My computer is running very slow, so I opened up the task manager expecting to see excessive cpu or memory usage. Nothing. So I closed all applications other than task manager. Still slow. Then I opened up the resource monitor, and found the cpu being used almost to the max! What could cause such a discrepancy? Another words, why does taskmgr show barely any cpu usage, while the resource monitor shows that the cpu is overloaded?
EDIT:
Others have pointed out that I incorrectly identified the blue line in the resource monitor as cpu usage. Thank you for that, but I still don't know what to do about my slow computer.
Best Answer
It could be your I/O subsystem, but if you aren't doing anything, this should not be causing the slow downs you've described. Sounds more like you have some background process that are not playing nice. I've fixed more than my share of friends and family computers displaying these symptoms and here is what I do...
At this point you can reboot again and then start poking around. My bet is that your scans will uncover some things you didn't know you were running. You should see a noticeable difference after doing all of this.