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Computer very slow - it's not a virus

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littleblu87

Technical User
Oct 17, 2003
15
US
I'm asking this for a relative who called me earlier with a computer problem.

Their computer is running very slow and they can't access the taskbar sometimes. It takes 5+ minutes just to open a folder. This all happened after they exited a game called Magic Vines that they have on their computer. After they exited the game some white boxes popped up on the screen. They also said that sometimes they get a gray screen.

They ran an antivirus program twice and it didn't show anything. They're still trying to run a spyware program (it's taking forever). They had recently installed some screensavers from Freeze.com. After this problem happened, they removed the screensavers and the wallpaper, then rebooted. It took over 10 minutes to reboot. But now they can access the desktop.

The computer is new, they've had it for 3-4 months. It's running Win XP Home, it's a Pentium 4 (I think), over 2.4 GHz, over 512 MB RAM, 100+ GB Hard Drive, wireless internet (DSL). They use AOL and Norton Internet Security 2005 (I think).

Norton showed that it needed to be updated but when they tried to update it, it showed that it already was up-to-date.

Any ideas as to what the problem could be/ why the computer is so slow? Any ideas as to what steps should be done to determine what's going on? I won't be able to get to it until tomorrow but I was going to run HijackThis. I also thought about shutting down Norton Internet Security.

I'm thinking it's either spyware from the screensavers or something to do with that game (Magic Vines).

The only other thing I can thing of is, I'm wondering if the computer could be overheating? It's new but it's in a desk that is pretty much enclosed on all four sides. There's almost enough room to put another computer behind it, but it's still enclosed. The room it's in is warm and that certainly can't help. Last year, my computer rebooted itself a few times which I believe was due to heat and humidity in the room it's in. Because I haven't had those reboot problems since I corrected those conditions.
 
Will it Start and run correctly in Safe Mode. Can you check out how it runs if you login as any other user in Normal Mode?

If it is a profile problem then this may help.
811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile


To get further information about the error look in your Event viewer.

Look in the System or Application folder. You can get to the Event Viewer via right click My Computer icon and select Manage.

Any errors logged in the Event Viewer can be expanded by double clicking on the error line.

Take any event error I.D. number and search for it on these sites.



If the error occurred after installing a device driver or application, try using Safe Mode and removing the driver or program.

To check your RAM.


To check your Hard Drive.

The drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software to check your drive for problems.

You can also load the Recovery Console and run ChkDsk /r to check for problems.

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console for Windows XP (Q307654)

To check your drivers.

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP


To check conflicting software.

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP




Removing adware & spyware
faq608-4650

Will check your computer for spyware and adware.



See if you have any services that are flagging as "Starting" but not actually running.


Some general things to try.

See if System Restore will get you back to a restore point before your problem with Windows.

Run the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.

If they don't work you could try repairing windows itself by running it over itself. You will lose all your windows updates but your files will be untouched.

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)
 
also check the system time as Norton appears to be upto date if it is wrong. I had a clients pc saying it was march 04 with norton 06 installed - it kept telling me that it needed updating but when you went into it, it said it was up to date. changing the local system date fixed this and it soon spent several hours downloading updates as it hadnt been updated for several months.
by the way i've played magic vines and haven't seen anything wrong with it. unless of course it is from a disreputable website.
the symptoms your getting in my experience probably come from
They had recently installed some screensavers from Freeze.com.
I do not know about the site but as a general rule i either disble or stop my users from either downloading or changing the screensaver. you can do a lot of damage with a screensaver believe it or not.
Once you have updated norton try running it again, then i would sugest running adaware, spybot, a-squared, or similar spyware tool. personally i use all of these and more regularly mostly to see which is best(i prefer a-squared)

hope some of this helps

Tim
MCSA, A+, Network+
 
Thanks. The problem with Norton was a damaged LiveUpdate file. It was damaged the day before the problem with the computer started. I removed the file and reinstalled LiveUpdate and now it's working. Unfortunately, the computer is still slow. I've already ran several virus and spyware scanners, I even ran a rootkit scanner. It's showing up as being clean. Although, at one point it had a file called ofb1.dll which seems to be a trojan. I removed the file using a cleaner but the computer is still slow.

It's so weird because I have been all over that computer and I can't figure out what's wrong. I had thought that maybe another game (Big City Adventure - San Francisco) might be the culprit but I uninstalled it and the problem still persists. The CPU is at 2% and I don't see anything weird in the Task Manager.

I do wonder if those screensavers could've screwed it up but they had been on there for several days with no problems.
 
Is it still slow in Safe Mode?

Have you tried setting the Bios to any Safe Defaults setting?

 
In device manager are drivers for all the device properly installed? No ? or !s

If you run task manager how much RAM/Page file is in use? What about CPU usage - is there one app hogging most of it?

(Norton is a resource hog - though with 512MB RAM should be ok when system loads).
 
Is it possibly a hard disk problem? Make sure important data is backed up, then run a full system file and a complete surface scan. Afterwards, check event viewer to see if it has logged anything during the scans.

ROGER - G0AOZ.
 
It is only slightly slow in Safe Mode, but that could be normal.
I have not done anything with the BIOS.

In device manager all the drivers look ok except for one network adapter, it has a red X. However, the one with the X has been that way for over a month, with no problems. The other adapter looks ok and is the one being used.

CPU usage is at 2-4% with System Idle at 99.
Physical Memory
Total 2136586
available 1724381

commit charge
total 465844
limit 42547465
peak 651804

The computer has 2GB RAM and 140GB hard drive which is about 20% full, I believe.

I ran Chkdsk and everything came out ok.

I don't have access to the computer now. They were supposed to take it to the repair shop where it was built to see what's wrong with it. I don't know if they took it or not. If not, I might be able to take another look at it.

I wonder if it could be a registry problem. Would that cause such a massive slow down?
This computer (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 140GB hard drive, running WinXP) is way slower than my old computer that's a 233 MHz Pentium, 32MB RAM, 3.2GB hard drive, running Win98. And no, I am not kidding about that.
 
Computers that are running Windows XP Service Pack 2 and that are equipped with multiple processors that support processor power management features may experience decreased performance



"It is only slightly slow in Safe Mode, but that could be normal".

If it is not fixed at the shop, then you might be able to use these to make it only "slightly slow" in Normal Mode.

To check conflicting software.

310353 - How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP

316434 - HOW TO: Perform Advanced Clean-Boot Troubleshooting in Windows XP

310560 - How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP


HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP
 
I've have a question about that Service Pack 2 update/patch. If automatic updates are turned on, shouldn't that update already be installed? Or is it an optional thing? Because that sounds like it could be the problem.
 
It is easy enough to see if the Update is passed on via Windows Updates (you need only look in Add or Remove to see installed Updates). With words in the article such as "Additional updates are available" and with it not being a Security Update, I guess it is one you must chase up yourself if you want it.
 
to find out if you have the update just goto start run and type "winver" without the quotes to tell you your Operating system and any service packs that have been applied.
Personally if it was me and i couldn't sort out this problem from all the steps that have been mentioned, i would back up all data, make sure i have a cd of all the software i wanted to install, including all the drivers, and wipe the hdd and reinstall xp. If you read some security experts' articles they reccomend doing this every few months anyway.
Tim
MCSA, A+, Network +

 
The repair shop said that the computer was full of spyware and viruses. They had to reformat it and then installed better spyware programs.

I don't buy that.

I checked that computer thoroughly for spyware and viruses and only found one thing which I removed. I used several different spyware and antivirus scanners, and I used some of them in Safe Mode. I even used a rootkit scanner. That computer was spyware and virus free.

How is it that this repair guy is saying the computer was full of spyware? If I overlooked something or did something wrong I'd like to know so I don't make that same mistake again.


 
Anti spyware tools i would reccommend - Adaware, Spybot SD, Asquared - all free tools from reputable people/companies.
or you could look at buying - xoftspy, webroot spysweeper.

It all depends on what tools you were using, whether they were up to date or not including Antivirus and Windows.

A lot of good security guys will reccommend you reinstall windows every now and then, so it probably hasn't done your pc any harm(except for the cost).
If you don't have a good firewall, AV, and antispyware, and update them regularly as well as Windows updates, then you are just leaving yourself open to attack.
Hope this helps,
Tim
MCSA, A+, Network+

 
Hi.

Personal choice here is yes ok Norton is ok, however I would use the following.

AVG antivirus - Free Version and schedule daily updates and checks.

And then install AVG Anti Spy - Free full use for 30 days, and basic use thereon after.

These found more trojans etc than Adaware and Spybot and even Norton, and were able to be removed fully at next bootup in a normal user logon, (No use of Safe Mode).

Adaware (Lavasoft.com) is ok to a point and as stated up even better in Safe Mode. I would also advise downloading the add on tools as well.

Spybot (When ran in Advanced Mode) you can check services, startup programs, BHOs, Active X and even the HOST file.

Also download and run Windows Live Onecare and do a full system check (run it over night).

These are now the main util tools I use to clean the Internet Cafe Machines at work.

And also use CCLEANER

to clean up the registry and

REGCOMPACTNET which is a registry compression tool.


And also a tool called CLEANUP


Be very careful when running this, easy to use, but if you choose the run settings you can delete your favourites.

Then run Hijackthis and post your logs on to the respected forums.

Oh and if in doubt run Windows Defender free from Microsoft.
 
And also.

If all these come back stating the machine is clean, I would suggest when running the game, turning off Norton.

Providing it isn't a online game. If it is an online game, then basically the machine will be slow.

Also tell your friend to get rid of AOL as that uses alot of memory. Have alook at what it uses in the Task Menu.
 
Lee james - forgot about CCleaner, i agree also with AVG, as i use it at home, and it doesn't use up too much of the system resources.
would def reccommend taking a look at Asquared though as it finds a lot more spyware etc than adaware and spybot put together.
 
I've seen 4-5 computers act slow like this in the last 2 weeks - all have been related to Windowsupdate issues where MS switches the update tool from: to: -

then tries to patch/update Office apps along with Windows itself. Changing the settings on the side you can tell it to just update Windows - this got me through being able to make those 4-5 computers usable and back to normal speed.

my 2 cents
 
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