Slow performance/low memory, Win XP

[Dr.EM]

Hello, this is a bit of a long shot as I'm asking about the family computer which I'm not very familar with.

It is a Windows XP machine, 2GB RAM, basic model from OCUK. I set it up for them when we got it and it was fine for probably over a year now. Anyhow, just recently it has been running very slowly. It came up with a "low virtual memory" message yesterday, a message I hadn't seen on a PC in ages! This is presumably the reason it's running slowly but I cannot figure out what could be using up all that memory.

It's mostly used for internet, spreadsheets and a few basic games. I set it up with AVG virus scanner and Firefox internet browser which are both up to date and running fine. A virus scan earlier showed up no problems. Pretty sure it's up to date on Windows, SP3 etc.

There is lots of free HDD space and it isn't badly defragmented. When I viewed the system processes I didn't see anything hogging memory or CPU. The HDD seems to be active nearly all the time though.

Any advice appreciated! I'd rather not do a reinstall, there simple isn't that much on there and I can't see why it is running so slowly

 

[Dr.EM]

Any ideas at all? Is there a common reason for low memory on fairly modern machines?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Download processexplorer from sysinternals and that'll tell you where all the memory is going.

 

[masterluke]

could be malware of some kind.. try Malwarebytes Anti-Malware