A dumb question from a pc dummy

Nostromo

Nostromo

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Dominic
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As the title indicates, I'm not particularly techy.
I have a Dell PC running win 10, when I go into task manager and look at processes there is a large list of stuff (programs/software) most of it isn't showing any activity, 0% cpu, 0% memory etc. My question is, what are these processes, why are they showing if they're not even active?

As a side note, the reason for being in task manager is because sometimes my pc seems to be doing something (which makes it run LR or Photoshop, mainly run slow or glitchy), other times it's absolutely fine and runs as I would expect. But there never seems to be anything showing in task manager that's running (other than task manager). I've disconnected from the internet, but it makes no difference.
 
Nostromo said:
As the title indicates, I'm not particularly techy.
I have a Dell PC running win 10, when I go into task manager and look at processes there is a large list of stuff (programs/software) most of it isn't showing any activity, 0% cpu, 0% memory etc. My question is, what are these processes, why are they showing if they're not even active?
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These are processes that your PC is currrently performing e.g. software you are actively working on, or processes that have loaded at startup for example because the PC may need to have them available to perform some action you may ask it to do. You shpuldn't worry unduly unless one process is hogging the PC.

Nostromo said:
As a side note, the reason for being in task manager is because sometimes my pc seems to be doing something (which makes it run LR or Photoshop, mainly run slow or glitchy), other times it's absolutely fine and runs as I would expect. But there never seems to be anything showing in task manager that's running (other than task manager). I've disconnected from the internet, but it makes no difference.
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Things can slow up a PC, rubbish left behind, malware etc ... run CCleaner (free) and Malwarebytes (free) to get rid of any unwanted stuff.
 
Whilst you're in Task Manager, have a look at what's listed under the Start-up tab along the top there. There might be things that have set themselves to load at startup that you don't need, and you can switch them off so they don't load automatically.
 
Anti virus software can slow your PC down while it does a scan (assuming you are using any). When you are checking task manager do you look at disk activity too?

Also, you are not asking a dumb question.......
 
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Thanks everyone for the replies.
I have got malwarebytes already installed and use it periodically. I've just loaded cleaner and run that, it through up a few things, tracking cookies (about 8,080 of them) and I did a registry clean. So time will tell if it has improved things. But the brief mess around in lightroom did seem to be an improvement.
 
Nostromo said:
That's nice of you to say :), but I do feel a bit naive when I ask computer related questions.
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Well I don't know a lot about quantum mechanics so don't worry.:)
 
petersmart said:
Well I don't know a lot about quantum mechanics so don't worry.:)
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I am not so hot at brain surgery either.......

I spent almost 50 years studying & working with computers large and small so know a bit about them, however I find the more you know about a subject, the more you realise there is still a lot you don't know......
 
I've been in IT related industries for many years. For the past 12 I've been doing pc support in customers homes/premises. I still learn something new every single day.
 
I must say, after using ccleaner, my pc is so much more stable and speedy (well as speedy as an 8yr old pc is going to be). Now I've said that, it'll probably be the kiss of death.
 
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