Just answer the F*#king question

Ok, this one took me ages to work out. Acer laptop had been running fine for ages, then suddenly any video playback would be jerky after about 2 or 3 minutes, along with Flash applications going slow. Youtube unwatchable, Quicktime very patchy and intermittent.

No spyware, no virus, no random processes. Drivers all up to date, firmware up to date.

After much hunting, reinstalls, spyware checking etc the simple answer turned out to be the laptop was overheating. So ( and this is specific to my Acer, but look for a similar software solution on other providers ), I turned down the speed of my ATI graphics processor from the Cataylst Control Center, and bam!, back up working fine ( look under Power Play, set the setting for ‘Plugged In’ as optimal battery ). For day to day use ( no large 3D applications ) works the same as maximum performance.

Also, give the fan a clean with a compressed air duster. The Acer only has a single fan hole under the chassis, and can get very dust filled. Clogged vent, no airflow, high temperature.

Some handy tools to check whats going on:

Speed Fan, gives you current temperatures of your various chips. With the Acer, if the core is getting above 70, you will possibly start having issues. You can also use the EpowerManagement to lower the core CPU speed ( and thus temperature ), however, be aware of display issues with multiple users.

Process Explorer, an advanced Windows Task Manager. Even better, it shows DPCs ( Deferred procedure calls ) – why? Well, too many of these and something is wrong somewhere between your software and hardware, and overheating CAN cause these issues. You will always have SOME, just run the video or flash, and if it really increases when the video start to go bad and you may have heat problems.

Anyway, this not may be THE solution, but not all performance issues are software, virus or spyware related.