PC keeps running v slowly twice a day

Hi, my Pc every day starts running really slowly like it is virus checking (although I have set the check and backup to 2am), I can hear the processor clicking away as though it is being stretched and quite often I get a notification to say the PC is low on memory and to close programs, it seems to happen for about an hour twice a day. How do I find out what it causing it to run slow, I am assuming its a background task scheduled each day?
Thanks

It could be degragging. Creating restore points.

could be indexing, AV, defragging, etc. open task manager and watch the processes that are using the resources. Make sure you have all users checked

Usually these processes kick in when the processor is relatively idle (unless it's a scheduled task).

I was thinking it could be something ad-aware would deal with, data miner cookies.

But set times seems more like anti-virus doing a scheduled scan of the hard drive or a scheduled defrag going on.

on resources overview it states theres 50-250 hard faults per second, and sorry to admit I am a bit unsure about how I watch the processes which are using the resources and how to see if all the users are checked, could you explain in a little more detail, I am not gifted in understanding this part of a Pc. thanks

ahh the processor is not that idle as I am using quite a lot of software most the day - excel, word, outlook, ie7 running 8 pages, pshop. I notice it seems to happen in smaller bouts when I go to look at another program.

Here's your answer (in part)

A hard fault (also known as a page fault) occurs when the page of the referenced address is no longer in physical memory and has been swapped out or is available from a backing file on disk. It is not an error. However, a high number of hard faults may explain the slow response time of an application if it must continually read data back from disk rather than from physical memory.

ok this sounds like it might be it as I do get messages saying my PC is low on memory and I should close certain programs to stop losing data. How do I stop it from grinding my pc to a halt?

Your memory is EXTREMELY low. This is THE problem. Put in 4 - 8 GB, which is now much cheaper, and see all your troubles disappear. Click my rep button if you are satisfied with this answer.

CCM

Lemur is correct 1 gig of ram is the absolute minimum. open task manager and tell us how much is currently free


thanks

Ken

thanks mate, will do. am running 1gb of ram at the mo.

thing is it never used to be like this, only in the last 6 weeks has it got like this, and it does it all the time now.

Truly, I'm surprised you had as much success as you did. Go to crucial.com and see how much memory will cost. You can check your resources to see how much memory is currently being used, but that's rather moot. Memory upgrade is a must.

cool will do, I just thought, might it be also be a problem that I have left my PC running for 2 weeks?

CC

does it run slowly at the same times every day?

always was running slowly at the start of the day and always lunchtime, however I had not switched off the machine for just over 2 weeks, turned it off over the weekend and its started up fine with no slowness - maybe it was struggling making restore points etc? I'll get some more memory in case though.

CC

yeah memory will help. Browsers tend to leak memory over time. firefox can climb to over 400Mb, so if it is running for 2 weeks it coudl have contributed to the problem but why it ran slow twice a day is a mystery

ken