Constant lag, every 1 to 2 seconds

[chepinochet]

Hi, I just registered here and I have a seriously annoying problem. My computer is lagging every one to two seconds. Everything is affected, though it's most annoying dealing with audio and video. It seems to happen when I overload the computer with audio programs, such as FL Studio and Audacity. However, this has happened before and has lasted for days on end. It eventually disappears. I'm almost certain it isn't malware. I'm running a Compaq Presario SR1620NX. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: I'm running XP, Panda Titanium AntiVirus, and don't really bother to update the computer.

[TheEmperor]

How much RAM? How big is your page file? When the issue is happening if you pull up Task Manager is the page file maxed out?
I see this behavior from clients who do a lot of audio/video editing when they are using massive files and the RAM is full and the swapfile maxes out and starts swapping to the HD constantly.

[Broni]

What are computer specs: processor speed, RAM, HD size/free space?

[daniel1212]

You do not know if you are not infected.  When you post what Task manger shows is eating up your CPU cycles it will help.

You should make yourself familiar with what is  loading at start up . Going to Start>Run and typing msconfig and then  hitting the Start up tab will give you a good list.   The freeware Autoruns will do more: http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwstartup.html

You can do a search at www.liutilities.com/ for questionable things. Programs such as MS Office do not need to running at start up and can be deselected.

When you can leave the PC for a while, I would suggest doing a free online scan  at http://www.housecall.trendmicro.com/

[chepinochet]

Thank you for all the replies. Here are some further specs: 512 mb RAM, 160 gig (advertised, actually 142) hard drive, 120 free gigs. All I see for the processor is "3400+ AMD Sempron Processor." I KNOW that the problem always arises when I'm usually copying, pasting, and playing a lot of audio data in Audacity, or overloading FL Studio. I'm just curious if there is a quick solution so I don't have to wait until it just goes away.

[Broni]

Do you have separate sound card, or it's on-board?

[chepinochet]

I haven't replaced or upgraded anything, so I believe onboard.

[Broni]

I can see, that FL Studio is pretty "heavy" program. You may need real sound card.

[chepinochet]

I figured.. do you have any ideas how to correct the lag?

[Broni]

You may need real sound card.

[chepinochet]

The lag is constant and affects the entire computer even after FL Studio and Audacity are closed. I plan on eventually buying a soundcard but there must be a temporary way.

[Broni]

It seems to happen when I overload the computer with audio programs, such as FL Studio and Audacity.

[TheEmperor]

triple your RAM to 1.5gb and I bet the problem goes away. Everything you are describing sounds like the RAM and SWAP file filling up and the hard drive getting thrashed while you are trying to do high end audio work.

[chepinochet]

Alright, thank you all for the advice.

[patio]

Also many RAM intensive apps do not do a good job of releasing the RAM even after turning the app off...
To live with it temporarily til you get some new RAM you can simply re-boot when done with the audio editing.

[quaxo]

What is the size of your swap file as well?