PC slowing down -- benchmarking app?

[burbly]

My 5-year-old (prebuilt) PC seems to be starting to slow down seriously during certain tasks... I'm _reasonably_ sure it is not a software problem. I'd like to test the CPU, HDD, memory, etc., to see if some particular component is responsible. Could anyone recommend a benchmarking suite? (Ideally I'd like something where I can come back with the results and someone could point out if anything seems really suspicious.)

thanks!
M.

PS. Sorry if this isn't the right sub forum... wasn't quite sure where to post this.

 

[phil22]

Free 30-day evaluation copy of PassMark: http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

If you want to test the drive and RAM for possible faults which can cause poor performance:

Drive manufacturer's diagnostic software (all free): http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Memtest86 RAM testing software (free): http://www.memtest.org/

(Memtest86 must be run from a bootable CD which you create from the downloaded ISO CD-image file).

 

[tsnor]

IF you have Windows 7 then 'resource monitor' is really nice. Google it. Run it in the background. See if you are getting hard page faults, CPU at 100% large disk service times, etc.

(NICE set of links Phil22) maybe add link to ultimate boot disk.

Also if not running anti-virus then scan with MS security essentials (free) or Norten (time limited trial)

 

[clutchc]

You may want to try cleaning your system of resource wasting crap and registry errors with CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER
Do the Clean and Registry both.

And see how many pgms are in your System Configuration Utility/Startup. I have six in mine for comparison. The more stuff you have running in the background, the slower your system will get. This will help you determine what has to stay and what can go: http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_search.php

Besides a virus pgm, you should have an on-demand malware protection pgm too. I like Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/