Resource use is high at boot up, for obvious reasons. An indication that the start sequences have concluded is when you see the drive light no longer solidly illuminated.

The biggest difference between versions that affects users is that more RAM can be accessed with 64 bit processors and Windows versions. Otherwise, there's little discernible difference.

Most 32 bit programs run just fine on 64 bit systems. Especially for software as processor-light as a browser, you'd never know the difference. If you want to change Firefox versions, go ahead, that's not a major decision in either direction.

Why are you mucking around in Device Manger and Task Manager. If your PC is operating normally, I'd stay out of the backroom kitchen spaces lest something unneeded and inadvertent should happen.

snidely,

Yep the 1 year old W8.1 machine barely limps along and I just moved up to 105 Mb Cable (lucky to I see anything over 25 Mb).

Zip516 (do I have the handle right?) is giving me a hand on Help2go. I have two other machines that see regular use, a W7 Toshiba notebook (small) and a Dell XP Media that's about 10 years old, I think it may work the best of the bunch.

I also am a bit neurotic about virus and identity theft, so I get nervous when the computer looks busy for no obvious reason. My first look on the W8.1 machine is the Device Manager Performance with shows WiFi and if my machine is being robbed it could be indicated by a busy WiFi when I'm not browsing or watching streaming.

I assume the crooks can get into a computer and read all the Browser knows and maybe read other applications like PDA desktop files. Not a nice thought - the machine I browse with most of the time I do not use to access important web sights. Still, it may take only a small bit of time to dump everything important once the bad guy gets in.

As for FF 64, seems that "upgrade" isn't going to help me much, if at all.

One irritating symptom I see is a slow edit function such as the one I;m using to post this reply. It is working fairly well at the moment, I've discussed that here recently and I am not trying to open it at the moment.

While chatting, I note I haven't seen the lady who has been a frequent help for me and others, the handle will come to me, maybe, but you may know who I mean - hope she is well and just taking a little time off. She often gave experience on things like netbooks, I think she had an Acer back about 5 years ago when I purchased one.

Many applications will update or check for updates upon boot. If they are all doing so at the same time it could temporarily hog bandwidth. Add in the browser drain and this could be the source of your concern. Configuring settings to manual rather than automatic could help.

No two systems are truly alike. My year old W8.1 with FF32 flat out roars. I thought my old Vista was good, but this one is excellent.

DA

-A relatively new PC shouldn't be sluggish, unless it started life as slow and underpowered and you've loaded too much onto it. Or it's infected.

-If you have a greater than bare minimum bandwidth internet connection, it's very unlikely to be the cause of a machine acting sluggishly (as you've described it) when only normal consumer level tasks are taking place.

-If you stay away from sketchy sites, minimize the downloading of other than mainstream software and are using a highly rated security suite, your description of risks and possible dangers is hugely overstated. No, grossly overstated.

Maybe you should consider getting an Apple Mac and put an end to the problems and anxiety you so regularly describe? They're highly engineered, have the most user friendly software available, they're highly un-configurable, and they work great for everyone. You don't diagnose Macs, you don't configure them, you don't monitor them. You just use them. Just like how PCs are for most people.

You have more than your share of avoidable problems and I can't help but think that some of your regular practices are part of the problem. Maybe I'm wrong and you just have a lot of bad luck, but I don't think so.

Good luck to you. Sincerely.

I know no one who move to Mac from PC who came back to PC...must be some truth to what you say on that point.

I have run "free" anti virus/spy ware since I retired and was no longer using a company machine. It may be I'd benefit from buying something better.

If you play computer games you won't be able to play them on a mac.

Seems there's a whole bunch of people that dual boot windows 10 tech preview on their mac's lately. I guessed because its free. But may be they want to play windows games :)

This post was edited by mikie on Thu, Nov 6, 14 at 22:42

Mikie, I have not heard of that before. Can you explain what it is.

Emma, I'm not a Mac daily user but a quick search....

Here is a link that might be useful: Win10 Technical Preview on a Mac

Good, at least my tears and nail biting has produced some useful information.

For me, I don't see a Mac in my near future, well maybe a BigMac : )

I love that Jerry, always keep your sense of humor. I prefer a Freddy's Cheeseburger myself.

It seems that the Firefox is at the root of my computer performance problem, which seems to be gone at the moment, is a problem with "script" or "scripting" as I often get a dialog box telling me of the problem and asking if I wand to "cancel" - "skip" - or just hit the red "X". At these times the performance number for the CPU is in the high 90s %. I seldom use IE but trying it just now I see the CPU load not hit as hard as it was for FF. More in the 70s % and user perceived performance was okay. I don't recall if IE also gets a "script" problem... but I think it is mostly a W8 issue, or at least it is worse in W8.

Zip516 is giving me some special hands-on help cleaning out junk, maybe that will help. As already noted FF64 isn't what is needed to get performance back.

I also note that when FF is up and just displaying the home page, no request in from me to work, the CPU load is up and there is a constant "chatter" on the WiFi... if I got "airplane mode -WiFi off) the CPU load goes down and the WiFi chatter goes to zero, of course.

Jerry I had that problem once. I had removed something or turned it off that caused the problem and I could not remember what it was. I reset FF and it was okay then.

Emma

You say "reset' is that something in the tools>options? Or are you saying you reloaded a new copy of FF?

No I set it to default settings. I put a url below that will help you find the reset. My problem was with the script thing.

Here is a link that might be useful: FF reset

This post was edited by EmmaR on Fri, Nov 7, 14 at 15:52

Hum, thanks now that I look at the help>trouble shooting I think I have been there before, may have used the reset. I will try it again.

I used the "reset" and the Task Manager shows a marked reduction on CPU occupancy, at 50% plus, whereas before it was mostly in the 90%+. Typing now the editor is keeping up with my touch typing (typo-ing).

With a little more CPU-load watching I can say on my 1 year old (1.3 GH) Gateway Notebook runs a lot better on IE than on Firefox. I can say both browsers drive the CPU in the neighborhood of 100% for a few seconds, but FF will stay in the 90s for minutes. IE drops back in about 10 seconds, they are loading different home pages: Century Link (Telco) for FF and att.yahoo for IE.

While typing this reply using the IE everything just "pops" compared to FF. I use the touch pad enabled (W8.1) to move the mouse around the screen, to move pages up/down and it works great. With FF it is typically slow and even "jerks".. not working at all for brief periods.

Looking at the CPU load right now it is running below 10% with some single digits...vastly different than "my" FF. As above, I have reset FF... but there must be something wrong with my FF... maybe I need to go to the FF forum as I'd like to use it in the belief it is under less attack that is IE.

But without careful A to A testing, I think this site is the source of some spotty slowness - see it when ever I take an action that requires a response for Comphelp. And I think some of it is due to CPU load, not server delay. This may be a characteristic of browsing... but as noted I am almost certain IE works better than FF.

Not yet ready to go to Mac... I try to wear things out not just swap around.. been married over 50 years is an example.

Jerry, your last comment offers the solution to the mystery.

I think the reason you're unhappy with responsiveness is that your PC has a 1.3 GHz microprocessor. That's slower than slow - for comparison purposes, my smartphone uses a 1.5 GHz microprocessor and has far fewer tasks to manage. A slow processor like that will balk at some simple tasks and will really choke if a user session involves sequentially more than a few things.

To use a PC like that, I'd minimize to the extent possible what loads at boot up, I'd have only one window open at a time, and even with that I would expect delays and sluggishness as a matter of course.

I have a Lenovo netbook (for travel use) with a 1.6 MHz processor and honestly, I couldn't use it regularly. It sometimes chokes on video streams. For light and occasional use, it does the job. I expect nothing more from it.

If you want a more responsive machine, use your others or replace this one. It isn't going to get better.

Good luck.

Thanks, for sure I had no problem in most of the first year of ownership, and during that time Firefox was my browser at least 95% of the time, IE rarely used. So it is possible, even likely that FF is loaded with spyware and other crap that IE hasn't been exposed to.

Perhaps a complete reload of FF would help.. may be worth a try, but I hate to lose my bookmarks..etc. But, I think those can be saved and patched into the new load..maybe 64 bit if I go to that trouble.

My other machines are slower, the Toshiba is at least 5 years old and the Dell Desktop a XP machine is at least 10 years old.

I use the 1.3 GH for streaming video and it does great. It is a "dual core" E1-1200 and is, I'll bet" at least as "hot" as the average person who visits here - and isn't complaining about slow processing.

As for next PC, I suppose I have to think about a touch screen and a tablet with a remote keyboard for serious text work. I have no idea what type of processors are now being offered, but I'd still be looking for something in the lower half cost-wise...which naturally means a slower processor than the top end guys.

Okay, using the Firefox "troubleshooter" I went to plug ins and set and changed "shock waver" from always on to ask. All seems much better - so far.

Right now the CPU Utilization is so low the processor speed, a slow 1.4 Ghz is backing down to slower speeds to save power, this is a Laptop and does what it can to extend battery life even if the A/C is attached, or so it seems.

I tried to view a video on Youtube and it asked me to enable Shock Wave, I did and the video play normally and the CUP utilization was still well below the old 90% level.

This my be the culprit - I wonder what IE does about Shock Wave, I'll try to find out later.

Another mystery: HOW DO I BOOT IN SAFE MODE in W8? Yes I know I'm shouting but that's how I feel about Microsoft at the moment, maybe a Mac is in my future, when I'm "rich and famous".

Using IE now and Shock Wave is enabled. Seems to be working fine here, CPU utilization is low. Seems to me, from this limited experiment" that IE runs Shock Wave with a lot less CPU resources than does Firefox.

Sounds like your FireFox has some problem - Think I'd uninstall / reinstall it. Pretty simple.

My cpu load on a laptop sitting here with IE right now is 5%. YouTube video, just watched comedy central something was 7 to 30%, seemed to jump to the higher percentage when they changed sets just for a moment.

Win8 you can run MSCONFIG .. then boot tab... boot safe mode ...or hold the Shift key while pressing restart and then it puts you into your repair environment .. which after a couple clicks you'll see the option to choose the start up menu.

Thanks, I'll write down the W8 magic, too many "clicks" to remember unless one uses it often.

The CPU load for IE seems about as your describe, but even with "Flash" not loaded, and some blank windows on my ISP home page, the FF is slower, better but slower.

The reason for Safe Mode is that is a recommended way to see how something, FF, runs when all the "extras" are not loaded.

I was thinking too about loading FF64, both my older W7 and newer/troublesome W8 are 64 bit.

I went to msconfig and found as you described, but unfortunately, and predictable I suppose, safe doesn't turn on my WiFi, so I couldn't test Firefox in Safe mode. May be a way to turn on WiFi, but even the WiFi symbol in the lower tool bar (whatever is is called) was missing, so I didn't have a way to click on the WiFi connection to enable. Must be some other way is needed. Hum, maybe all I need to do was hit control F3?

I downloaded and installed a new copy of FF 33.1, same as what I had, that didn't fix the problem.

If I uninstall FF, don't I lose all my bookmarks and other personal data?

Every time I've uninstalled FireFox it asks if you want to remove personal data or not.

If you remove personal and settings - Its easy to first export the bookmarks and reinstall it. I press the alt to see menu bar.. then ... File / Export/import.. save it to where you can find it.

Thanks, mikie

It may be better to uninstall with the personal stuff held via export/import and get a clean start for FF... see how it runs and then import and see how it runs.

One difference between IE, runs much faster, and FF is FF has all my personal junk/aids, none of which should be "running" in the background, rather just available in the "background" histories.

It also seems reasonable to down load FF64, given I have such a machine. Maybe if I uninstall FF will allow that. When I reloaded FF I was not offered FF64, from the Mozilla web site, I try to avoid all the earlier web sites that pop up when I google FF64.

According to Firefox themselves, they don't have a 64 bit version...

Here is a link that might be useful: Mozilla Support

Well now that could be the reason I can't find FF64.. but know it is mentioned somewhere, and may return results on a search.

Shows what a hard head I am, figuring there is something amiss when I can find a Firefox version on the Mozilla web site. Clearly they are the source, if there is such a thing. I thought (or didn't think) Mozilla might see I was on their sight using the current 33.1 version so they just provided another copy of that version, not the 64 bit.

I never pay any attention the to 64/32 bit installation of FF, every one I download works for me. My version is just 28 as far as I know. I have never had the problems like you are having. I have had problems with upgrades but they are just options I have lost everything has worked fine.