Help me solve this computer slowdown issue

My computer is running painfully slow. I checked task manager; 15% CPU usage, 53% physical memory usage. I have over 200gb of harddrive space left. I reformated my computer a month or so ago, after I replaced the hard drive.
But even MS work lags sometimes. I'll type an entire sentence, and 5 seconds later, it will finally type out in a burst. This happens every so often without any other programs open. Every once in awhile, the start menu will freeze for a few seconds before it opens. Opening pictures takes a year sometimes, and other times they load instantly.

Strangely, it doesn't lag while gaming, at all. I have the same level of performance I was getting 3 years ago when I first bought it. This leads me to believe it isn't a heat issue, even though my video card is running at 60C idle, and the processor at 40-50C. I blew the dust out, but it didn't change the temp.

Specs:
Core 2 Duo T8100 | Geforce 8600m gt | 2 gigs of memory | 500gb HDD

Can someone help me out here?

TL;DR: Comp lags doing simple things that it shouldn't. Games run fine. Nothing seems to be hogging resources. What is it?

 

Run Dell Diagnostics and see if all your hardware is in working order.

 

Is this provided with the software that came with the comp?

 

What OS is it running?
It sounds exactly like it is a issue of low ram (well, that and the fact that because you have so low system ram Windows will start using 'page filing' -uses some hdd space as a 'ram substitute, and as you can image it is a LOT slower than ram)... how to solve this? well go out and get more ram (a total or 4GB + is advisable; you can buy a single 4GB stick and use one of the ones already in there so it would have 5GB system ram, which should be enough to speed things up -to fully use 4GB+ ram you will need to be running a 64-bit OS)

one way to be sure it is, is to buy a new stick (or if you have a 2-4GB stick in another notebook you can swap that into your system to see what it does)


When my computer (in sig) was getting "out of memory" Warnings (because page filing was disabled, and because all the system ram was used up) everything ran at snail pace, just like you describe... I now have 8GB system ram and page filing disabled and no longer run into issues (unless I am doing very heavy multitasking and working with large Photoshop files)

 

Yes you can also download it at support.dell.com and by punching in your service tags under Drivers and Downloads.

Also if your laptop still has it, there is a partition for the Dell Diagnostics.

 

Windows 7. I have 2 gigs of ram, so I don't see why this would be the case with nothing but chrome open.

 

Windows 7 is a pig when it comes to ram, even the 32-bit version; 2GB is verging on the bare minimum you would want to run windows on comfortably (like I said, about 4GB is the amount of ram you would want to have -though if your system is 32-bit you can only use ~3.5GB of that 4GB)

ram/ page filing is used for your entire system (from OS kernel to video memory for the video card, to system cache... and by bloatware, viruses, and programs that are constantly running in the background you don't even know about [such as and Anti-virus... are you running a Anti-virus on that system?]); pull up task manager, and then pull up 'Resource monitor' from there and see what it says is the biggest usage on ram, and the rest of your system resources...


slowdowns like you describe are common from low available ram, I've seen it before myself (and most games that would run on your system would not be needing that much ram)... while it says 53% used, it is actually probably closer to 100% (read the value for "Free" ram)

 

windows 7 is hardly a memory 'pig' and based on the OP more complete info in post #1 (you did read/comprehend it, yes?) there are more questions here than snap hip-pocket answers.

Sooooo. We should be asking about things like bios level, patch level of the OS (sp1?) are all device drivers up to date, how is the page file configured, has the OP run diags on his disk drive, has he made any 'cool' mods or registry changes to his machine, is the system indexer running, etc, etc.

 

95 mb free. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Windows 7 uses free ram when you are idling for background purposes?

 

That means your ram is used up. Yes it does (use free ram for background tasks), but system processes, system cache, background services, and hardware needs are seen as a higher priority than 'user programs' so your tasks will get shoved over to page filing while the rest of the system constantly tries to use as much of that 2GB as possible, though the rest ends up on page filing anyways because there isn't enough ram (which means Win 7 will do its best keeping your system from hard crashing -which is basically what is happening when things have major slow downs or hangs as the 'non-essential' processes are halted)
... I have experienced OOM [Our Of Memory] situations before, it does exactly what you describe with major slow downs with typing, and programs tended to lock up for a bit (the only reason you don't see the OOM warning itself is because your system is using page filing, while I had it disabled on mine)


... when you did the fresh install, did you install the latest chipset driver from Intel (I think Intel Rapid Storage Technologies [or perhaps just the older Intel Rapid Matrix Storage driver ] is the one you should be using http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=18859 as that is important to your hdd running at full speeds -which is very important when your system is using page filing a lot, like in your case; and that might be enough to keep the slow downs from happening )



and yes I read the posts! that is how I came to the conclusion of low-ram... and Win 7 isn't a ram pig? compared to what, I daresay! (especially Linux, Win XP, and OSX to an extent, are all able to run very happily on ~1GB + ram, and usually with no kind of page filing; while Win 7 is usually torture when doing anything on 2GB ram -unless you are running a very well optimized version of it)

 

I have to disagree. Win 7 can run more than happily with 1GB. It requires less ram than vista actually. If a laptop is used for web browsing and office task even 1GB is okay.

By the sound of it it is not harddware related. My guess would be that you have something running in the background that is slowing your laptop laptop down. Try to boot in safe mode (press F8 after turning the laptop ON to see the boot options menu). Then check if Word is still slow.

I would also suggest to scan you harddrive for virus infection.

 

Is it 15% CPU usage on idle? What's taking 15% out of your CPU power? This would normally fluctuate between 0 and 1%. It's not a RAM issue unless you turned off the pagefile which is not recommended. Your task manager does say that almost half the RAM's available. I'd try to bring down the CPU idle to actual idle and check temporary folder, see what's going on in there. Some sort of infection could be the culprit if there's no background service that obviously takes up your CPU.

 

You said you replaced your hard drive not too long ago. Would you mind telling us what hard drive you put in your computer?

There are plenty of people having spin-down/spin-up problems with Western Digital hard drives & other hard drives; which would cause 5 second stutters in Windows or games, etc. They solved the problem with a program called quietHDD by disabling APM on the hard drive.

Just a suggestion. The problem could be from anything.