A little computer help please.

Frank Z

Okay all you way-cool computer guys...
My home pc as slowed down considerably in the last couple of days. Web pages are taking a long time to load. Here's what I've done so far.

Run AD-Aware (we do it regularly)
Installed and ran McAfee virus scan, found a few viruses (email crap)
Deleted all cookies.
Ran Windows update (automatic)
Ran Cleanup and defraged.


What else can we do?
The other pc's in the house don't seem to be affected.

faster100

although you covered most of your bases, sounds like a program or virus bogging down the system. I had a virus recently and it ran some program and bogged the system down, and everytime i shut windows down, it would always name a program and did i want to end it now.. turned out that was the virus.. so id check for virus's and also maybe do a online virus scan so its being scanned from another source besides your own system,. Also ad programs do the same thing.. cuased by like weather bug programs and such.. Good luck.. will try and think of anything else that could cause this... in alot of cases its not a cut and dry problem.. you have to try a million things.. check and see what's running in the back ground, check add/remove programs and make sure nothing looks unknown program wise.. check msconfig in the startup folder and see whats starting with windows... try that stuff as well

steveinaz

Another thing you can try, run Task manager and look at the running processes. Look for anything suspicious and search for the file name. Look at the properties of the file, if it looks bogus, try "ending" the process and see if it adversley affects your system. If your confident its bogus, delete the file, then check the registry for its entries and delete those as well.

Proceed with caution if you're not computer savy!!!!

I had a powerful piece of spyware on my system that Adaware and Spybot S&D could not rid. Some Spyware actually changes the configuration of Adaware, and sets itself as an "ignore" item in adaware. Slick. I used the above procedure to finally "kill" it.

TechChallenged

Verify your connection speed.

Also Spybot and adware are great but limited tools. If your computer has been hijacked as I suspect it has, try this.

Run Spybot and Adware.
Do a powerdown restart 3x's
Run Spybot and Adware again.

If anything returns there is a backup componant to the Spyware that is set to reinstall. It can be removed but requires some fishing. Let me know.

Shizelbs

Whenever I get viruses that slow down the computer, 'getting rid of them' really never seems to bring the computer back to square one. I always end up reformatting my hard drive. Its the only thing that keeps the PC running in tip top shape. If thats what you want to do, get someone familiar with the process to help you and make sure you back everything up.

amulford

I have been invaded to the point I'm ready to shoot this f#cking thing. How do I wipe out my hard drive and start all over????

No kidding, if I can't get this **** fixed, it's gonna sleep with the fishes. Literally, I'm gonna throw it off a freakin bridge!!!!

HELP, PLEASE!!!!!

Bonham

Aye, sooo many people just let crap build up in their computer over the years. It's really a good idea to back up the stuff you want to keep and just start fresh over once a year (and reload the stuff you wanted to keep).

scottnbnj

times like this it's nice to have a spare hard drive laying around. i just saw a 40 gig drive ridiculously cheap with rebates and whatnot. ads are trashed, but, it might have been circuit city or office depot or max.

if it's just the net, for netscape i clear the history, memory and disk caches every couple of days, for sure at the first sign of trouble.

i have an old freeware that removes and resets various files including acroread temp files which mess things up on my machine and stay for a long time unless removed. it's called "clean up" from [gulp] the "the strangely green chicken co.".

after you get things straightened out, if you don't have a software firewall, zone alarm freeware is a good one. it should tell you when someone is looking for a way in or phone home.

)

edit: oh yeah, good idea to check to see how much free space you have on your drives. good to have at the very least a few hundred meg.

Sami

Turn off system restore and run virus scan OFFLINE. Also, check out www.pcpitstop.com

You can run their virus scan and ad scan. Also run their full test, it will tell you any items that are wrong on your system. Check out the system info, it will explain all the processes that are running and whether they are needed or not. Even if your computer isn't infected, disabling unnecessary processes will make your computer faster.

Running msconfig (Start->Run) will take you to process config, you can disable unneccessary processes from there.

goingganzo

format c: from comand promt

Frank Z

Thanks for the tips guys. Tried PCpitstop, nothing out of the ordinary reported. Spybot found some crap that I promptly deleted. None of which made a difference. May just have to meet a fellow member at the PC Bridge of DOOM and ditch this damn thing!

Sami

Did you run the complete test? Did you check the programs running clicking the Windows part of the test? Quite a few programs were running that I disabled, that made a huge difference.

Instead of ditching the PC, load it with Linux and let it run as a firewall server. Web server, file server. It can still serve a purpose.

Have you tested the memory? That could be one explanation. http://www.memtest86.com/

Shizelbs

Before you scrap the thing at least try reformating it.

BlueMDPicker

Originally posted by Frank Z
Ran Windows update (automatic)

Hi Frank,

You didn't mention (or, I missed it browsing the thread) your OS on this machine. If you're running XP, and recently installed Service Pack 2, it can (on some machines and in combination with other apps) seriously degrade performance.

If you fit the scenario above, try uninstalling (Control Panel--Add/Remove Programs--Windows XP SP2---Remove) before you throw the darn thing off a bridge.

Mike

Frank Z

Yep, I'm using Windows Sex Pee. SP 2 was installed a while ago, the problems I'm having are a recent development.

Tried using the Restore option last night and got nowhere. Damn thing wouldn't restore to a previously system checkpoint. Tried multiple dates and got the same message each time, AARRRGGGHHHH!!

BlueMDPicker

I believe it's still worth a shot doing the uninstall of SP2. It was released August 9, so it hasn't been in the mix too long on your system. It's very invasive and CPU intensive with the right mix of hardware/software.

What, if anything, have you installed since SP 2 was applied to this machine?

Frank Z

Originally posted by BlueMDPicker
What, if anything, have you installed since SP 2 was applied to this machine?

The only thing I've added/installed are Windows updates.

Gonna keep working on it for a while, as time permits, and see what I can accomplish.

Frank Z

Well I dangled the POS off the side of a bridge, spoke rudely to it and finally reloaded the majority of my software. Back at full speed, hopefully it will stay that way for awhile.

What a pain in the keester!:(