Lag time before home page comes in

When I connect to my ISP, it connects normally, however, there is upwards of a full minute before any actual internet activity takes place. During this time my cpu usage is at 100% and my home page does not load and call wave does not load until the usage drops back to normal. Opening task master shows that svchost.exe in network is using 99%. I deleted all temp files, browser history, etc. No help. A check of my firewall shows nothing accessing the network that should not. I did a scan with both ad-aware and spybot and neither showed anything. I also run a bought program called "spyblocker" that blocks spyware, adware, worms, etc. This shows no activity and is working normally, also.

Anyone have any ideas? Once the minute is up and the cpu usage drops, everything works fine. This has been going on for about a week.

 

Did you install anything just prior to the problem's appearance? Lke within a week prior?

If so and it's a program that loads on startup, like Spyblocker does, for example; try disabling it from loading on startup, reboot and see if the problem disappears.

 

Thanks for the reply, Miz. I have not installed anything, nor downloaded anything. I checked startup items in msconfig and there is nothing there that should not be running. I did sfc /scannow and that did not reveal anything that was wrong. I am at a loss, hopefully someone may come up with an idea that will shed some light on the subject.

 

If you haven't already, turn off all of XP's unnecessary services.

I recommend the guide on Black Viper's site. I use the settings in the "Safe" column on most systems.

 

Miz,
I did that, however, I did remember that I downloaded an update from windows update. It was a security update. I closed spyblocker before going on the net and everything worked fine, so there must be something that has changed (maybe in the update)that causes spyblocker to affect the svchost.exe file.
I also noticed that when I opened spyblocker and went to a web page, the same thing happened - svchost.exe went to 99% and my cpu usage went to 100% and it took about one minute for the page to come in. After that, everthing was normal. I am attempting to contact the spyblocker people to see if they can shed any light on the subject.
Again, thanks for your help
Marty

 

Glad you found the cause of the problem Before I read your final post, I was going to ask if you were perhaps running the Norton Antivirus 2004 evaluation version. I tried it and my PC turned into a snail online. It was awful. I have used Norton A/V for several years now, but I think 2003 will be my last until something is changed. If anyone has any relevant info about this, please let me know
Dave

 

Don't blame Norton- The reply from my blocking software said that one of the windows updates must have turned on the DNS Client (I don't know what that is) and that is what was causing the lag time. The fix was to uninstall the spyblocking software and then reinstall it. When it installs it turns off the DNS Client. It worked perfectly and everything is back to normal. Maybe an e-mail to support will confirm that your problem could be the same. Thanks for the reply.
Marty525

 

DNS Client - runs as a service on XP-pro at least and probably/maybe on XP-home. Here's the description:
Resolves and caches Domain Name System (DNS) names for this computer. If this service is stopped, this computer will not be able to resolve DNS names and locate Active Directory domain controllers. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

FWIW, I have a home LAN with two XP-pro systems and both have DNS Client running with autostart at boot time. I do not see the speed issues you mention.