littleblu87
Technical User
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.
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.
