I've to a new Toshiba laptop with a 1.4ghz processor, 256mb ram, and 40gig hard drive.. I multiple virus, spyware, and adware scanners - and all come up clean... I sweep all the tmp files, histories etc. on a regular basis. Cleaned un-needed startup files.... So WHERE IS MY PROBLEM LOCATED??? Everything was running good til a few weeks ago.. and it's gotten progressively worse... my comp is showing 12 to 13% ram free... Whats eating all my ram... it stays at 88% ram used.... with that being said... do I just need to upgrade the ram? What are my options? I just dont know what the problem is.. Web pages freeze, programs halt, programs are sometimes extremely slow to load... and the whole system freezes sometimes,depending on the program I'm running... I dont run any major programs other than WORD, media player, REAL player,... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP

Chef Rob, are you having this problem offline? Right now a couple of MAJOR internet servers are in the midst of a girlie slapfight and neither will allow the other and the result is a REALLY slow internet at some sites. If you're experiencing the problem offline, it needs to be tracked down, otherwise, be patient. If it's offline too, a Trojan comes to mind. Be aware that a virus and a trojan are similar, but not the same. Many times, a virus scanner can detect one it can't clean , other times, it gets missed entirely. There’s an online trojan scanner @: http://www.trojanscan.com/trojanscan If it turns out that you have one and need to clean, A² can do the job and you can get it free @: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4281.html among other places. If it turns out that you need to use it, be sure to update prior to running. HTH. Ed in Texas.

"So WHERE IS MY PROBLEM LOCATED???" What did you do prior to this happening? Do you run these multiple scans in safe mode? How about a system restore to when things were good, after the above done. And how about Ctl-Alt-Del to look at running programs. Something in the background perhaps? You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users

Ok... First off... I'd like to thank those who've posted and those that have yet to post as of this message... I do greatly appreciate your help... Now... yes the problem does lie offline as well....(mainly offline).. I've checked task manager for background programs.. and nothing that would eat up that much memory.... fairly small files.. right now I'm sitting at a 93% memory load... with only about 7% (give or take) physical ram free... Now out of 256mb of ram, that seems way to freakin high.... I'll be running all the scans while in safe mode in just a few minutes, waiting on the trojan scan to complete... I'll post my findings in a few... any other possibilities? Thanks Guys Chef Rob

as far as what was I doing prior? nothing comes to mind... it's been quite graudal... but constantly worsening... rather irritating, since I just bought this comp not all that long ago... as for system restore, given I dont know when the last restore point was created, I dont know if that will pre-date the problem... I know If ALL ESLE FAILS I can do a system re-boot all my important files are backed up, so thats no worry

256 RAM isn't much for XP, but if it was running better, I would definitely suspect software snafus/surprises, rather than hardware. If it were me I would try restore and plan to reformat. It's the Microsoft way! You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users

Ok, ran in safe mode, disk cleanup, anti-virus, anti malware (ad, spy, etc..) No Trojans, Viruses, Adware or spyware... all cookies, tmp files, histories gone.. everything is clean. Clean startup, everything is fine... no overly large files running in the background... and all programs seem to be running fine, with the exception that the system is lagging.... memory is till a bit too high for my tastes...for my I'm going to backup all my crucial files on cd's, and if no-one has anymore suggestions I'll go the extreme route of re-loading everything from scratch... please, are there anymore suggestions that any of you can think of?