Seriously Slow PC

My desktop PC is very, very slow. It has only just started being very slow. I suspected that it may have been infected by malicious software. I have checked for malicious software but I have not found any. I have also cleaned my desktop PC.

My PC runs on Windows XP HE SP2.

To check for malicious software I have updated the following software: Avira Antivir, Lavasoft Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy and SUPERAntispyware. I than ran each one in the Administrator account in Safe Mode. All four reported that my computer was clean.

Then I cleaned the PC in safe mode by using search to find any file as '*.tmp' and removed all these; I cleaned out the TEMP folder using 'Run'. Then I used Disk Cleanup to clean all drives and then CCleaner. I repeated these tasks for all user accounts.

Finally, I restarted windows in normal mode and cleaned each account with Webroot and I used Diskeeper Lite to defragment the hard drive.

This has not improved the speed. It is still extremely slow.

Please can you suggest anything else that I can try, please.

 

Hmm,you said that you have installed Avira Antivir, Lavasoft Adaware, Spybot Search & Destroy and SUPERAntispyware,its very bad to have more than one anti malware software on your computer,they are fighting each other,maybe thats why your computer is very slow,and also try disabling some applications at the startup,because if you have a lot,they need to load and that slows your computer

 

Thanks DevGeek but nothing wrong with the three antimalware programmes. In fact you should not rely on just one!

In my post I said that this problem has just started so it cannot be the programmes that run at Startup as my PC would have been running very slowly before now.

 

Hmm,do you remeber what have you installed that day,before it get that slow ? Like you said before,maybe its a malware that those anti malwares cant find,ask in the Malware Removal forum,they may help you

 

Fully agree with you,mark59,about the anti malware programs. Have 3 on startup myself.
Also, as DevGeek suggested, check out what all is running at startup and in the background.

 

Thanks hrlow2.

I understand that startup programmes can slow things down. I use PCs at work and often after I've turned mine on I'll go and make myself a coffee while its starting up. But, once all these processes are up and running PCs start to work at a more acceptable speed. Now I've changed nothing about what runs at startup and I have to say that my PC is still starting at its normal speed and that's certainly faster than the one I use at work.

What is happening is that my PC is going slow after start up. And I mean really frustratingly slow. What I didn't mention before is that I was writing a report at home yesterday and my PC froze and all I could do was turn it off and it didn't recover the document I'd be working on, which MS Word usually does. I also visited my work's website from home and a different website came up even though I know I typed in the URL correctly. It was these combination of things that made me suspect there might be some malicious code.

I'm careful about using my PC sensibly to minimise my risks of infection. I use advise from here to do that. I use Firefox not IE, I use Sun Java, I have Comodo firewall, etc.

To me the symptoms suggest some kind of infection but nothing reports I've been infected. I've cleaned my PC in the way suggested on Majorgeeks.

My PC was running a lot faster yesterday so something has happened to slow it down and I have run out of ideas to what I can do.

 

Another antimalware program I like that didn't show in your list is MalwareBytes.
Give it a try.Download and get updated then scan.

 

hrlow2: I have run Malawarebytes and it found 5 infections, which it has cleaned.

plodr: There are 45 processes and only two are using CPU - System Idle Process is using about 97 and explorer.exe is using 02

 

Could it possibly be overheating (the CPU) and going into a Throttle-Down condition to save the CPU?

 

I don't know. I would I know if that was happening?

 

Get this program to find out.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/CPU-Tweak/ThrottleWatch.shtml

 

Hi mark59,

you can try System Restore if you have a restore point dated prior to the problem occurring.

Or, create a new user account and boot into it too confirm whether the problem is system wide or user profile specific.

I'd dump the comodo firewall and see what happens.

Could also be a hardware problem. wireless, usb devices plugged in, video, network card etc...

Techsent

 

hrlow2: I've noticed a new symptom, when I restart the PC it resets the date to 31st December 2000.

Do you think I need to use hijackthis to create a log and have it checked.

 

When was the last time your CMOS battery was changed?

 

I can't remember. 18 months ago I had the RAM increased. I can't recall if I got them to fit a new CMOS battery. If they didn't then it's never been changed. I don't suppose there's anyway of checking on the status of the battery.

 

Well I'll give this a shot. I 've ran into some pretty slow PCs in my time of working with computers. When was the last time you ran a defrag? That can really slow down computers as well. I use auslogics disk defrag takes maybe 10 mins depending on the size of your hard drive. They also have a pretty good registry cleaner somethings that ccleaner doesnt pick up. The other thing I was going to recommend was maybe try completely different anti-malware programs. I like Kaspersky to be honest, I had a few comps running symantec and they were running terribly slow, took a chance with kaspersky found 15 viruses and clean them off now comp is nice and fast. that was the last time i used a symantec product. the cmos battery shouldnt be too much of an issue but you should probably replace it if its been a few years since you had the pc. hope this helps a bit. gl!

 

The problem is resolved. I think it was malware. Malawarebytes found some infections and cleaned them. After that I turned off System Restore so that the infections didn't get restored. I then checked all my antivirus and antimalware software for updates. Then in Safe Mode I ran my antivirus software and my antimalware software in the 'Administrator' account then in both user accounts (both set as administrators). No malicious software was found.

Then I cleaned all accounts by checking %temp% in Run, using CCleaner, and Webroot. I also defragmented.

I don't know how I got infected. I check for updates on all my software including Windows Updates and all my antivirus and antimalware once per week. And I run antimalware and antivirus checks at least once per week.

I clean the PC and defragment once per week.

Not sure about the advice about Symantec. I don't have that. I wouldn't use. It likes another operating system that takes over your PC.

Anyway thanks to everyone who answered my thread and offered help.