Computer Problem?

[pwdrive]

Not sure about HDD?

Got a bargraph up showing something, it says CPU usage 100%, memory 948 Mb, those figures vary a bit every second or so.

The above was taken with the internet on and ebay displayed.

Lawrence.

When the machine is unresponsive, what is the hard disc doing?

On some drives, you can hear them accessing the different tracks - a ticking sound. Modern drives are much quieter than old ones, so you might find that hard to judge.

In which case, what about the hard disc LED? Is it on more-or-less continuously when the machine is unresponsive, or is it hardly flickering at all?

This is important to clarify.

As I said earlier, it used to be fine, it's only really got slow this last week or so.

Yes, more RAM is needed, and definitely think about that in the fullness of time. But you are absolutely right to ask what's suddenly changed...

Deleting the photos will make no difference. You have plenty of space on the hard drive.

Ok...there was only one window on the screen, it was displaying ebay, I did a google search for a subject, the ebay window was now replaced by the google search listing window, all normal stuff, I then clicked the back button to go back to the ebay window and the green wirlygig (top left) started to go round then froze, at that point the HDD led was more or less constantly on, the HDD clicking was hard to discern ('cos of the fan) but clicking a way it was, the ebay window eventually was displayed after clicking the back button as said, but it took several seconds to do so.

Lawrence.