slow computer

[ken]

My son-in-law has three macs in the house. One of them is very slow.
He suspects spyware. I have no expertise with this.
Here is part of his email to me

"I've finally figured out that all the computers on the wireless are
doing great but the kitchen computer which is hard wired to the
wireless router is slow. At first I thought it may be comcast, but
then I unplugged and plugged back in the line from the wireless router
to the kitchen computer and all of a sudden it had blazing speed.
Unfortunately it only lasted 15 or 20 seconds. However each time I
unplug and re-plug the connection, I get the same temporary fast
response only to return to slower than dial up speed. I'm shooting in
the dark but I was thinking maybe a spyware program was getting
momentarily disrupted when I unplug, but eventually starts back up
again. "

Any ideas?

Ken F

[Steven W Riggins]

Doubt it is spyware, not much if any exists on the Mac, but it could
be a) someone attacking the IP, or some software run amok.

Run Activity Monitor found in /Applications/Utilities/ and then click
the CPU column. Make sure to show "All Processes" from the popup at
the top of the window.

Then see which processes are using a lot of cpu.

[Ken Frack]

Thanks,

Ken