System Idle>80% but PC is very S-L-O-W?

HP 6910p - 1.22 GB RAM
Win XP v.2002 SP3 - All updates applied
It just 'hangs' with the System Idle CPU > 80 or 90%?
I checked the hard drive and it is set to DMA.
Ran Malwarebytes, RootRepeal, AVG, rkill and nothing was detected.
Any ideas on what I can do next to diagnose/correct the performance problem?
Thanks in advance!!!

 

How full is the hard drive? Have you defragged it? Have you run a program such as CCleaner or Wise Disk Cleaner first?

 

Hard drive has several GB free.
Yes - I run CCleaner on a regular basis...I do believe that I've already run all the common stuff and I even did a 'sfc /scannow' to make sure all the XP files are kosher.

 

Sounds like you have done some good checks so far. I'll second mdonah's defrag suggestion.

Also, make sure your drivers are updated - you can use Iobit's Driver Booster:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/iobit_driver_booster.html

I use it on my Windows 7 computers and it found quite a few outdated system drivers. Used it on my one XP machine and it found a few also. Good program and there is a how-to by the Major on it's use:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=1823027#post1823027

Check your startup folder (Start - Programs - Startup) and see what apps are starting when XP boots. My startup folder has always been empty on any computer I have used, from Window 95 days on up. A lot of programs want to insert themselves in the start up routine needlessly, and use up RAM that can be of better use elsewhere. Whatever is in the Startup folder you don't want starting with windows, delete. This won't delete the program, just the startup shortcut.

Check out a site like Black Viper that gives information on running services for several windows operating systems, including XP. You can taylor what services you want running to suit your particular needs for the computer.

 

You say the hard drive has "several" GB free but is the overall usage greater than 75%? If so, this could be a reason for the slow down. I always keep usage at 50% or below and defrag on a regular basis. I run XP and Vista from 2 separate drives.

 

Thanks for the replies, I'm running defrag again.
Using CCleaner to manage Startup Folder and it only has the bare minimum needed to run.
I'll do the Driver update later today.

Perhaps I'm not stating the problem correctly, let me try again...

1) I click on a program/app and the PC does not respond in a timely manner - like it is already very busy and 'hangs'
2) Checking CPU performance during this time, I see the System Idle > 80 or 90% - like it does not recognize that I clicked and want to launch a program/app
3) With System Idle at such a high CPU % - what is it doing?
'Nothing' appears to be the correct answer - System Idle means it is waiting for something to happen, correct?

I would expect to see Chrome or Excel or some other program/app using the CPU spike at the start and then settle down based on usage.

Seeing the PC 'doing nothing' and not responding to clicks to start a program/app doesn't make sense - its not like the CPU is > 80% doing something else, its just idle waiting for something to do.

"You say the hard drive has "several" GB free but is the overall usage greater than 75%? If so, this could be a reason for the slow down."
I'm sorry I don't understand - What is the reason?

Thanks again...

 

What's your RAM usage? 1.22 GB is not a whole lot of memory and if what's running is memory intensive, that will slow things down too.

If your HDD doesn't have enough free space, it's can't defragment the drive properly. That will cause a slowdown.

 

On the Performance tab of the Windows Task Manager it shows Physical Memory (K) Total = 1031404 and Available = 291272

 

This is a 7 year old laptop running an outdated version of Windows. In 7 years hardware degrades, especially in a laptop which has more heat to contend with than a desktop.
You never mentioned the size of the hard drive? Is it 80GB? How many GB are free? several doesn't tell us anything.
Two reasons for slowness: the hard drive is dying or the hard drive has less than 20% free which on an 80GB hard drive means you need 16GB or more of free space.

 

This, too, can be a reason for slow down. Going below 50% of available memory on my 9 year old laptop slows things down considerably.

Find out the max RAM capacity of your laptop and max it out. Memory modules are inexpensive now.