I is Confuzzed... Dell Insprion 1501 issues

Discussion in 'Malware Help - MG (A Specialist Will Reply)' started by rohanbruce, May 4, 2009.

  1. rohanbruce

    rohanbruce Private E-2

    Hi all.

    I'm probably a bit of a novice compared to the majority of you, but I have a problem with my Dell Inspiron 1501 which I just can't seem to sort out. Might be simple, but I can't see it... I'm hoping someone here might have the time (and inclination!) to have a pop at it?

    Firstly - time lag when typing. A lot of the time I'll type and then have to wait a while for the text on the screen to catch up. Now I know for a fact that unticking the hotkey poller under msconfig helps, but that doesn't seem to sort other problems with slow running of programmes (slow load times etc) especially when running multiple programmes: specifically Internet explorer hesitates quite a lot when using it, boot time is slow from startup, and starting other programmes (most notably Word so far) is very slow too.
    Secondly - something that has just started recently is that it's taking ages to recognise my mmory stick when I plug it in, and if I wait for the eject/safely remove hardware function I could grow a goatee before it happened!!! :)


    I've just completed the entire maintenance cycle as recommended by Chas Lang - reset MSconfig to normal, run CCleaner (and Advanced SystemCare V3 basic) complete with their disk cleaner and defrag, am running their Smart Ram technology too) downloaded all the spyware removal tools, run them in sequence etc and am still having similar issues.

    Now this problem has been ongoing for some time - I got this machine when Vista was first coming out and got a free copy of it to upgrade the laptop from Dell. Well, I tryed that, but it sent the machine so loopy that I reinstalled XP. Since then, I've had these slow running and sometimes freezing issues, IE7 wasn't working properly (I just installed IE 8, still crashes periodically, in fact more frequently) and at one stage reinstalled XP AGAIN to try and sort the problem.


    Now the one thing that I have noticed is a discrepancy between system readouts given by the PC itself, by Advanced SystemCare, and a visual inspection of physical space available on my C drive:

    a) This is what Windows System Information says I have

    OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
    Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
    OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
    System Name PERSONAL
    System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
    System Model Inspiron 1501
    System Type X86-based PC
    Processor x86 Family 15 Model 72 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1595 Mhz
    BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 2.6.3, 07/12/2007
    SMBIOS Version 2.4
    Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
    System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
    Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
    Locale United Kingdom
    Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
    User Name ******
    Time Zone GMT Daylight Time
    Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
    Available Physical Memory 432.84 MB
    Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
    Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
    Page File Space 2.11 GB
    Page File C:\pagefile.sys

    b) this is what system information from Advanced SystemCare says I have:

    OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Home edition
    OS Version: 5.1.2600
    Service Pack 3
    Internet Explorer Version 8.0.6001.18702
    Microsoft DirectX Version: 9.0c (4.09.00.0904)
    OpenGL Version 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-0845)
    Free Physical Memory 445 MB
    Free Page File 1202MB
    Free Virtual Memory 1996MB
    Registry Max size 54MB
    Registry Current size 6MB

    c) an eyeball of my C drive says this:

    Capacity: 76,676,026,368 bytes / 71.4 GB
    Used space: 15,133,999,104 / 14 GB
    Free Space: 61,542,027,264 / 57.3 GB


    Not sure what THAT is all about - can it be that the system readouts are picking up the older versions of OS which I reinstalled XP over? That space discrepancy is unbelievable

    I would really appreciate whatever help you guys can give me - I've attached the logs as requested in Chas Lang’s thread – many thanks for reading (and helping, if you can!)


    Kind regards

    Rohan A Bruce
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: May 4, 2009
    rohanbruce, May 4, 2009
    #1
  2. rohanbruce

    rohanbruce Private E-2

    Oh, and just to top things off, the longer I'm online, the more inclined the system sems to be to freeze up - I'm getting "not responding" issues as well as "xyz has encountered a problem and needs to close" messages. Methinks this may be the last Dell I buy! :) lol
     
    rohanbruce, May 4, 2009
    #2
  3. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    Welcome to Major Geeks!

    Not a malware problem. It is just your Dell PC and the below ATI service.

    O23 - Service: Ati HotKey Poller - ATI Technologies Inc. - C:\WINDOWS\system32\Ati2evxx.exe

    Click Start, Run, and enter sevices.msc and click OK. Then locate the ATI HotKey Poller service. Stop it and then disable it. Then see how things work. If no immediate chane is seen, reboot and check again.

    Not malware. Your logs are clean. Disable the service as stated above and leave it disabled and then uninstall McAfee and see how things are working.

    Again this is not malware and also could be due to McAfee.


    We only deal with malware problems in this forum so you will have to ask these kinds of questions in the Software Forum but you are not comparing apples to apples. Memory space is not the same thing as drive space.
     
    chaslang, May 8, 2009
    #3
  4. rohanbruce

    rohanbruce Private E-2

    Chas - many thanks for the reply and advice. I've been using McAffee since I bought the machine as new, without the issues I have now but have had to uninstall and reinstall it a couple of times, so you could be right....will uninstall and see how I go, and maybe post in the softwar forum afterwards if things are still screwy ;-) Thanks again.
     
    rohanbruce, May 8, 2009
    #4
  5. chaslang

    chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

    You're welcome.

    Yes but their software changes with each update and it is constantly increasing the strain it places on your PCs memory. Just because something worked fine in the past, it does not mean it will continue to be that way. We get several dozen people here per week that think they have malware when it is not malware. It is frequently just their PC specs. They also say, "It used to work fine". But that was before all the new Windows SP2 and SP3 updates and all the security updates to protection software. These updates have significantly increased the need for faster PCs with much more memory.


    Since you are not having any malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:
    1. We recommend you keep SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware. Unless you purchase them, they provide no protection. They do not use any significant amount of resources ( except a little disk space ) until you run a scan.
    2. If we had you use ComboFix, uninstall ComboFix (This uninstall will only work as written if you installed ComboFix on your Desktop like we requested.)
      • Click START then RUN and enter the below into the run box and then click OK. Note the quotes are required
      • "%userprofile%\Desktop\combofix" /u
        • Notes: The space between the combofix" and the /u, it must be there.
        • This will uninstall ComboFix and also reset hidden files and folders settings back to Windows defaults.
      • Delete the C:\combofix folder from combofix (if it exists)
    3. Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.
    4. If running Vista, it is time to make sure you have reenabled UAC by double clicking on the C:\MGtools\enableUAC.reg file and allowing it to be added to the registry.
    5. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis.
    6. You can delete the C:\MGtools folder and the C:\MGtools.exe file. You can also delete the C:\MGlogs.zip
    8. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
     
    chaslang, May 11, 2009
    #5

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