Sometimes this PC pauses when loading webpages, and also when playing an online golf game, I find memory usage quite intensive and I think the PC might be struggling. I took the below screenshot with the PC just on desktop, no applications/windows open. Usage of 890mb seems a bit much to me? Its a 2 gig machine so I guess has capacity to use more?

Looking at the services in operation at idle, the following ones seem quite high usage

dwm.exe 35,000kb - desktop window manager - don't know what this is

There's about 15 svchost.exe ones, with two on "SYSTEM" being 51,580kb and 46,512kb. "Host process for service windows"

Could this just be a Vista thing as I know my laptop at work running on XP has a much lower memory usage on idle - and it has none of the same symptoms I am getting on this PC. Is there perhaps a program out there which can analyse all the services (there is roughly 2 and a half pages of them on task manager) and find out which ones could be thinned out a bit?

My laptop is 3yrs old and uses 1.1 Gb at idle and it's running Vista

I would get a new laptop but can't afford one at the moment

Nowt wrong with your memory stats...

What browser you using?

Memory usage looks fine, 890meg is nothing to worry about and if anything lower than most.

Sounds like some sort of lag, possibly caused by a web browser add in, or DNS issues with your ISP causing delays in resolving names to IP addresses.

Memory usage looks fine, 890meg is nothing to worry about and if anything lower than most.

Sounds like some sort of lag, possibly caused by a web browser add in, or DNS issues with your ISP causing delays in resolving names to IP addresses.

My money is on flash

Well, it does have adobe flash player, as thats what the golf game works on. I have noted at full screen internet explorer (eight) uses around 400kb alone to power the game, which is pushing memory usage up to the 70% of maximum. I'm going to review my installed programs list now in control panel to see if there are any add-ins that are not there with my permission.

internet explorer = teh ghey

get chrome

I do have it, but the golf game has a jerky meter in that as well. I was hoping it would be more than just browser related,