The computer at my parents is really, really, really slow. When I pressed ctrl-alt-delete to look at things like CPU usage it says its commit charge is 810MB out of 900MB. what is commit charge and is this tied into why the computer is so slow? How do I cut down on commit charge usage.
The commit charge is the RAM and virtual memory that is used by currently running programs and the OS. Usually just closing out your programs will bring the commit charge down – if not, check to see what’s running in the background.
When you’re running at 810MB commit, what are you doing? Just web browsing and the like? If so, there’s definitely something eating up the power of the computer. Possible spyware, possible a virus program trying to do a full system scan and hogging the resources (ahem Norton ahem), etc.