Strange behavior with mom's computer

YW. And if one of the high processes is a svchost you can right click it and "go to services" to see what's at root.

Well, they have cable TV and phone too and there have been no problems with that, and the internet connection and speed seems fine. It's just that something is slowing down the entire computer when it is connected, so it's a matter of finding out what by disconnecting things one at a time.

Roland brings up a good point. One way to eliminate all external factors is to bring a laptop along and see how it works on the same wire.

Today it started to drag again but then I noticed that Windows update was running in the background. It actually had 189 updates to download and install and at about #172 (installation of security update KB2479943) it started getting interrupted by messages that the computer memory is low and when I check the task manager it shows physical memory usage at nearly 100%.

Is 2 GB RAM not enough for installing Windows 7 updates or is there some other problem I should be checking on?

Other than anti-virus there are no other applications running during the updates.

I thought the machine was already updated (post #1). I've never seen that warning myself. 189 is a full update regimen. I would do it in maybe 3 batches.

I thought it was fully updated since it went a several restarts without indicating there were any more updates.

Now the problem here is that it has been stuck on installing 172 for the last hour. Is it safe to assume it will not get beyond that one and should I stop the installation? If I do will it undo everything that has been done in this install or will it try to resume at 172 when I try again?

Increasing the size of the page file did bring the memory usage down to about 72% which I guess helps, although I had no idea what to set the usage for. I went with 10000GB and 20000GB.

Chances are it will start the whole thing over, though I'm not sure. I've seen it do that, even including redownloading. It's like MS servers are lonely. If you do abort, first take note of the package it's stuck on if you can and reserve it for last next time. I would also take a system restore point before each batch.

Yes 10000-20000MB...oops

5600MB was the currently allocated setting when memory usage was at 100% so I went way up. What is the disadvantage of that? Only 10% of the hard drive is used for storage.

The update it is stuck on is noted above so I can check it there if needed.