soz if this hasnt been of any help to you.

Answer 5

I would clear your computer's memory.

->start
->accessroies
->system tools
->disk clean up -> run

You might also have hardware problems....it really sounds like you need a new processor and more RAM if your PC is a slow as you are making it out to be.