Hey, I've been having trouble with choppy/freezing typing and loading while using my computer. It doesn't matter whether I'm on my internet or Microsoft Word, I can't type a complete sentence without it freezing up for a second or two.

I did a defragmentation, which really didn't have any result on the choppiness, my computer has plenty of free space as well. I took it in to Geek Squad where the guy ran an 'msconfig' and chose a Selective Startup where I think all he did was deselect the 'Load Startup Items' tab. That helped a little bit but I'm still having problems. Does anyone know what I have to do so I can type normally on my computer without the choppiness?

If you actually paid for the work done by Geek Squad, you have every rights to bring it back to Best Buy demand that one of their many enterprises known as Geek Squad fix it right once for all.

i_Xp/VistaUser

No don't worry I didn't pay for that. But while I was there I asked one of the 'geeks' what else they could do that would help it out besides disabling the startup options, and he told me he could disable another 'such-and-such' a thing... (I can't really remember) but he said that probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. I thought I'd better just post on here first to see what other people have to say before I head all the way back there just to hear the same thing...

Is there a process running that is taking up alot of CPU at the time of "Choppy/Freezing Typing". You can check out your RAM, I wasn't satisfied with my computer until I boosted it to 1.5gb of RAM. The loading issue I really don't have much w/o looking at the actual computer except possibly a spyware issue.

Is this a laptop? How many processes are running?

Yes, it's a laptop and there are 42 processes running. The ones taking up the most memory usage are all run by the 'SYSTEM', such as: PcScnSrv.exe, svchost.exe, PcCtlCom.exe, and tmproxy.exe. The rest aren't taking up much but there sure are a lot of them. The problem is I have no idea what most of them are or which ones are required and which ones are not.

You have alot of things running. Look at the list and figure out which ones don't need to run at startup. You can place an Icon on the desktop for programs used occasionally.

Download a utility called SIW. Install and keep an icon handy. There is a module in SIW that shows the running processes. If you click on one of the list it will expand to show you more details. If you still don't know if you need it you can disable and see if your normal computing experience is impacted. Or Google the process name for more information. Many things are totally unnecessary but are installed by default. Get in the habit of using custom install whenever you do install software. You will get options on exactly what and where the software will install. Usually everything is ticked. You many find that you will want to untick most, in some cases.

You should also run adware scanners and AntiVirus programs. Find SIW at the link below.

http://www.download3k.com/SIW/Downl...

First of all, I am very sure that if I got more RAM the computer would run faster. However, I only use it for internet and word documents. Why would I pay to install more RAM if all I have to do is eliminate some unnecessary processes?

Also, I downloaded this SIW program, I found the list of processes and used it to see what amount of processes it is comprised of. Normal, smaller processes were built up of 2 to 3...whereas larger ones such as the 4 on my list were comprised of up to 35. I will try to disable the larger processes I found and see how it affects my computer usage.

Yes, it's a laptop and there are 42 processes running

42 sounds about average considering that XP put them there to run Windows. Some shouldn't be disabled from running particularly SYSTEM & svchost. BTW On my Vista notebook I have 78 running processes but I don't have any of the choppy effects you described.

i_Xp/VistaUser

The idea of removing processes is to remove processes that are unnecessary for normal operation. Things like automatic updates for Google for instance. If you want to update Google you can do that manually. Get the idea? What version of MS office are you using?

You need to watch the running processes to see what processes intermittently spike CPU usage.

Most laptops only run the processor as fast as is needed. You can check some of the settings for that to see if that might help. I agree RAM isn't your problem. Word processing is not very memory intensive.

At a normal point in time my computer will be running at probably around 0-10%. When the "freezes" occur the CPU Usage spikes up to around 50%. It appears as though 'firefox.exe' is the process that is causing all of this. Do you think I should just go with Internet Explorer or is it internet in general that is causing this? I can't imagine that every person using Firefox on their laptops have the same problem...what should I do?

I did recently see something about a leter version of Firefox causing problems. You may want to rollback to an older version, if possible.

Yeah, it's definitely Firefox causing the freeze-ups. I'm thinking about uninstalling some of the Add-ons and seeing what happens. I only have about 5 installed but perhaps that is causing a lot of the mess. I'll let you know if I figure anything else out.

YOu may just have malware of some sort. Have you run any scans?

XPUser

78 running processes? WOW!

Here are two different pages I found on Mozillazine.Org. One talks about "hangs" which is exactly what is happening to me, and what may be causing them.
The other talks about reducing Firefox memory usage.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_h...

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Reducing_...

Any recommendations on where I should start? There are a lot of options as to what I can do, but I don't know which ones I should really take...

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_C...

If I were you, I would start with the above site and walk through it for resolution. Curious, does this happen following hibernate or standby?

i_Xp/VistaUser

It's interesting you should mention hibernate or standby, as on Windows 2000 on my laptop, Youtube videos would be very choppy after hibernate or standby. I'd have to reboot in order to sort it.

As for 78 processes... that's normal for Vista, because it has more to do than XP I guess.

I only get choppyness when something is taking up all the CPU.

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Would recommend you run SCANDISK with autofix and search and fix bad sectors.

the "skipping" you descirbe sounds like a bad sector problem to me.

No, the only specific time the "hangs" or "usage spikes" occur is when Firefox is running...post-standby/hibernate or not. When Firefox is not running, the freezes no longer occur. If Internet Explorer is running, it works fine. I guess I could easily just not use Firefox, but I prefer it and I know that most people can use Firefox without any problems.

I have a laptop and I encounter the very same problems when using either Explorer or Firefox.

You could run an update, or if it is the very latest version, roll back a few updates.

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