Sluggish Pc: No Idea What To Do..

Hello again, my friends.

This time I have a problem with the computer of my partner. Well, he has the problem, but I can 'enjoy' his swearing and what not...

At first it on the brink of giving up, took a very long time to load Windows, and trying to load other things wasn't even coming to mind for the first 15 / 30 minutes (depending on the machine's mood).
I ran chkdsk, which failed time and time again. So, decided to run chkdsk /r and that worked fine. Fixed some things and the PC was running better; booting faster and programs were usable.

Now it's going downhill again with the time it needs to boot, but another problem that I haven't been able to fix remotely, is the slowness of the internet connection and the booting of programs. It takes quite some time to boot programs (compared to the normal speed of this machine) and internet is slow enough to watch paint dry..
I am stuck, ran out of ideas of what I could try.

Both his and my computer are hooked to the same network, mine runs smooth and fast. Rebooting router wouldn't make a difference in this case, since mine's not having any ill hiccups and slowness.

In the time I'm writing this (about 10 minutes, typo-fixing included) it finally managed to run BelArc. Slow enough I'd say...

I am not sure what more info is needed, so I'll try to copy / paste the things that might be needed.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/file:///C:/Program%20Files/Belarc/BelarcAdvisor/System/local/images/trans.gif

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 3-5-2014 16:33:53
Boot Mode: BIOS (Secure Boot not supported) Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-78LMT-USB3 6.0
Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
3,60 gigahertz AMD Athlon II X2 280
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte tertiary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-78LMT-USB3 6.0 SEx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. F2 11/25/2014
Drives Memory Modules c,d
1000,20 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
723,15 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS70 [Optical drive]

WDC WD10EZRX-00L4HB0 [Hard drive] (1000,20 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WCC4J2594866, rev 01.01A01, SMART Status: Healthy 3326 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' is Empty
Slot 'A1' is Empty
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' has 4096 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0) * 100,02 GB 77,18 GB free
e: (NTFS on drive 0) 377,49 GB 249,25 GB free
f: (NTFS on drive 0) 522,69 GB 396,72 GB free

* Operating System is installed on c:


If there's anything else I can provide, let me know.
It does not cause any BSoD's (compared to my own machine xD ), it's just horribly slow and getting slower still. Drivers are up to date, I also ran IOBit - it picked up 2 Trojans - that our own InternetSecurity missed - which are cleared.

 

Your hard drive may be failing. Hard Disk Sentinel comes highly recommended and CrystalDiskInfo is a smaller HDD checker which can run off a USB drive.

 

I ran chkdsk and it passed. Hm.. will continue digging tomorrow and I'll look into it. Thank you.
Time for bed now (2:45 am for me here )

 

I run Hard Disk Sentinel Pro on both of my computers. It's best installed BEFORE you develop any problems so that it can notify you of any problems that are developing. Use CrystalDiskInfo from a USB drive. It doesn't require any installation like Hard Disk Sentinel does.

 

Good to know for when I / we get new HDD, is a bit redundant now

Going to fetch me a new USB stick (the one I had broke.. doesn't like being ran over by a chair :S - such luck last few days.. ) and give it a go

 

Have these pc's ever had a cleaning? I had one today that got real sluggish, I thought for no reason. Later I noticed the side vents had gotten blocked by papers. As soon as I removed the papers, things straightened out. I probably need a good cleaning. This made me think of some of these threads about sluggishness.

 

You might clean out some software files with something like Ccleaner http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ccleaner_standard.html
Just use the default setup for now. Just "Analyze" and "Run Cleaner" and don't use other features. Check what is in startup with this tool, here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/whatinstartup.html
If you right click on each item, you can select "disable", but do not delete. Try disabling one or more and reboot to see if you get some improvement. "Reenable" those which have no effect. Its a trial and error process to find the culprits, making a slow start. Let us know if this helps. Which operating system are you on?

 

Well, tried that CrystalDiskInfo - states disk is in correct working order. The rest of the data it gives is a bit of a mystery to me, but it seems it's in proper working order :S

With 7 birds in this household, you can bet they get cleaned on a regular base

I looked through the Start up list, only the programs that are needed are booting at initial boot. I set up delayed booting for the ISP, as it takes a bit to load.
We use RegSeeker for the rest, basically is the same as Ccleaner, if memory serves. Not sure when the last time it's used.. don't always get told what other half did with his computer (understandable, don't need to know everything).