Sudden problem with all computer operations

Last night, my computer began behaving oddly--everything starting loading really slowly (even Notepad), mouse operations became "sticky," and some programs had to be prompted more than once to load.

This morning, I discoverd that my Norton Antivirus 2002 wasn't scanning email (this error occurs now and again), but it wouldn't repair, so I uninstalled the virus scanner and reinstalled it. That made the slowness/stickiness situation somewhat better, but not that much.

I did a full system virus scan and found nothing. There is no spyware on my computer. The only new software I have downloaded lately is Hello. I downloaded it Friday and used it, and there were no problems on my computer until last night. Just to make sure, though, I uninstalled Hello, and it made no difference.

I am using Windows XP Home with a wireless connection and router, and Zone Alarm. I have cable Internet, Firefox 1.0 as my browser, and Outlook Express 6. OE is working fine, but is extremely slow to load.

Any suggestons would be really welcome.

 

How did you determine that? The best I can say is that my PCs didn't have any obvious spyware the last time I checked but they could certainly have picked up some immediately after I finished checking.

And I'd suggest running an online AV scan since there are some critters that can disable your onboard AV so that it appears to work but does not. Same applies to some spyware being able to block the usual Spyware removal apps.

 

Well, I checked after the problem started and there was nothing. But I can certainly do an online av check, too, and I will. Thanks. Doing it now.

 

I would also recommend checking your running processes for excessive CPU usage. A good tool to do that with, which will also allow you to post a log is Process Explorer. After installing, open, then click file>save as and put on your desktop. Open the text and copy/paste it here. This app will also often show processes running that do not show up in task manager.

 

Online virus scan done--no viruses. I am going to do an online spyware scan, too.

Process explorer log:

Process PID CPU Description Company Name
System Idle Process 0 92
Interrupts n/a Hardware Interrupts
DPCs n/a 2 Deferred Procedure Calls
System 4
smss.exe 472 Windows NT Session Manager Microsoft Corporation
csrss.exe 524 2 Client Server Runtime Process Microsoft Corporation
winlogon.exe 552 Windows NT Logon Application Microsoft Corporation
services.exe 604 2 Services and Controller app Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 776 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 824 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 948 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
wscntfy.exe 1444 Windows Security Center Notification App Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 996 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 1040 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
spoolsv.exe 1356 Spooler SubSystem App Microsoft Corporation
NAVAPSVC.EXE 1580 Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect Service Symantec Corporation
svchost.exe 1704 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
vsmon.exe 1744 TrueVector Service Zone Labs Inc.
alg.exe 520 Application Layer Gateway Service Microsoft Corporation
svchost.exe 1404 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation
lsass.exe 616 LSA Shell (Export Version) Microsoft Corporation
explorer.exe 1472 Windows Explorer Microsoft Corporation
realplay.exe 1908 RealPlayer RealNetworks, Inc.
qttask.exe 1980 Apple Computer, Inc.
igfxtray.exe 1684 igfxTray Module Intel Corporation
hkcmd.exe 608 hkcmd Module Intel Corporation
SK9910DM.EXE 396 Daemon Silitek Corporation
GWMDMMSG.exe 1788 Modem Messaging Applet GTW
Directcd.exe 432 DirectCD Application Roxio
zlclient.exe 360 Zone Labs Client Zone Labs Inc.
jusched.exe 464 Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition binary Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NAVAPW32.EXE 108 Norton AntiVirus Agent Symantec Corporation
firefox.exe 2708 Firefox Mozilla
msimn.exe 3348 Outlook Express Microsoft Corporation
procexp.exe 3396 3 Sysinternals Process Explorer Sysinternals

Process: Interrupts Pid: -11

Name Description Company Name Version

 

Hmmmm. Nothing jumps out at me. Maybe Dave can spot something.

I do see more instances of svchost.exe running than is usual. 5 is usual and 6 is not uncommon but you have 7 running. Love to see what is in each of them.

If you are running XP-pro you already have the tasklist.exe utility. XP-home shipped without it but if you download a copy Here and put it in \system32 it will do what we need for this.

Open a cmd prompt then put in the following and paste the contents of the c:\svchost.txt file you will create into a reply here.

Code:

tasklist.exe /svc > c:\svchost.txt

 

Sluggish

First of all run a restore your machine to a date before this slowdown occured which by your post you have a good idea when all this occured.

Check your "Start Up" Folder and see if somthing might have slipped into this area.

Your might also run taskmgr.exe and look arount at processes in there that are running.

Finally go to C:\Windows\Prefetch and delete all the files on the right hand side of the screen -- over time these will have an effect on how quickly the computer will fire into Windows.

Last ditch effore when everything we all suggest doesn't work is to re-format the drive and do a fresh install of Windows XP -- Make sure to back up your Favorites, & Outlook Express address book as well.

Good Luck,

John

 

I don't why I didn't start by running System Restore--just a fried brain, I think.

However, I did manage to fix the problem. I don't use IE. Even when someone sends me a link, I paste it into Firefox. But it occurred to me that maybe someone had hit some IE links, and I started poking around in IE. Sure enough, I found something suspicious, and when I got rid of it, the problem was gone.

My boot isn't lightning fast like it used to be, anyway. The changes seem to be related to Firefox (one reason I can't use IE is because it has run slow as molasses since I installed Service Pack 2, no one can fix it, and I would rather use Firefox, anyway; I recently downloaded a fresh copy of Firefox, but no change).

John, thanks for reminding me about occasionally dumping things in Prefetch. I did that, and perhaps that will help with the boot issue.