Slowdown when starting likely a RAM issue.(Chicago Tribune)

Byline: James Coates

Q. Over the past several weeks my computer (AMD with 892 megahertz processor speed, 192 megabytes of RAM, Windows XP Home) has slowed down considerably when booting. It's also slow displaying changes when switching from application to application or in displaying new pages or options and menus within the same application.

I've defragmented the hard drive, cleaned up the register with System Mechanic, checked for viruses with the latest Norton AntiVirus software and updated definitions, all with no relief. I have a sense it has something to do with memory allocation for video display and have searched for help using terms like "video display" or "display memory" without finding anything.

_Bob Thomson, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

A. I hate to tell you this, Mr. T., but you just don't have enough RAM to run more than two or three programs without bogging down. When random access memory fills up, it forces your computer to utilize a swap-page feature in which a copy of the data on the RAM chip is moved to the hard drive. When RAM overflows, future operations must be done to the hard-drive swap file, which is far slower than memory.

The reason your computer seems to be slowing down over time is that the longer a computer is used, especially on the Internet, the more often small programs get automatically loaded to run in the background. The more stuff in the background, the quicker your computer is going to need to start swapping out RAM, with the resulting slowdowns.

Try shutting down background stuff to see if your speed increases.