My computer is running slow, but task manager doesn’t show excessive cpu or memory usage. Why

cpumemoryperformanceresource-monitortask-manager

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.

Task Manager

Resource Monitor

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...

  1. Disable everything in Startup that is non-critical and then re-enable them one at a time if you really need it to fire at Startup.
  2. Update your AV program and definitions
  3. Download HiJackThis and Malwarebytes, free edition
  4. Install Malwarebytes
  5. Boot into safe mode
  6. Run AV - full scan - fix anything that is found
  7. Run Malwarebytes for adware/malware - fix anything that is found that you don't recognize. Sometimes, these programs identify legitimate processes that can be ignored.
  8. Boot into normal mode and run HiJackThis . You can send the log to the HiJackThis community or try to analyze and repair anything you see.
  9. Download CCleaner and cleanup temporary items and the registry

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.

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