Why is my computer taking a long time to finish when the CPU is only at 20%?

[Roy Baldone]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.
Roy

 

[Robin Bignall]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.

Waiting for disks?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.
Roy

1) Most programs can only use one core.

2) Agent is IO-bound, not CPU bound. What's taking the time is your
hard drive, not your CPU.

 

[RayLopez99]

1) Most programs can only use one core.

2) Agent is IO-bound, not CPU bound. What's taking the time is your
hard drive, not your CPU.

Sounds reasonable. Also watch out for the pesky "user input required" popup window. Sometimes, incredibly, it is buried behind other windows on yourdesktop and you need to click the "OK" button for the program to continue--and you may be blissfully unaware of this bottleneck. Bad programming is the usual culprit (though I've seen some of these windows with a timer to automatically close them after XYZ seconds elapse).

RL

 

[Flasherly]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.
Roy

Code routine, how its written, accessing the data file. Sort of
normal for some -- wouldn't put it past Agent (not a bad program,
btw). Helps to have references (Agent perhaps isn't written with the
latest indexing technology for databases). Others, for instance, the
latest IE upgrades I've seen on IT approved networks, seems everything
it does caters to a slow sludge of sewer from advertising motives and
routines. Dual core Conroe or such for not enough scum in the deepest
ditch for me to convey what it's doing on those particular networks.
Disgusting. Probably works fine for others, tweaked in, though
haven't personally used IE in ages.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.
Roy

CPU's have very little to do with performance these days. RAM has very
little to do with performance too. GPU's are a joke. What you need to do
is replace one of your hard drives with an SSD, that's where you will
find your biggest performance gains and losses.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sounds reasonable. Also watch out for the pesky "user input required" popup window. Sometimes, incredibly, it is buried behind other windows on your desktop and you need to click the "OK" button for the program to continue--and you may be blissfully unaware of this bottleneck. Bad programming is the usual culprit (though I've seen some of these windows with a timer to automatically close them after XYZ seconds elapse).

Windows shares part of the blame. It's quite possible for lag in the
system to cause dialog box to pop up behind the window that created
it.

Microsoft should have made modal windows automatically stack above
their parents no matter what.

 

[Metspitzer]

Sometimes I have to wait forever for my computer to do things. Usually
a specific program. When I look at my Taskmanager, it shows that my
computer is only useing a very small % of its total - 10 or 20% and
occasionally one of my CPUs is even alseep. So, why do I have to
wait? Why is it not using all of its power to decrease my wait time?
(you know what I mean I hope).
Any ideas? It is not that the computer is otherwise slow.
Usually is happens on my newsreader - Agent, when I am deleting posts
or compacting the data base.

Any help or info would be most appreciated.
Roy

Agent has an option to remove body after saving messages.
Try that

 

[Flasherly]

Also consider that your memory may be mostly used by other things
running and the system is having to move some of the stuff previously
loaded into temporary hard drive storage to have enough for your program
to load.

Sometimes it is helpful to have the task manager active so you can watch
the memory usage as things shuffle around.

Depending on how it's typically used. Ran into a bad module and had
to cannibalize for selling a system, which left me a 512M stick in one
system that may, or not, be dragging it down now. With a dual-core on
order, I'll swap it out anyway for a 2G populated MB, so it's going to
be overkill, anyway;- taking that one for making it this one, not a
problem with getting more memory to bring it back up to at least 2
512M banks. 2G of memory is nice, although beyond 1G with XP
performance typically is a non-issue. Don't know Win7, although
suspect it's commonplace to setup along 4G. Run the diagnostics, as
you say, or at least don't forget and keep them in mind -- these days
price of memory is near a giveaway. If ain't got at least 2G, not
that I'm a regular with memory intensive demands, it's because
somebody's probably just too lazy to stick it in.

 

[Flasherly]

No such luck, turns out a steel plate holding the IR receiver unit
needed to be moved back;- a plate partially blocking the signal from
the key/mouse on a coffee table and causing eroticism. 512M it is.