Is a Celeron 600 just too slow a chip to operate efficiently in
today's Internet environment?
That depends largely on what you are doing with the system. Generally
speaking though, no.
I mean, if I see my chip occasionally maxing out at 100% usage trying
to download a page from the Internet from time to time, or that I have
enough RAM but the chip is again at 100% trying to run IE 6 and
Outlook Express 6 at the same time with other (small) maintenance and
security progs running in the system tray, is it the chip's fault?
I would tend to say no, neither Outlook Express 6 or IE 6 should cause
the chip to run 100% full-out for any length of time under normal
operating conditions (though why anyone in their right mind would use
either OE or IE is totally beyond me! Doing so is just *ASKING* for
some malicious user to take over your system).
My first suggestion would be to download and run Ad-Aware if you
haven't already done so. Chances are that Outlook Express and IE have
allowed some spyware/adware to sneak it's way onto your PC, and it
could well be that one of those programs is what is causing your
system to run slow.
Next step is to figure out just what it is that is causing the system
to run slowly. Try keeping Task Manager open and keeping an eye on
what process it is that is consuming so much CPU time. Every once in
a while you will encounter a particular web page that will cause IE to
really chug along. 99 times out of 100 this is caused by a Flash ad
rather than anything useful (big hint here: download Mozilla Firefox
browser and the "Flash Click to Play" extension! Makes web browsing
SO much nicer!). If it's Outlook that is causing the slowness then
something is really wrong, you've probably either got a worm
mass-mailing crap through OE or simply a corrupt install. Either way
it's not normal behavior.