Processes on my computer?

Question

There are 36 running and CPU usage is between 30% and 50%. I know the computer is free of viruses or spyware. How can I clean up all this extra stuff and make my computer run a little faster? I do have Norton Internet Security and Windows Defender on it.

Thanks,
B

Wow.. lots of great answers. I am running Windows XP on 448MB Ram. My speed is 2.08 GHz. I do run Ad-Aware pretty regularly. It comes up usually with nothing... not even tracking cookies. I use this machine for banking and bills. I don't surf the net with it at all. (I have 2 other machines for that! )

Answer 1

To answer that question, you need to be more specific about you computer. For example:
How much RAM does you system have?
Which operating system are you running?
Which type of settings is you computer set on?

But without that all I can say is to defragment you drive. You can do this by in Vista by: searching defragment on you start bar. In windows XP you go to Start>System tools>Defragment. Defragment takes from a few minutes to a several hours depending on your level of fragmentation.

Answer 2

Right click the task bar and select Task Manager. Click the processes tab. Under the CPU column see which process is running the 30 or 40 percent. System Idol process normally runs at 99 percent. When another program uses the process it subtracts from the system idol process. So if Norton is using 33 then you will have 66 left. Does that make any sense. Its probly Norton. Uninstall it and use AVG. Its free. Other than that 36 processes overall is not bad. My pc is running 42 or so. I believe you have some spyware. Try running ad-aware and spyware terminator or sypot search and destroy. Google search them and download-update. This should knock your idle down to 1 percent or so. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

In Task Manager's Processes tab, click twice on CPU to order processes, with highest usage at the top.

Then go to Start->Run. Type in msconfig and hit Enter or click OK.
This will open the System Configuration Utility. Click on the Startup tab. This will show you most processes that are set to start when Windows does. This gives you a little more info.

You can then uncheck items you may not want running.

Right now, there are 45 processes on my computer, INCLUDING Norton Antivirus (which is not using any CPU time), BUT 99% System Idle time.

You may also want to investigate FREE Anti-Malware programs such as Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy and HiJackThis!

Anyways - with all this info, you should be able to tell which process(es) is using your CPU time.

Answer 4

Norton is probably one of the problems with your CPU usage. Norton is a resource hog. Add some more RAM to your computer and that will help but in the end I would get internet protection that doesn't take up so much of your resources.

Answer 5

If nothing is active, you should really be hovering around 99% free cpu power (system idle process in that list, the bottom one). Look at the names of what's using cpu power and google it if you don't recognize it. One may be a virus, even if you don't know you have one. Some slip by.
If it's obvious what's running, and it's a program you can shut off, do it, but most typical programs don't use anywhere near that much juice, if you're just idling.

Answer 6

Go you through your Add/Remove programs and take out any you either don't know what they are, or don't use anymore. most programs now have a small program that runs behind the scenes. Delete programs that you don't need, or want!

Answer 7

Nortons is a hugh resource and the source of your problem.

Minddoctor, France