I am running XP Pro SP2 on a Dell Dimension 4700 with 1.5 GB RAM and a 16 GB of my 40-GB hard disk free, and a Pentium 4 CPU 2.8 Ghz.

When running any brand of virus scan or spyware scan or online updates, my Task Manager shows CPU usage of 100% -- which makes it impossible to run anything else for a while -- even though my available RAM often is over 50%.

What does this mean? How do I know if the problem is hardware (such as my fan), or do I need a faster processor, more hard drive, or what?

BTW, I recently had major system problems in addition to the above problems I'd always had with scans. So I restarted from scratch and reloaded my OS and all my programs and data. Now, other than when running these scans, my computer is running great!

Thanks for your help.

Edit: Moved topic to the more appropriate forum. ~ Animal

Some anti-virus programs are real resource hogs. Norton is one of them. Does anything else show high useage at the same time? What's your page file set at?
http://www.serverwatch.com
Mark

Thanks for responding to my question so quickly.

While running a Trend Micro Pc-Cillin scan, I found the following processes using over 7,000Kb:
ieexplore.exe

Sorry about that last reply, submitted the page in error!

While running a Trend Micro Pc-Cillin scan, I found the following processes using over 7,000Kb:
svchost.exe 16,368
ieexplore.exe 78,872
explorer.exe 46,716
outlook.exe 42,500
winword.exe 10,964
tmproxy.exe 65,744
pcscnsrv.exe 50,716
pcctlcom.exe 10,620






Sorry about that last reply, submitted the page in error!

While running a Trend Micro Pc-Cillin scan, I found the following processes using over 7,000Kb:
svchost.exe 16,368
ieexplore.exe 78,872
explorer.exe 46,716
outlook.exe 42,500
winword.exe 10,964
tmproxy.exe 65,744
pcscnsrv.exe 50,716
pcctlcom.exe 10,620

This time I wasn't even on the keyboard when it submitted! I think I'd better recheck for Trojans before you waste the time to look at my info! I'll post a new topic if and when the problems persists after I clean up. Thanks again

I evidently was problems with malware, because something had taken over my mouse and it was acting independently of my commands. I did full scans again, using Trend Micro (which found 2 viruses) and Ad-Aware and SpywareBlaster (which also found problems). Then, I changed my pagefile to System Managed Size. Now all is ok. Sorry I bothered you guys on this.

Thanks, I believe this topic can be closed.

Now that you are free of this.. You need to set a New Restore Point to prevent accidental retoring of the infection. The may be Malware in a Point and the scanners are unable to go there.,so removing them eliminates it ever getting out.
You may even want to run one more scan with SUPERAntiSpyware ,from safe mode. Use the free home version.

The easiest and safest way to do this is:
Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and click "System Restore".
Choose the radio button marked "Create a Restore Point" on the first screen then click "Next". Give the R.P. a name, then click "Create". The new point will be stamped with the current date and time. Keep a log of this so you can find it easily should you need to use System Restore.
Then use Disk Cleanup to remove all but the most recently created Restore Point.
Go to Start > Run and type: Cleanmgr
Click "OK".
Click the "More Options" Tab.
Click "Clean Up" in the System Restore section to remove all previous restore points except the newly created one.

Thanks for the tip

You're Welcome