The longer my computer is on, the more it lags.

[HK4209]

Hi, everytime I start up my computer, and open a game, it will run fine, but the longer I go, the more it lags. I can even start up my computer, let it sit there for a day, without touching it, go to play a game, and the game will lag from the start. The lag I am experiancing will lag up the computer, but it is like speeding everything up. it will speed the game up so much that it actually lags.... these are my specs

amd athlon 64 X2 dual
Core Processor 4200+
2.21 Ghz, 3.00 GB of Ram
Physical address extension

Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 2

SLI setup with 2 GeForce 7800 GT's
Video BIOS version 5.70.02.13.12
IRQ 18
PCI Express x8
256MB (each)
ForceWare version 78.01
TV Encoder Type NVIDIA integrated

Drive C: 220GB with 101GB free
Drive F: 23.2GB with 23.1GB free
Drive G: 210GB with 112GB free

Virtual memory: (Initial 3606) (maximum 5606) (recommended by windows 4606)

The games that I am using, are ones that worked fine on my old computer which was 1.66 GHz with 512 Memory and GeForce 4 Ti x8 128MB and a 250GB hard drive. They actually worked much better on the old computer. Games are such as Half Life, Team Fortress, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Earth 2150, The Moon Project, and such......

Any help or suggestions would be very nice!!!!

Hk4209


Edit: Also, I have scanned for viruses using norton, and I have scanned for adware/spyware using ad-aware 6 and x-cleaner. And have had no results given!

 

[Nodsu]

I would guess the biggest cause of the lag is Norton..

Leave your computer on for an extended period of time. Then open up the Task Manager, list processes and sort them by memory usage. Anything using over 50MB is a hog and >30MB is worth looking at.

 

[HK4209]

I have 49 processes running using around 5% cpu.

Explorer.exe uses 39,984
IEXPLORE.EXE uses 39,420
firefox uses 29,188
svchost uses 29,004
IncMail.exe uses 23,680
CCAPP.exe uses 20,400

Those are the biggest ones. and my commit charge is 512MB/6517MB
Nothing is over 40 right now.

 

[gary_hendricks]

Good system you have there but I agree with Nodsu - Norton is a huge culprit and a eater of system resources.

 

[Dantrag]

Run a DPC client. It helps if you keep your computer on most of the time. If you you turn it off after you're done dont bother. Deactivate the auto-protection from norton. As I remember that the auto-protection from kaspersky really hogged resources (mainly my fault for letting it scan every file I used and such).