XP Slow Down ???

I've got a problem I spent 13 hrs on yesterday and still am scratching my head. I haven't found any mention on of the problem anywhere, but suspect there's a common cause .. I just can't find it.

Background: my friend complained his desktop (a 2004 Dell w/2.6G Pent 4 and 256MB RAM) started running really slow when he added DSL. When he used dial up everything was fine.

1. After checking all the normal stuff, I decided the problem was not enough RAM with the higher speed communications. We went to the local computer store and bought a 1GB stick and put it in his machine .. immediately we saw an increase in speed. Problem solved, right? Wrong!

2. He was not happy with preinstalled NORTON so we tried conventional methods of removal, but failed. He was very skittish about using too much force as his computer savy sister (a programmer) had "fried" her machine by forcing NORTON removal. I found a way to "disable" it without any apparent change in machine behavior. However as soon as I began downloading better antispyware, antivirus and firewall from MajorGeeks "recommended free list" the machine started slowing down. At one point, after installing one of the programs (AdAware 2007) it took 10 minutes to reboot!!! Then it would work normally for 5 or 10 seconds then seemingly lock up for several minutes and keep repeating this. Bringing up Task Manager and looking at performance and network thruput showed 99% idle and no comm going on, but still nothing happening (except occasionally you could move the mouse pointer around.)

3. Ran msconfig and turned off all non-essential programs, including NORTON. Still boots up slow (>5 minutes) and >50% of actions don't ever start, some start and show running in Task Manager, but nothing happening. Display usually doesn't update very quickly (bring background window to foreground sometimes takes 4-10 mins to update screen), etc...

At 11PM last night I had to head home (75 miles) so decided to completely shut down and pull power plug and let it sit the rest of the night. My friend was going to try to uninstall the AT&T Yahoo software after work today (it "hung" last night for half an hour without any peceptible progress...) We even disconnected the DSL line, disabled or ended all the anti-spyware, anti-virus and firewall software .. no change in performance. Just bringing up Task manager can sometimes take as long as 2-3 minutes.

I haven't ruled out a virus, it's possible. It seems the more we "disconnected" the slower the machine got. it's definitely running too slow to do a scan though he only has about 8 MB of stuff on his hardfile (barely more than the OS (XP Home.)

I'm stumped.

 

Yeah, I think I've seen it .. but that's a low(er) priority since I found I could disable it by right clicking on the icon in the "running programs" on the start programs bar. Plus, I was able to completely prevent it from even starting using msconfig.

right now I'm trying to find any information I can that'll help me under stand the slowdown. my son says it's a virus and the free virus checkers/removal tools won't find it. I'm not convinced .. yet.:confused

 

hmmmm, that's interesting. I don't think that's what's happening 'cause the combination I downloaded to my friend's comuter is the combination I've been using for a couple years (except for the firewall .. I just changed to the PC Tools firewall a couple months ago from Zone Alarm.) However there could be some other things going on that I'm not aware of, for instance, I use my web browser to access my email, while my friend uses Outlook Express.

I won't get a chance to check his computer before the end of the week, so won't know anything before then. In the meantime I'll get myself educated at the two links you provided. Thanks Steve.

 

I"m sorry, I wasn't very clear about the firewall stuff.

On my personal machine, which has never had NORTON software on it (and which has been completely washed and reinstalled several times, new hard drives, etc, due to viruses) I have switched firewalls. The last iteration was due to a virus which caused me to have to do a complete erase, fdisk repartition, and new installation (Like a dummy I was surfing with IE instead of my regular Firefox and got zapped - it was painful and will not happen again.)

My friend's computer is essentially brand new. He's computer illiterate though he teaches several college courses in business and liberal arts. This machine was "configured" by AT&T to run DSL about a month ago. Prior to that he was using dial up to get to his email (from students and other profs) via Outlook. Zone Alarm was never installed on his machine. Other than Norton and Windows firewalls, which I disabled, the only firewall on the machine is the PC Tools firewall.

His machine is the one with a problem. On his machine, using msconfig, I disabled startup of Norton associated modules/processes. I also physically removed both the DSL and dial up communication lines from the machine, and prevented the downloaded software from running. Even with these actions, performance did not improve. In fact it acts like a memory leak, but nothing other than Windows XP Home is running that I can find.

And, as I stated previously, I am unable to go to his machine to do any testing/scanning/etc. for at least a week. And he isn't computer savvy enough to download and run a scan. In fact, I'll have to download all the scan software onto a CD at my machine and carry it to his when I go there.

my probable next action will be to uninstall each of the downloaded titles until I either find the problem or remove them all from the machine and have it back to where it was when I first started a download.

I'm trying to prevent a complete erase, reformat, new installation but may have to unless I can find the cause of the performance problem.

 

I know this isn't much of an answer, but, increasing the ram in the computer will help out quite a bit. I've found in the past, that xp, doesn't behave well, with less than 512 ram. 1024 to me and others, is the optimal point with xp.

 

The best thing to, if your not sure, is to do the steps listed in the Malware Forum's Read Me, as Steve suggested.
This is a nice, quick little scanner that finds things that some of the other malware scanners don't. Don't worry about the shareware description.
When you run it, just choose to keep using the free version.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download5205.html

Also, get rid of (uninstall) all but one AV application.
If you have un-necessary start-up items (check your total running processes after start-up with Task Manager), you will slow down. All you want are needed items like your AV, and anti-malware, firewall, and any other special start-ups like sound and video. Anything that you can just start when needed, shouldn't be there.
On my older, slower machine, I did not run any security suites or firewalls because of the drain on resources. I did run AVG Free and Windows firewall. That give me a little more pep.

You may also want to check your connection speeds: http://www.speedtest.net/
If you are not getting your advertised speeds, get with your ISP (DSL) provider.

 

Just in case you don't know this: The anti-virus software MUST be active. It must be running in real time. If you shut down the program, even if it is still installed, you have told your security guard to 'go to sleep'. This seems to be a good explanation of why you installed anti-virus software and yet kept having problems. OH! also check EVERY day for updates for your anti-virus software. Regards other malware, Windows Defender, is free if you are running XP. It is one of the best options to protect against malware not covered by some versions of anti-virus software.

 

Thanks for the input theefool. He had 256MB .. we upped it by 1GB so he has 1280MB now (and yes, we matched mem clock frequencies.) It helped initially, but as soon as we started doing "stuff" it went in the tank.

 

Thanks musksnipe. I was keeping a close watch on the running processes via Task Manager, both before and after disabling, shutdowns and reboots. Everything looked normal. As soon as I can get back to my friend's machine I will definitely run the recommended scan.

 

Thanks for the input dannygjk. Problem is, within minutes of downloading and installing the anti spamware it started slowing down. Same with the Anti-Virusware. And the firewall. And those that run at bootup were running, others (like Ad Aware and Spybot) weren't running. And I did a reboot after each title install to keep from having reboot conflicts (been there done that!)

 

You might give this a shot. http://www.processlibrary.com/ and click on the process scanner tab. Its free and works well. I use it tons. Run the scan and see whats going on.

 

No Steve, it's not a different scenario. I'm sorry I confused you with extraneous info about my experiences with my personal computer. As I stated, the problem is with my friend's computer and I purposefully did not post everything I did because most of it had no bearing on the problem. As new suggestions are offered, I've responded to them with clarifications.

And, if I had believed it was a malware problem at the time of my initial post I would have posted on the Malware Removal Forum. I'm not convinced it is, so I will continue here until I'm able to run your recommended scan. If the scan gives any indication there's malware, I'll certainly post the info in the Malware Removal Forum as you instructed.

This is not my first goat rope and I would not have posted here had I not run out of ideas. Thanks to all who are trying to help. It's appreciated.

 

Maybe I should clarify.
1. Norton, altho one of the best applications on the market, is extremely proprietary.
2. Unfortunately, you assume some things about software and operating systems and internet connections which are incorrect.
3. To correct your problem please follow the MajorGeeks instructions.
4. To avoid further problems please follow geeks instructions, NOT the instructions of salespersons, or other well-meaning people.
5. Geeks rule!

dannygjk

 

Just a short note:
Everyone offering help, that is what we try to do. We give a suggestion, the OP either tries what we offer because they feel it is the correct thing to do, or they reject it because they feel it's not right for their problem. We don't try to force them.

 

@ Racer Duck,
Could you post a screen shot of the Task manager, showing processes and CPU usage. If you click the CPU heading you can bring the processes using the most CPU to the top.
Also post one, showing what is using the most memory (working set). Click that heading to bring the largest users to the top
It may help if we could see what is actually gobbling up your resources.

 

One thing what could affect your system is a IRQ or other conflict. I have seen few people with similar problems to solve them by cheking their IRQ settings. Just a thought.