I'm a beaten man..... any help would be appreciated.

My computer is just giving me fits !!! I am running W2000. I can start-up my computer, and it works great with good speed. However, performance speed degrades as long as the computer is powered up. It doesn't matter if the computer is just sitting idling or I'm doing stuff with word or the internet or whatever. After 2 hours, the speed will be too slow to actually do anything on the computer.


If I reboot, its back to okay.... but once again the cycle begins again, and after 2 hours or so, it becomes useless..... you can see the effects as soon as 20-30 minutes after being powered up with slow opening programs, slow and sticky cursor movement, etc....

I have downloaded and run spyware removal tools such as adware, ms anti-spyware and one other program. They have found some items and deleted them, but they had no effect on my performance problem. I also have 2005 Nortons anti-virus and all the latest updates.... full scans do not show any virus on my computer.

I have also defragged my computer..... still no help.

When I hit ctl-alt-del and go into the task manager and look at performance, it shows 25 processes are running, memory seems to be okay. However, when I look at what the cpu processing time is spending its time on, at first upon power-up when its running good, it is spending 96-98 % on system idle process, whis is normal and shows the cpu usage at only 0-2% use.

However, I just left it in that mode to monitor it and slowly, but surely, the "System" takes over the cpu usuage time..... literally after 1 hour, the cpu is spending 50% on the "System" and 50% on the "System idle process ".... and the cpu usage is now being used by 50%.... and of course it just gets worse as time goes..... in another hour after that, the computer is basically unusable.

But once again, if I do a shut down with a re-start.... its fine again, and the process begins again.

I don't think it is heat related.... it starts over without being cooled down. In addition, I opened up my computer cleaned everything. The processor fan is working fine, and in addition, I put a big fan blowing on the whole thing.... this had no effect.

I'm ready to give up the ghost on this computer.... but if anybody has any ideas, I certainly appreciate it !!

Thank you very much,
Todd

 

I'd recommend you pull a Hijack this log and see if any of the guys over in the security forum see anything else running on your machine.

If that doesnt pan out, give Microsoft a call, we can figure out whats using the CPU.

From your description, it sounds like you've installed a driver or kernel service, so it would be worthwhile to spend some time using MSCONFIG to trim down running things.

 

Thank you for the reply Ben !!

"Hijack this" is one of the programs I downloaded and ran.... it found some stuff that adware and ms anti-spyware didn't find. Is there some sort of log it creates I should post in the security forum ?

As another note, this problem seemed to start "around" the time I installed a new r/w cdrom.... however, I have since removed the hardware and software from that install, and it was no help.

I don't know how to use MSCONFIG to trim down things.... are their instructions somewhere ?

Thank you !!

Todd

 

That brings up a BIG question. And this may be a wild idea but here goes.

Did the CDROM software included ROXIO software.?

If so that might be the problem ( or part of it )

I installed Easy Media Creator 7.

1st warning I got was that it was not compatable with my Anti-Virus.

2nd problem. It did slow my system in general to a CRAWL.

Even after uninstalling ( suppodedly, as it DID NOT remove everything ) the CDROM was noisey and other things had problems. But the machine in general did speed back up somewhat. Also, I do think that the CDROM that I had was not capable of handling things properly.

It took me DAYS and several manual regedits to get things back to fairly normal.

BillyBob