Performance testing?

[beavereater]

Is there an app I can use to see if I'm getting the best performance out of my PC? Something to see if there are certain things running on my PC that are slowing things down.

I remember adding some kind of widget thing to my desktop, and it ate up all my resources slowly my PC down...is that still the case? Does anyone know of a good site to download useful desktop tools that DON'T slow down your average PC?

[redwudz]

Sandra Lite is a popular benchmarking program for components and hardware. http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=dload&location=sware_dl_3264&langx=en&a

You just run the parts you want and it doesn't run all the time.

[GKar]

You can do a CTRL-ALT-DEL and open the task manager and under the processes tab see if there is something there chewing up CPU cycles

[Bjs]

It's either :

Start , run , type MSCONFIG , and go to startup tab when new window appears , and disable non-essential program's ...

Or hijackthis , far more powerful than the system tool's .