I have reinstalled the OS, Vista Home premium; yes I know this could be the problem. I tried Windows XP Professional sp3 but the drivers where not supported for this OS, so I reinstalled the Windows Vista, which found the Drivers on the first try, I was shocked by this, but it still seems like her CPU is at a low usage rate but it still seems like it is very sluggish. I told her I have a feeling that it could be her CPU, because of the Task Manager is showing it to be freezing a lot. I am wondering how to really detect it from being something else. Her computer uses DDR2 800 and supported my DDR2 1600 and found out it still had the same problems. I tried calling Gateway but there Tech Support wasn’t so helpful they said to bring it to a technician. I told the person, I am a technician. Reason for me asking for an opinion is she doesn’t really believe me. I did test the CPU using I forgot the name but it is a program to test both benchmarks and CPU Stability and other hardware stability. The entire test pointed to her CPU. I showed her the results and she was shocked. It is only a 2.5 year old Computer or less. She did get ripped off for the price she paid for at Best Buy being it is only a single core Intel 1.6 GHz CPU. Model Number Gateway GT5464.

What socket is it, can it be upgraded, and how much ram has it got, also is there anything running in the background like anti virus or messengers.

The Socet is LGA775 Socket it is a dual core sorry?
Processor
CPU Speed: 1.6 GHz
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Processor Qty: 1
Compatible Processor Socket: LGA775 Socket
Architecture Features: Enhanced SpeedStep technology, Execute Disable Bit capability, Intel 64 Technology, Enhanced Halt State (C1E), Intel Thermal Monitor 2

It has 1 GB DDR2 533 I tried 2 GB DDR2 1066 RAM and still same problem. The specs are
Gateway Support - Specifications
The CPU is Soldered to the Motherboard. I am somewhat comfortable doing this but I don’t want to ruin her computer as I only did that once in school. That was a failed story, and thank goodness it was a garbage picked PC. A similar Gateway to her PC.

I forgot to add, it is slower than my Compaq 11 year old PC with a single core Celeron CPU with 1.2 GHz so it has to be the CPU on my friends PC I did troubleshooting based on both Gateway and my own advised troubleshooting

If its got soldered pins dont think about replacing, if it was a socket 775 i had same processeor in a computer its not going to be that more likely its something running in background or a windows update thats messed it up try restoring to earliest restore point and try stopping things running in task maneger.

Might try the MSCONFIG trick....disabling certain services and proccesses until you find the culprit.

Originally Posted by busdriver72

Might try the MSCONFIG trick....disabling certain services and proccesses until you find the culprit.

All ready did this. I even reinstalled the OS with a Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium DVD. I am pretty sure it is the CPU. I tried everything. It still runs but I have to disable the Performance Options in the System Properties and disabled all Visual Affects and this helps a bit but still it freezes but not nearly as much.

Originally Posted by popeye67

If its got soldered pins dont think about replacing, if it was a socket 775 i had same processeor in a computer its not going to be that more likely its something running in background or a windows update thats messed it up try restoring to earliest restore point and try stopping things running in task maneger.

I did Right Click on Computer>Left Click on Properties and Went in the Advanced System Settings>Performance and Adjust for better Performance Option and restarted the PC I Also tried to increase the Virtue Memory to a higher amount.

Even a clean install does the same thing, with updates it works a bit better, I think I could be like you said a background process or an invalid driver or something like that. It did that worse in Windows XP Professional SP3, but I may try Windows 7 to see if it is a problem with Windows. I thought it could be her hard drive but it came back on a Bench mark with the hard drive with a higher score than the CPU and Graphics Card. I may try a newer graphics card because when I run on a remote desktop connection it doesn’t freeze as much. The CPU had a very low score like 48 and the GPU had a 130 and the HDD had 460 the Memory had a score of 150.

If its a fresh install cant be stuff running in background, whats the motherboard make and model number or go to site and see if theres a known problem that a bios upgrade would fix, check in bios it hasnt been underclocked by restoreing defaults. personnally would have thought it more likely to be problem with board than cpu.

Have you installed the drivers for the motherboard listed on the Gateway site?