Hi. I have been working with my mom's Dell Dimension 2350 for quite a while now, but to no avail. I am pretty good with computers, and until this I have never came across a problem that I could not understand or fix. Anyway, the problem is that the computer is so slow and draggy and locks up so often that it is really pointless to try to even log on. I have McAfee running at all times, I run Spybot and Ad-Aware at least once a week, I run all sorts of registry cleaners, etc., and the problem is never fixed. For instance, yesterday my mom was trying to open a picture from her desktop, and she ended up having to restart her computer three times and just finally giving up because if she even right clicked on the picture the comp froze up so badly that CTRL+ALT+DEL wouldn't even open. Also, when I go into the Windows Task Manager and go to Processes, if I leave it open and just move my mouse curor across the screen, the CPU usage shoots to 100%, the same if I just click the Start Bar, etc. Does anyone have any ideas? The computer is a 2.0GHz Pentium 4 w/ 256MB RAM. I realize that the RAM is pretty low, but now bad enough to cause this. I have never seen anything quite like this before. I have even tried increasing the Virtual Memory, and that didn't help either. Tell me what you need, and I will give you the info if you can just help me. Mom is ready to trash this computer!! Thanks!!!

Welcome to PCHF, StarlightGirl. First, run disk defragmenter by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.
Then, run Disk Cleanup by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup.
Another idea would be to stop unnecessary programs from starting up. Read here for information on how to do this.
Also, a program that I used to use that frees up some RAM is called Free RAM XP Pro. It is free, search for it at Google.
Please let me know if this helps.

Hi & welcome.

right click on the taskbar and select "Task manager" - is there anything listed in there that is using more than its fair share of your processor power?

Also, right click on My Computer and select properties > Advanced > Performance/Settings > Advanced tab > Virtual memory/change > make sure that the virtual memory is set to "system managed size" click "set" then ok and re-boot.

Also, removing unneeded files and uninstalling programs you don't use anymore will leave fewer files for Windows to look through to find the file you want (tends to work for me, and clears hard drive space).

Also clear out your temp and temporary internet files.