For computer literate people... I just bought a new laptop a couple of months ago. Its a compaq preario or something. its a pentium 4. 2.8 Ghtz so i bought it thinking it would be fairly fast. and it isnt. i cant open a program without waiting a minute or so for it to open, and when i do the CTRL + ALT + DEL thing, i see that my 'CPU usage' hovers at around 50-90% when it is trying to open programs is the problem the memory? how much is enough memory? i dont use it all the time, i mainly only bought it to use MYOB and get on the net occasionaly how would i check how much memory i have
Memory def makes a difference. Try going to control panel/system/preformance and it should say how much memory you have. I would suggest at least 512MB for things to run smoothly. 256 is the absolute lowest I would go running Windows XP. Also, check your programs running (with ctrl+alt+del). Make sure all the crap that comes with your computer like AOL, and all those other useless programs aren't set to run at start up. That could be slowing you down also. To fix that go to Start/Run and type in "msconfig". It will open a box and then click on the "Startup" tab. You can uncheck the boxes of things you don't need running at start up. Then you will probably have to restart. Leave things on start up like anti virus, firewall and anything else that is vital.
I am not sure what kind of memory your computer uses. Maybe someone else here will know. Try googling and finding out what kind you need. Then go to New Egg. New Egg Oh, and you may want to get it installed for you if you aren't pretty computer savy. Not sure about opening up a laptop and if it voids the warrenty or not.
