Acer One in Rigor Mortis

Hi. I have and Acer One Model AO751h (ZA3) with 2GB memory and 250GB hard-drive. I've had it for about four years now, and it is running on Windows Vista Home Basic. My problem is that the computer is frequently running at 100% CPU usage, even when nothing is seemingly running. When I try to execute a function, the progress wheel spins, but often nothing happens. The Processes count normally shows 75 processes running, and shutting down the largest only helps for a short period of time. Complicating this is the fact that I have no idea which, if any processes are required and should be left alone. Is there any way to flush out everything and start from scratch, or is there another way to approach this problem? Thanks in advance.

 

Click "Start" and type in msconfig in search bar. Open msconfig.exe. Click the Startup tab. What do you see there? If you have added programs over the years, I bet you see a bunch of check marks. I'd suggest you un-check all the program related start-ups like iTunes, Adobe, Google and the like. You only need the OS startups along with your anti virus software for example. If unsure, Google what you see checked and see if what is checked is actually necessary to start upon boot. After "unchecking" what isn't required to safely boot, then click on "apply" and then OK. Then reboot. Without all that startup garbage running in the background, I suspect you will see a speed bump. Even after un-checking startup programs, those programs will start just fine when you need to open them.
You might also want to install malwarebytes and update and run your anti-virus to make sure you don't have malware or a virus robbing your cycles.
Do keep in mind your netbook is getting a bit long in the tooth. Netbooks by nature aren't powerhouses. Also, WIndows Vista is a resource hog. Windows 7 is much better. You might consider a clean install of the later OS.

 

Thanks for the advice, friend. I followed your recommendation and unchecked all operations to see if that might make a difference. Unfortunately, it did not seem to impact performance much, if at all. There are still 75 processes running, and the CPU usage is still at 100% most of the time. I will follow up and repeat this procedure again, to see if there can be any untapped performance. Thanks again!

 

Qckslvr99: Have you ever heard of the DMA setting? If this has changed it can slow the Aspire down to a crawl. However, even though I've changed it and saw great difference, my complaint is that if I use this Aspire all day it seems to get slower and slower and slower. When I boot up it's fine and good for a couple hours. If it sits for a long time and I come back it's noticeably slower. I could reboot each time I suppose but I'd rather find the reasoning.

Anyway on the DMA thing (1) go to the DEVICE MANAGER (2) look down the list for the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and

CLICK ON it to expand it down.

Find the PRIMARY IDE Channel and RIGHT CLICK for PROPERTIES>ADVANCED SETTING and make sure the

DEVICE 0 TRANSFER MODE is set to DMA or DMA if Available. ( NOT PIO MODE ) CLICK OK and any applicable OK or APPLY ... whatever. A REBOOT is always recommended by me after changing something like that.

I don't pretend to understand why it works but it has something to do with the Aspire making a wrong assumption about something, as if it detected a mistake and setting it to run slower and not crash. So see if this works. You should find this helpful.

In the meantime I don't know why mine is slowing. It's not nearly as bad as if it was set to PIO mode, but it gets sluggish. Maybe I'm spoiled by the new Windows 8.1 desktop that ethernet plugged and this is and XP, 6 years old across the house on wireless. Maybe that it ... who knows. Let me know if you get any relief from what I posted. Jack ":-D

 

Thanks for your input, Jack. I followed your instructions, and found that my system was set up in accordance with your recommendation. I don't know what "IDE" or "DMA" are, but my system says they are operating normally.

You also spoke about a re-boot. Is that the same thing as a re-start? If they are different animals, that may help. I've never done a re-boot on the system.

Thanks again for the advice.

 

A reboot simply means shutting the system down and starting or using the restart option. I always think this best when changing something seim-important to important.

 

Hi there,
You say you are running at 100% CPU usage, I take it you are seeing this from the performance graphs in Task Manager?
What process/processes are actually using your CPU cycles up is the first question to be asking.

Hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up Windows Task Manager and click on the Processes tab.
Click on the Show processes from all users button at the bottom
Then click on CPU along the top to sort the processes by CPU usage. (Might need to click it twice to get the processes sorted top to bottom/max to min).

Take a note of the top ones and what percentage they are using.
If you then either Google those processes or drop a note (or screenshot even would be better) and we can see if anything looks out of the ordinary.

Hope the above makes sense but if you need any more info just give me a shout.

Cheers

Paul