Aspire 5610Z lags when downloading?

Hi,
I purchased this Acer about a year ago for $758.00. The laptop has been awesome (I use it for business & class work) and I'm glad I purchased it at such a low price. I've read about other problems with the laptop and I haven't had any other issues.

Recently (2 weeks ago?) I noticed that the laptop lags up when streaming video or audio (YouTube, etc.), or when i'm downloading on Firefox or IE and listening to music in winamp. It's very odd and it doesn't matter what site i'm on or what program i'm using.

I've closed out all other necessary programs through the task manager (So it's not anti-virus or something taxing my PC) my laptop is defragged and has about 35.6GB free space on C:\.

For some reason any time I download a webpage or download something that streams my computer just slows down. Once it's fully downloaded it stops lagging and performs beautifully! I'm very perplexed with the situation.

I'm running Windows Vista SP1, an Acer 5610Z @ 1.73GHz & 2GB Ram.

Thank you for your help!
Mike

P.S. I forgot to mention that I *do* have the Bios update for the 5610 which is supposed to prevent audio studdering. Doesn't seem to be working.

 

Welcome to NBR.

Have you reinstalled Windows or the laptop is still with the original OS? Tried to clean your browsers? Cache, temp files and stuff? When the laptop lags, open the Task Manager and see if the browser is eating 100% CPU or what?

Just a few things to try..

 

This is the original Windows Vista that was installed when I purchased the laptop (upgraded to SP1). I've cleaned my cache, temp files and defragged.

When it lags (say I open a new webpage and it downloads images to display the page it lags) firefox.exe jumps to like 44%... but that's about it.

Thank you for your reply!