System Slows To Almost Halt Sometimes

[setanta]

Hi there, I have mint 13 Cinnamon installed on one of my machines, I really like it but since I updated from Mint 11 I have the following problem on occasions.
All of a sudden the responsiveness of the system slows very considerably, for instance if you click on the menu it takes ages to scrool through to find the log out option. Logging out and back in usually solves the issue so when you start up again all is well, the machine is responsive. I have an Nvidia card and the have the driver recommended by mint installed, can't think of any other issue. Swap and Ram functioning normal.

I think it is an issue specific to Linux as the macine is dual boot and there are no problems on Win 7. My preference is for Linux so I would prefer to solve the issue.

The machine is new, quad core desktop with 8GB Ram.

Many thanks

[nunol]

When that happens open the terminal and use "top" to find out what process is using the CPU/RAM.

[setanta]

Ok I then what to I do...many thanks

[zerozero]

setanta, please don't double-post the same issue in different parts of the forum, see the forum rules section [7]
i'm deleting the other topic; if you have relevant information to add please do it here.

[nunol]

When you find the program that is slowing down the computer we try to fix it. How? it depends on the program that is misbehaving.

So, when you use top or the system monitor what program uses more CPU/RAM?

[setanta]

many thanks