Help I need a guru!!! My PC hates me....

calliopeia

I've been doing a bit of downloading recently, and I kept having problems with zone alarm crashing and freezing! SO in my "wisdom" I decided to buy the full copy of zone alarm, alls going well for a while then it freezes, has so many intrusions (2000 in 1min). It doesn't start up with my pc anymore, my computer is getting slower by the minute too. Once again in my "wisdom" I've had a few problems with my computer, I'll get a Register fixer(buy). Thats just caused problems for inCD. I need someones help who's smart, really smart. Please help, My head is going to explode at this rate. I cant take it anymore.......

Ruu_Old

Have you got an anti-virus program? If so, start with running a virus scan. If not, download AVG anti-virus (free edition 7.5).

Ghost Train

have you run any antivirus software,
you could try http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ for an online virus scan, spybot might also be worth running

after running anti virus if you run hijackthis, and post the log, this can be checked for problems

Cuddlesworth

Without saying what you are downloading!, what programs are you using?

It could be a memory leak.

Keano

Avast is excellent too.
If all fails and you have nothing important on it just wipe it. Save you pulling out your hair

Khannie

Keano A Legend wrote:

If all fails and you have nothing important on it just wipe it. Save you pulling out your hair

I generally feel this way too. A wipe of your hard drive (after backing up important stuff of course) and reinstall of windows is (IMO anyway) nearly always worth the effort. I used to call it giving my pc a "bath" and did it every 6 months to a year. It always flies along afterwards. At least for a few weeks.

In latter days of using windows, I used to just install less crap (you learn as you go I suppose), so stretching the time between wipes, but still found them inevitable and gratifying.

Cuddlesworth

I always keep a hard-drive to the side with a fresh windows install and the games and drivers I need. Helps when you want to find fault with hard-ware or your drive dies or gets infected.

calliopeia

I have anti-virus software and it hasn't come up with anything. I was reading another post and they where suggesting to someone to do Check disk. So I started doing that last night and it got to step 4 and It did 42% in 12hours!!!!
So I stopped that when I got home did a Disk Defrag then tried check disk again, It went a lot faster till step 5 where it did only 1% in a hour 1/2. I don't really want to start from scratch and reinstall everything. And It was bittorrent I was downloading with!!!

This is what defrag comes up with.......
Volume (C:)
Volume size = 128 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 71.83 GB
Free space = 56.16 GB
Percent free space = 43 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 30 %
File fragmentation = 57 %
Free space fragmentation = 4 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 75,729
Average file size = 1 MB
Total fragmented files = 75
Total excess fragments = 665,657
Average fragments per file = 9.78

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 1.50 GB
Total fragments = 4

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 5,040
Fragmented folders = 1
Excess folder fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 116 MB
MFT record count = 90,889
Percent MFT in use = 76 %
Total MFT fragments = 3

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OH and did I mention, windows will not let me back up my disc

Keano

calliopeia wrote:

I have anti-virus software and it hasn't come up with anything.

Try downloading Avast on another pc and get it installed on your pc. It will ask to do a scan when the computer restarts. Let it do this and let me know how you get on.

zilog_jones

Is there a lot of hard disk activity when you're not doing anything, i.e. is the hard disk light on the PC flashing a lot? Did you stop your bittorrent client and whatever else when you were running the defragmenter and chkdsk?

Also, go to Task Manager (ctrl+alt+delete), go to the processes tab, and and click on the CPU button so it sorts the processes so the highest are at the top. If you're doing nothing with the PC and the "System Idle Process" isn't at the top (around 95-99%), please list whatever else there is using the CPU.

calliopeia

OK. I have done 4/5 disk defrag on my system, and It seems to be getting faster. I'm going to wait to do a disc check untill I do a I do a few more. System Idle process is at the top at a consistent 98/99%.

I will try Avast and see how that goes, will post more later. Thanks

zilog_jones

Look in Event Viewer (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools, or Run -> compmgmt.msc), and see if there are any significant warnings or errors, especially in the Application and System sections.

If there's not an awful lot of space on the disk, the defragmenter won't be able to do a very good job.

Fanny Cradock

To me your problems could be explained by a nasty virus. Avast is excellent - I use it myself - but for a case like this I would download NOD32. This is very arguably the best AV software on the market and you can get a 30 day trial that will suffice for your purposes.

You should also download:

Spybot (already suggested by someone else);
Windows Defender;
AVG antispyware.

You may also want to download the trial version of Diskeeper.

joshcork

In my experience its just best to start again, reset everything and load hard copy's of stuff. I do it regularly simply for a performance boost windows just gets confused over time with so much running it the background, which is why I try and operate with backup in mind.
I know its a bummer but anti-virus and firewalls can only do so much and at the end of the day their just the front end protection. Really once something gets in it can be really hard to get rid of no matter how much cleaning you do. Save as many bytes and you can and start again.
(making sure you scan all your data with AVG or such stuff as the first order of business on the cleaned machine)
Good luck

Fanny Cradock

True, but you could be transferring the problem with you.

calliopeia

OK. I just did a full scan of my computer with nod32. Then in the middle of doing the scan, my screen saver went nuts, just kept flashing up I couldn't do anything, I had to be really fast to get to the control panel to turn it off. Whats going on?

5uspect

You didn't install some dodgy screensaver by any chance did you?

calliopeia

5uspect wrote:

You didn't install some dodgy screensaver by any chance did you?

No Nothing like that, just doing a scan? I put the screen saver back on after the scan, and the same thing happened??? I just dont know whats going on with my PC!!!!

aidan_walsh

Backup, reformat, reinstall, be more careful with your "bit of downloading" in future.

joshcork

Game over