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About Mike
Expertise
Areas of expertise: PC Hardware, Peripherals, Barcode Scanners, Printers, and Applications, Networking, Microsoft Applications. I am good at researching issues and have a lot of contacts in the IT industry. So, if I can't directly answer a question I can likely find the answer.
Areas I won't be much help in: Apple Computers, Linux, older Networking technologies like Token Ring, or Thick/Thinnet.
Experience
I'm currently a Network Administrator for a contract circuit board manufacturer in Oregon, USA.
I've been working on PCs from a hobby standpoint for better than 25 years. I've been doing it professionally for 4 years.
Education/Credentials
A+ Certification, Network + Certification, MCP, MCDST, MCSA (in process)
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You are here: Experts > Computing/Technology > Focus on PC Support > PC hardware--CPU & Motherboard & RAM > system lagging
Expert: Mike - 10/30/2009
Question
I have a a computer with a celeron 3.3 ghz processor running windows xp...it's supposed to have a gig of ram but only register 896 of it but someone told me the diference might just be windows basic comsumption..the problem I'm really having is the computer will sound like it's fans are slowing down or the hard drive is working over time..basically my computer sounds like a radio controlled airplane trying to take off. when this happens it lags like crazy we're talking almost a complete standstill of whatever I'm doing whether it's gaming or just surfing the web. I've cracked the case and tried to watch the fans in action but they don't seem to be having any issues..I run a slave drive that had no issues in a former computer when it's not making the sound it runs just fine but when it's whirring as my household has lovingly dubbed it just runs slow it has three fans on it total one of the power supply one on the processor and one on the side.. the main harddrive was just replaced last year do to virus issues and as I said the slave ran fine in a lesser computer the main drive is 189gig with 169 free and the slave is 37.3 with 20.9 free I'm wondering if one of the drives is going out or if the fans aren't keeping the system cool enough any advice you can give would be welcomed I have replacement fans if needed so if they're the issue it can be resolved I just don't want to go swapping out parts willy nilly
Answer
The RAM not showing a full 1gb is normal, especially for Celeron processors. Windows will use a portion of your RAM for processes automatically and also Celeron processors use a portion of it for processing Video. So that's why it only shows 896MB.
It couldn't hurt to increase your RAM to at least 2GB, which would make a noticable improvement on your performance. Also, installing an add-on video card would make a big difference in how well it runs.
If you send me your computer make/model info I can give you suggestions for both of these.
It sounds like your processor is occasionally straining it's resources so both of the upgrades above would also help that lag problem.
It could also be that the older, secondary hard drive is dying, which would cause issues for sure.
Other things to do would be to make sure and keep your hard drive Defragged. You can download and install a free program called SpeedFan which will show you the temperature of your computer so you can check to see if the fans aren't properly cooling it. You can get it here:
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php
A safe temperature for your computer should always be below 27c (80f) so if it shows as hotter than that, you should look into adding or replacing fans.
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