Gateway Desktop Issues

[Greg mgm]

Thought I'd start a new thread on our other computer having issues.
It's an old Gateway desktop, Celeron 2.2, 256 ram, 40 gb hd 3/4 empty.
If this computer goes up in flames at any time, it's no loss. It's collecting dust but I mess with it on occasion.

Initial complaint was that it was running sluggish. I went through and deleted a ton of stuff- programs and photos. Then I ran C Cleaner and did a defrag which seemed to help marginally. Next I downloaded and ran Advanced System Care. When it was finished, the computer was much worse than before, being almost unresponsive and missing the start button and x's to close various windows, so I unplugged it. This morning it started up and now runs like it did initially, sluggish. In Task Manager under Performance, the CPU is jumping from 4- 11 % and PF usage is sitting at 261 mb. Earlier it said "Virtual Memory Too Low" I reset VM to 384 min 1152 max (per microsoft) Not sure if something is running in the background or if the sluggishness is caused by the PF usage. Ideas?

[Steve Grisetti]

Are you serious about having only 256 megs of RAM? I would not attempt to run even Windows XP on less than 2 gigs of RAM.

Increasing virtual memory is bandaid fix to lack of RAM -- but a very slow bandaid at that.

Celerons are, as you know, pretty cheesy processors. They were an attempt by Intel to compete pricewise with AMD by offer cheap (though not very powerful) processors.

Are you able to bump up the RAM to 2 gigs, just to see if that makes any difference? And have you downloaded all of the Windows and Microsoft updates?

What operating system is it running by the way?

[Greg mgm]

It's XP and yes, it's 256.
I know, another old computer with antiquated specs.
We do have computers that scream....we're not that bad off. I like messing with our old ones.
Anyway, not sure on the updates, I'll check. I'll look in another old computer and see if I can borrow some memory.
As usual, I appreciate your help Steve!

Are you serious about having only 256 megs of RAM? I would not attempt to run even Windows XP on less than 2 gigs of RAM.

Increasing virtual memory is bandaid fix to lack of RAM -- but a very slow bandaid at that.

Celerons are, as you know, pretty cheesy processors. They were an attempt by Intel to compete pricewise with AMD by offer cheap (though not very powerful) processors.

Are you able to bump up the RAM to 2 gigs, just to see if that makes any difference? And have you downloaded all of the Windows and Microsoft updates?

What operating system is it running by the way?