PC running at snail pace - help!!!

Selik

Ok this have never happened before but I'll try and explain it as best as possible.

Everytime I try to do or open almost anything on my pc it goes unbelievably slow. So slow at times that I just get too frustrated and reset. Sometimes if I leave it long enough something happens in relation to a click or action I did 20mins before, it's ridiculous. It just started today for no apparent reason. It especially seems to affect windows explorer if I try to navigate it or move stuff around on my hard drives. My pc is usually pretty fast. The processor is over 2ghz and my ram is 768mb. I'm running a Norton AV (fully updated) along with windows defender and Spybot S&S. Everything seems clean from a virus/trojan/worm/spyware point of view unless none of those programs are picking it up. I've got two hard drives, my old and original one which is 80gb and a new seagate internal 250gb drive that I bought and installed a week ago. There seems to be a constant humming noise coming from my pc even when I'm not doing anything, like now. As if "something" is busy but I've no idea what! I've a fast bb connection and that seems to be fine, as it surfing and downloading. I've tried opening task manager (to see what's running) using ctrl+alt+del but that doesn't work for some strange reason (dunno if that's relevant to what's wrong though).

Anyone know what may be going on here and how to fix it? I'm at a complete loss, the only thing I seem to be able to do it now is surf the net! It's getting to the stage where I feel like just smashing the whole stupid thing up.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me with this really really annoying problem!

Ruu_Old

How odd, did you try checking msconfig.exe startup items and see if theres something sneaking in there on startup, just an idea.

Selik

Trying it now but of course even that's taking ages to load... this is really starting to worry me.

Selik

Msconfig doesn't appear to be working now. I've clicked on it a couple of times and nothing's happening, not even a little timer jar thing. I did remove a few non-essential start up programs a while ago when the problem started to see if it fixed anything but it didn't. Humming noise is ever-present, surely there must be something dodgy running on my hard drive that's taking up all my memory but I can't even see it! Is there any way to get into task manager without using ctrl+alt+del?

Ruu_Old

You can right click on the task bar and then click task manager. Somethings eating up your memory, what i dont know

Selik

I just tried that and it's not working... nothing is happening at all when I rightclick on taskbar! I got in msconfig though and there's nothing running which looks suspicious, I can't see how much memory is being used per app in msconfig though so I really need to see task manager.... I'm at a total loss here...

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

More than likely a hardware problem mate, when you start up what temprature is your processor running at? It may be due to the fact that you have a bad/broken processor fan.

I had this problem running a p4 3.ghz chip, gig of ram and an excellent PSU I changed my fan and everything has been good since.

pontovic

My friend recently got a laptop that had Norton Antivirus on it. He complained that it was running very slow, so I had a look at it and confirmed his fears. Even doing simple tasks like opening up My Computer on the desktop took far longer than it should have. I uninstalled Norton and restarted and everything seemed much faster. I put AVG antivirus on it for him and he has been happy since.

I have a computer here in work which is far slower than it really should be. I tried ctrl-alt-delete and saw that a process called mcshield.exe was eating up loads of my CPU space, and the fan was making that humming sound like you describe. I think that mcshield.exe process is part of McAfee Antivirus and I cant uninstall it as it's a work computer.

Tell us, did you build your computer yourself or did you buy it from Dell or another crowd ?

TommyGun

If you can not open MSCONFIG or task master it does sound like a virus.

Check out the link below

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/ToolsQuit.htm

hantakage

I know your PC is running slowly but you could try downloading Hijackthis from the URL below and post up the log. It will give details of System load points and various other info that could help people on the forum figure out what is running on your pc.

http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

If Task Manager is not opening at all, it is possible that another Process on the computer is deliberately monitoring and killing it. If it is, its also likely that you won't be able to open regedit either.

To try and see what process is using up all your CPU cycles you could download ProcessExplorer from www.SysInternals.com - its basically a vastly superior Task Manager, and it will allow you to kill whaever process is clogging up your PC.

Canis Lupus

I got a pesky virus from the net a coupla months back that ran my CPU usage up to 100% It shut my firewall down and I couldn't restart, If I went online to update my A/V and anti spyware it swallowed my bandwidth. Basically my pc was pwned. I had to do a full reinstall as nothing I had installed on the pc already was detecting the virus. Easily the worst thing my pc has ever caught.

Zoned

Here my posting to the security forum...complete with wrong spelling...

I spent ages workin on mates PC getting rid of spyware using Spybot, Adaware ...etc.. and it just kept coming back....

I eventually found a rootkit by scanning the drive from another PC...

Checl out http://www.antirootkit.com....

you'll be amazed at what the F$%^$%rs can do with OUR pc's..

good luck,

zoned

Alkers

If you have a 250 drive, can you backup everything you need onto that, then reinstall windows onto the 80gig one. Should be laughing then.

Selik

Ok I'm back. First of all thanks for all the replies!

My pc seems a little better (although I haven't turned it off). I ran a Norton virus scan over 12hrs ago and it was still running when I got back to my pc about 10mins ago. Not good. Task manager still won't open and neither will regedit. When I try to open regedit I'm getting a msg saying that another program is ising this file. Also lastnight I download an ram optimiser/defrag thing and it's telling me that I've got 510mb of ram free right now so it's not something hogging all my ram. It must be a virus right?

MunsterCycling

Giles wrote:

Ok I'm back. First of all thanks for all the replies!

My pc seems a little better (although I haven't turned it off). I ran a Norton virus scan over 12hrs ago and it was still running when I got back to my pc about 10mins ago. Not good. Task manager still won't open and neither will regedit. When I try to open regedit I'm getting a msg saying that another program is ising this file. Also lastnight I download an ram optimiser/defrag thing and it's telling me that I've got 510mb of ram free right now so it's not something hogging all my ram. It must be a virus right?

"mcshield.exe" is the McAfee On-Access Antivirus Scanner from Network Associates, Inc.

Check to see what time you have Windows Defender doing its system scan, could be a clash between itself and McAfeeeeeee.....

Turn one or the other off and see how you get on. Just keep an eye on the task manager, sort it by sys use %

Mr. Presentable

Have you tried it in safe mode?

If it's OK there then it's unlikely to be hardware.

Also do a full system scan with spybot and adaware and antivirus in safe mode.

If all else fails try www.pcpitstop.com and it'll scan all aspects of your system and advise where a problem may occur.

Selik

Task manager won't work!!!! Neither will regedit(it says another program is using this file when I try and run it) although msconfig is ok.

No scan running for windows defender either. The speed seems to have improved a little bit but I still can' access task manager which means there's a problem somewhere.... I really don't want to do an XP re-install as I've never done one before but I will if I have to!

Selik

I'm trying the PC pitstop thing now as it looks useful and it's free which is pretty cool... HOw do I start the pc in safe mode does anyone know?

Selik

Here's the results from pc pitstop... Dunno how comprehensive it is but according to it my pc's fine, which it isn't!!!!

Test Results Summary
Computer Name: D7QDQH0J
Date Tested: Fri Apr 7 19:01:16 UTC+0100 2006

This system performs well on our benchmarks, and should have plenty of power for most applications. You may be able to add a few system upgrades or tweak some Windows settings to improve performance. Regular system maintenance is also important to keep your system running in top condition.

This is your customized advice based on PC Pitstop's tests. Click on an item at left to find out what it means and what to do. Customized Tune-up Tips
• Remove spyware and adware
• Adjust IE browser cache size
• Check disabled devices

Configuration Summary: Our analysis was based on the data collected from this computer. A summary of the data collected is shown below. Click on any of the subsystem names or flags in the table below to see more information, or use the test details to see all the data on one page. For a list of programs running on your computer, including spyware, see the Windows details page. The test history page has a summary of previous tests for this configuration. See how your system compares to others we've tested.

Subsystem Status Description
System Intel Pentium 4, 2530 MHz
Memory 768MB RAM
Disk Drives C, E
Video NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420
Internet MSIE 6.0; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322
Windows Windows XP Home SP2
Security
Compare

Alkers

If you can back-up, then a reinstall would seem to be the easyest option. It's a doddle.

Selik

I think I might have to. What's the best way of doing this? I have the XP installation cd I got with my pc but there's no keycode with if for some reason... It's a dell pc btw. Oh and as long as all my stuff is on my second hard drive and I install XP on my first one that data is safe right? Also what about my BB connection (it's ntl), will I just be able to connect as normal once XP is installed again? Sorry for all the questions but the last time I did a re-intall was on a dinosaur pc years ago that had win98 running on it!

Alkers

If you're worried remove the backup HDD when you've got all the stuff on it.
The CD key for a Dell will be on the case itself, on a while Microsoft sticker as it is an OEM liscence. Then all you need to do is turn off the pc, pop in the cd and follow the onscreen instructions. If I was you I'd allow it to do a full format just to be sure.
Hope it goes well.

MunsterCycling

Hold down F8 during start up and select safe mode from list!

Selik

Ok I'm gonna start it now... wish me luck! It's probably a good idea anyway as the pc is 4yrs+ old and it's never been done before.... A nice fresh start methinks...

Selik

Update:

Reformat went fine and everything's running hunky dory now! I don't think I'm gonna get XP service pk2 again as everytime I get it something seems to go wrong afterwards.... :rolleyes:

Might make it a habit to re-install and reformat once a year or so it's a good way of giving the old pc a fresh start so-to-speak, especially with all the crap that get's into them from a BB connection.... Always a price to pay!

Thanks for all replies and advice folks, muchos appreciatos.

Banphrionsa

"January 5th Worm" or perhaps a RAT?

The once-a-year house cleaning is done by many of my friends (reformat, reinstall, etc.).

PC MAGAZINE recommends running several anti-adware/spyware programmes. I have found several (not all mentioned here) that do not conflict with each other. Found that Adaware SE, MS Beta 1, and Spybot do not catch them all. Nor do your popular AV programmes (Norton or McAfee). Added GhostSurf to the mix and it found 12 nasty critters that the others did not. Two keyloggers, one backdoor, and nine adware/spywares.

gamer

hold down f8, reboot pc, safe mode menu appears after 15seconds ,or less ,chooose option,from menu.

ViDuchie

Sounds like you had some sort of virus/spyware. There are a few out there that will disable access to msconfig.exe, Task-Manager, Ctrl-alt-delete function. Aswell as this there are others that will disable your antivirus and prevent updates. Usually very sneaky. In the past the only way I've managed to disable and delete them is in safe mode. No Virus scanners or Spyware removal software would work either so it was a manual affair using msconfig.exe in safemode, disabling all suspect startup processes and restarting the pc. It can take a while but is quicker and less destructive than a reformat.

The virus can also prevent the installation of new Virus scanners and can stop you running stinger. E.G AVG Antivirus will just report an error during install and not load.

V

Banphrionsa

ViDuchie wrote:

Sounds like you had some sort of virus/spyware. There are a few out there that will disable access to msconfig.exe

The virus can also prevent the installation of new Virus scanners and can stop you running stinger. E.G AVG Antivirus will just report an error during install and not load.
V

You are right about this. Had a virus once that kept me from installing build 1.6 Ad-Aware (although Ad-Aware is for adware/spyware).

astrofool

best thing is probably download the full xpsp2 to the other partition, and install it as soon as you've installed Windows. The problems that usually occur are when spyware has already installed itself on the system, and SP2's features which stop spyware (to a small degree) end up messing up the install.

Kuz_3040

I Had a similar problem when i first downloaded service pack 2 what you might want to do is install every update before service pack 2 you will go onto the update site and it will say there only service pack 2 left to download update wise and also iv started to use a software called tune-up utilities 2006 and it works very well and really optimises everything

Selik

I'm just going to stay away from SP2 after the problems with it I had before. My pc's running just fine these days and I'd like to keep it that way!

Cuddlesworth

Giles wrote:

I'm trying the PC pitstop thing now as it looks useful and it's free which is pretty cool... HOw do I start the pc in safe mode does anyone know?

If I remember correctly its F8 on startup.