Are you really talking about RAM or System Resources?  They are totally separate and one has little to do with the other.  Are you running antivirus software with up to date virus definitions?  Have you scanned your system for spyware and removed all that is found?  Which antispyware programs are you running?

Steve

Thanks for responding.  Oh dear!  I know even less than I thought I did!  Yes...it is system resources.  When my son installed DSL for me he took off adware and Symantic and installed Spybot which "came with" my DSL (SBC is my DSL provider).  Could Spybot be problem?  If it is, do you know who I can tell? And if so can I correct it?  It is free with DSL, but should I go back to Symantic?  I never had any trouble with it when I used the phone line.  Thank you again.  Cara

eight girls,

When you say that "he took off Symantic" do you mean your antivirus program was removed? If so, that could be the cause of your problem.

Spybot and Ad-aware are two excellent programs which work well together on a single computer (as the look for different things) to keep it spyware free. Neither of them, however, has any antivirus capability. It is highly unlikely that Spybot it contributing to your present rapid loss of resources.

If your antivirus program has been removed (or even if it hasn't) it would be prudent to do an online virus scan from here just to eliminate one possible cause of the problem.

Thank you Denny and Steve for your interest in helping me.  I'll try to answer your questions.  First, I have Spybot...oh, oh, I have not tried to "run" it to check what might be on it...will do that tomorrow.  I have EZ Antiuvirus.  I ran the House Calls Denny recommended and came up with 24 viruses.  I was able even5tually to delete all the RESTORE viruses (At least I thihnk I did).  I also ran the EZ before I figured out how to delete on House CAlls and they only showed 20 viruses, all of whick I deleted.  But then I went back to HC and ran again and I had two left, which I did not appear to delete:  When I clicked Delete I got another window that asked if I wanted to delete, but my mouse froze and I could not click yes.  Everything was frozen...could not even turn off with Control Alt Delete.  Anyway, I ran it again with same result; tried a third time and nothing ever showed up, but it froze up again, so I don't know if I have anything on or not.  (The third time it never showed it was finished, but it had run over four hours, so that is when I decided it was not going to do anything.)  I still have the same problem I reported initially...except it is perfomrmance and not RAM.

 

I will run the spyware tomorrow, but any other suggestions?  Thanks again.  Cara

If that was my system that was so thoroughly hosed by virus activity, I wouldn't even try to make things right without just wiping the drive and reinstalling from scratch.  You could spend two weeks trying to get all those viruses off there, and it still might not work properly.  2 hours, and you could have the whole thing put back together with a fresh installation of the operating system.  I'd follow that up with an anti virus application that actually works, and keep it updated.