I am desperate and really need some help. I am running a Toshiba laptop P4 1.2 GHz/256 MB Ram and have been for the past year and a half. About 10 months ago I switched from Windows 98 to Win XP Pro, without incident. The problem I am having is that I keep getting error messages like "system out of memory or resources" and the computer just generally executes SLOW. For instance, when trying to send e-mail the computer will take 5 minutes using outlook. During that time the system resources jump from 5% usage to 98% usage -- up and down. I didn't do a clean install of XP Pro when I upgraded but I haven't had this problem until recently. The laptop is hooked up to a network, which might also be part of the problem. The only way I can receive e-mail when I get this error is to restart the entire computer! Can anyone please help me? Is it an IRQ problem? How can I solve this problem as I am about to jump out a window! Thank you for any and all help on this problem nobody has been able to help me with...

First of all, don't jump out of the window yet. You should check for viruses and/or trojans that are running in the background. These could be the source of all your problems... Also, if that doesn't help, try defragmenting your drive. Maybe you are running Kazaa or some other program that takes up a lot of bandwith? Uninstall that one and get Kazaa Light. If that doesn't work, you should think about the last changes you made and uninstall all the recently installed programs. Your last option is to format and do a clean install. It's sad, but sometimes windows just breaks and it's harder to fix it then just do a clean install. You should make a ghost backup after you did a clean install so you can get that back when the system crashes again. --------- visit http://www.supernoobs.com/wbboard for free linux and windows support!

Go to run and type msconfig. Eliminate all start up programs that you do not need running. Office, messenger, etc. keep the programs that you know you need running. Examples are norton, palm desktop(for PDA users), filters, ad stoppers, or reminders. Try that, that can make a big difference. Next uninstall all unused programs and then defragment.