I've got a laptop running a PIII 1.13 ghz, with 256 of ram and a relatively crappy video card I guess. The problem is, when I bring up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) it shows 3% CPU usage or so when I'm doing nothing, which is normal...but if I even so much as slowly drag the task manager window around, my CPU usage shoots up to like 80%! That's crazy...I get a lot of computer lag sometimes when it seems it shouldn't be. Any suggestions as to what to do?
try right clicking on "my computer" --> properties --> advanced tab there should be three 'settings' buttons, you want the one under performance. click that, and tell it to adjust for best performance, and not to waste so much resources on looking pretty.