[thelist] Debugging a New PC

[Frank]

So I've just gotten a new PC, AMD Duron 700Mhz chip,  windows me, 128 
ram, 30 gigs drive, partitioned into C, and D. I'm having some 
problems I'm hoping someone can help me figure out.

Symptome 1: Occasionally my machine shows that I only have 80 megs, 
when indeed I have 128. Some 48 megs simply disappear.

Symptome 2: The machine will work normally, them suddenly grind to a 
halt. It's not frozen, but when I move the mouse, the cursor will 
jump a bit in the direction, then stall, them jump some more, no more 
than an inch per 15-20 seconds. If I press the start button key, it 
will be about 30 seconds before it fully pops up. Everything is fine 
after a reboot.

Symptome 3: CPU usage. For startup programs, I have the following. 
That which was pre-installed with windows me, the personal web 
server, cold fusion 4.5 and rds services and Norton utilities, yet 
the moment I start up, my CPU usage seems to be running at about 
95-98%. (This sucker is working HARD, and there's nothing going on...)

Can anyone suggest what avenue of exploration I might take. I some 
what knowledgeable about my PC, but not it's inner workings (I'm 
still not sure what the registry is about, for example).

-- 

Frank Marion                      Loofah Communications
frank at loofahcom.com               http://www.loofahcom.com