Having problems either software or hardware - don't know

Hi,
my problem is this, every 3-6 months my pc gets really really slow. I scan for viruses, malware and trojans. Programs that I use are:
Avira anitvirus, zonealarm, advanced system care, iobit malware fighter, malmarebytes, smart defrag, gmer.. Non of these finds anything. Temp in pc is normal, so there's no over heating.
I'm here because I have a another thread where I ask about Mainboard, Cpu and RAM (thinking of upgrading) and this one guy thinks it's malware and not Hardware the problem what I have. The ONLY thing that helps is a complete install of my OS, which is XP 32-bit!
In the last year I've had to install XP 3 times now and it's pissing me off.
I read the thread about malware issues and I did everything on that page..

How or why it happens can't tell, it just happens one day to the next... PC running normally and the next day it's really slow.. Every day is more or less the same. My routine doesn't change that much when it comes to the pc.. watch stuff, listen to stuff, read and write stuff on the internet, play games, downloading...

From switching it on till everything has loaded (and I've already made sure only the programs that are needed load straight away, others either delayed or not at all) it takes around 10min.
Other problems i've noticed is file extraction, which takes 15min to extract and then another 15min to move the file where I want it.
Burning is a issue, a normal DVD (4.7GB disk) which normally takes around 6 min now takes up to 1 Hour.
Loading programs isn't fast either.

It isn't MALWARE already went through the READ & RUN ME thread after that I opened another thread since nothing had helped. Here is the link for that thread http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=287263
So one could see what I've done so far with sadly no results.
The person that helped me says it is not malware. So this is why I'm here now on his advice opening a new thread.

This is one quote from me about issues but still please read through the other thread.

Maybe this can already answer a few questions, if they are any more please ask, and I'll do my best to answer them.

As written no matter what I do nothing is ever found so this is why I don't know if it's software or hardware..

 

It sounds like you're pretty frustrated. I think that anyone in your position would be. There a few things left to try but given the extent and nature of the assistance that you've already received in the MG forums, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for you.

First off, your system disk is ~95% full. That alone is putting a big hit on performance. You should look into purchasing an external HDD if you have the hardware to accommodate another drive. You can purchase a 1 TB drive for as low as $50. From following your threads I know that you are probably already thinking, "but my performance went to hell all of a sudden, before which time my system worked fine with a system disk 95% full, so it can't be that." That's logical, yes, but it's also a fact that system disk crowding leads to profound system slow downs.... sooner or later, and not necessarily gradually.

I'm no fan of IObits products. They hog resources and they take up a lot of disk space and they don't do anything that other smaller lighter apps can't do. Just get rid of them for the duration of this current attempt at solving your problems. You don't need the malware fighter or the smart defrag (which alone can really bog down a system). And put a leash on that SuperDuperAdvancedSystemCare 360 Turbo Edition atrocity of an app. I'm not going to be able (or willing) to help you for as long as you treat those apps like IObits Crystal Meth.

It looks like you're running more than one real-time antivirus/antimalware program at the same time. You can get away with this depending on what apps you try to throw together. Some combinations work beautifully together, while others will bring your system to it's knees. Until things get a bit more sorted, I would advise you to run the Zone Alarm and get rid of the rest except for MBAB with which you can run on demand scans. Or, better yet, turn Zone Alarm off as well and install one of the two antivirus apps that are used by perhaps a majority of people associated with MG forum, and that's either Avast or Avira (I rarely see a complaint about these apps,despite their wide spread usage).

OK, I'll get off my soapbox and let's do something immediately. You're going to need to examine how your system behaves in various states of "Safe Mode". Safe Mode is simply a configuration of Windows that is using a minimum of drivers, services, apps, for purposes of sorting out computer problems.

1. Click on the Start Button and type the following into the SEARCH box: msconfig
2. Hit <ENTER>
3. In the System Configuration window that pops up, choose the BOOT tab.
4. Under "boot options" check the Safe Mode check box
5. Tick the Minimal radio button
6. Click <OK>

Now reboot the machine.

You'll boot into a stripped down version of Windows that has only the bare minimum of drivers loaded, along with nothing from your autostart list of apps. I'll warn you, it's a little ugly because it will display at a lower resolution. In any case, now do some of the things that you normally do on the computer when it starts bogging down.

If you find that your system is much more responsive, then we know that one major culprit has to do with the drivers and apps that are loading later in the boot cycle. That we can do something with. However, if you find that the performance is still slow under these severe OS settings, then you're very likely looking at a reinstall of the OS as the only feasible means of speeding up your poor choked up system.

When you're done playing around in Safe Mode, click on the Start Button > Search > type in "msconfig" > Under General tab, tick the Normal Startup radio button > Click OK and reboot. You will then boot back into the full version of Windows.

Let me know what happens (in this thread).

 

I didn't word this paragraph very well, it's confusing so let me try again.

If you find that your system is much more responsive under Safe Mode, then we can deduce that at least one major culprit in your computer's slow down had to do with drivers and apps that load later in your boot cycle. That we can do something with. However, if you find that the performance is still sluggish under these more forgiving OS configurations, then you're very likely looking at a reinstall of the OS as the only feasible means of speeding up your poor choked up system.

 

Rusty, in case you hadn't seen this, it seems Zonealarm is now running a realtime AV with the firewall. See the ZA download descriptions on this site.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortname/firewalls.html

Zonealarm AV and AVIRA AV might be in direct conflict with each other, at least
resource wise.

 

@StruldBrug, thank you for the info. It brings up a good point that I didn't mention. If WhiteQueen gives up ZoneAlarm, even for a short time, he'll need to find a firewall to use in the meantime. However, I don't think he's is going to choose that option, and that's fine. I just want him to stick with one AV and one firewall for the duration of our collaboration.

 

He/she should do that period because of the aforementioned conflict possibilities which are alluded to several times throughout the forums.

 

I deinstalled all the IObit programs as you asked and then booted in Safe mode... I didn't do that much in safe mode because of the resolution it gave me a migrane. I did however open Firefox and a file via OpenOffice but they were slow to open and everything lagged!

Well, since burning takes so looooooonnnnnnnng its quite hard to get stuff off but I'm trying. I also have to wait awile between disks since the burning takes so long it gets hot.

Well I trust Iobit products.. I've used them for 5 years and my pc has never been infected, I've had malware once but that was found and sorted by those products

I'm only running one antivirus program and that is Avira.. ZA is now (since 2 years) a 2-part Program Firewall and Antivirus but I install avira first then ZA and that detects Avira so it doesn't install that part (Antivirus) from ZA. So only 1 AV and 1 Firewall. And yes I would like one of each installed...
Malware programs yes, I normally do run 2 at a time, IOBit malware fighter and Malwarebytes.

I think a reinstall is coming... I'll wait 1 1/2 half months (my bday is then) and hopefully I'll have win 7 and also new hardware...
I do have a 1TB harddisk but I can't use it. No plugs left, neither my Power suply unit or motherboard has somewhere to plug it in... MY PSU only has 4 sata plugs and they are all in use... Have another thread open about suggestions about Mainboard, CPU and RAM.


:-D HAHAHA, I've never been called a "he" before :-D

 

That's a very good indicator that the problem lies not in the OS but rather in the amount of info you have installed on your system disk.

I certainly don't envy you. I know how frustrating that can be. Just take care to let the optical drive cool for a good long time between burns so it doesn't end up fried.

I should probably cut IObits some slack. I used some of their products a couple of years ago and they not only bundled their products with adware but made it difficult for the user to uninstall their products without trying to sneak another one in the back door during the uninstall process... and that just pissed me off. It sounds like they have stopped that shenanigans. I haven't heard anything unfavorable about them in here for a while.

You definitely should have at least one of each installed, regardless of what computing problems you're having. I don't see anything wrong with running more than one real-time AV or antimalware program simultaneously (I run MBAM and SUPERAntispyware together), as long as they are compatible with each other and.... you have sufficient system resources to do so. In this case, you unfortunately don't fulfill the second criteria.

Well, here's an early happy birthday wish, and I hope you get what you need to pull you out of what seems like a hellish computing environment.

Sorry if I did that, no offense intended. It's impossible to know for sure what the gender of a poster is, despite what the screen name is. I know how it is though, I'm a guy with a gal's name (my real name). Let us know what happens once you offload some of that data from your system drive.

 

I just realized that there's one thing we didn't do..... something that could definitely cause a generally sluggish system. That would be checking the drive for errors and bad sectors.

Click Start Button >> Run

Type in the following:

chkdsk Z: /f /r /x /b

where "Z" is the system drive you want to test (usually C)
Hit Enter

You should get a Windows message telling you that the operation cannot be performed on a locked drive and would you like to schedule the task to run at the next system boot. Answer yes and then reboot the system. The operation will run early in the boot process, prior to the loading of Windows. Note that the disk checking process may take several hours, depending on the size of the disk you are checking.

Given only 5% free space on your system drive, I honestly don't think that chkdsk will make a big difference, even if it did fix errors/mark sectors bad, but you've nothing to lose by doing it.

 

I typed it in and that little windows pop-up thing was there but it went straight away without leaving a message... in short nothing happened...

My drives are C D E F... C is where all the programs and OS are installed and that drive is hardly full... D E and F are full but C is not... Total size of C is 195GB and Free space is 181GB... So that is much more than 5 %

 

Oh, I do have the Windows Repair program from Tweaking.com installed and I used step 3: check file system
Is that the same?

 

Yes, Tweaking.com's All-in-One repair tool does include the option to run chkdsk.

 

Well, like I said the only thing that changed was the boot-up but everything else was the same.
Now that I just can't understand, I don't have that much installed unlike some people I know..

Well the only good thing about that is, that I have 2 burners but I still have to wait inbetween sessions...

hmm, I think they still do that but it's not sneaked in or anything like that. It comes after you've installed the program (be it Smart defrag) only after that they offer you the other program like malware fighter... but like I said it's very obvious and they don't sneak it in while the installation is happening...

Well, regarding AV programs, then one should only have one installed.. Not only in this forum but others, they always say just 1 AV installed otherwise it will screw up the pc...
What do you mean by "sufficient system resources"? Is that RAM or CPU or do you mean something totally different??

Yeah, it does suck.. it's just very annoying - you have a wonderful pc no problems and the next day everything is just slow... But at least I know what fixes it... I just never understand why that is?! I would just like to know why it happens and what causes it... that's what really annoys me not knowing why..

Well thanks Just hope I get it... until then I hope to have a few options in my other thread, so I could get them myself... I already have a new PSU with more than 4 SATA plugs a new harddisk well 2 if one wants to be accurate, got 1TB and 120GB but that's a SSD harddisk.. Would like to try that for a while see if my pc then "acts out" after a few months of use....

Well, it's ok, I took it with a smile.. With a name like whitequeen I could of been a drag-queen

 

Well I did that and it did need to do the check disk with a restart... well the test it does when you boot-up the pc but sadly, no luck ... still the same

so I'm guessing a reinstall is next but until my bday I'll have to put up with my current state...

Here's my link to the thread
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=287238

maybe you have knowledge about that?! or know someone who does
if not no problem
thanks anyway for all your help

 

I've been following your thread in the hardware forum but unfortunately I have nothing to offer that hasn't already been suggested. I'm still groping in the dark when it comes to hardware (literally and figuratively).