Point in the right direction?

[thedeatons]

Can someone point me to the correct place? I have 54+ processes running on our laptops and need to cut back, but do not know which ones are useless... :)

The CPU Usage is constantly high 50%+++ just when simply navigating the net.

Help? Thanks, James

[drragostea]

Next time, you can always post in the Tavern : ].
54 processes is a lot, for me :laugh:, and I'm sure removing some unnecessary ones will definitely benefit your system.

There's numerous processes to list, so it's impossible to tell you all of them... A good starting point would be to use Google. Although it is helpful and reliable most of the time, not all the information you see is accurate 100% of the time. So what you can do is start Googling (or what ever search engine you wish to use) the processes that are running on your machine.

To start off, processes like "ctfmon.exe" (used for International languages and input devices) and "jusched.exe" (unnecessary start up for Java, as you do not need Java every minute your machine runs). If you use an ATI graphics card, you can disable most of the start up processes that come with it since they are hotkeys (not necessary to keep them running all day).

But most importantly, I would suggest you run an anti-malware scan and clear off those little buggers that might be hiding in your Start up Manager. That can reduce the amount of entries and processes that are running on your machine.

[thedeatons]

Thank you very much... I am currently using an ASUS EEE computer, with ~1GB of RAM, and XP, which is why I am concerned about the processes. We use two of them, one for my wife and one for me, and simply surf the net, use Office, etc. No gaming.

Every morning Spybot S&D runs, and typically fixes one problem per day. Avast is our resident scanner of choice. I used to have ClamWin loaded, but found I never used it really, with Avast running.

I will begin researching each process, but would love to know some more information. Is there a valid process tool/checker out there that could save some time?

Thank you! James

[drragostea]

I wouldn't rely too much on one site with one process, rather get information from different sources and put two and two together. Unfortunately, there is no one source where it has information about every process and every detail about it is correct. Malware may pose as the legitimate "svchost.exe" for example, so it's very sneaky... I'd suggest running a few scans... but on a clean machine there isn't really much to worry about (processes), assuming it is patched and protected. But on an infected machine, running scans before manually looking up their names may save a lot of time and stress.