Minor Problems and overall slowness

Lately my computer got very slow in terms of the explorer, files and media player and others load slow, is there some sort of log i can have someone look at to see whats wrong? thanks

 

Hi, croth. Welcome to Windows BBS!

Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) might provide you with some useful information about what may be hogging your CPU.

Alternatively, you may want to give Microsoft/Sysinternals' Process Explorer a try. The download link is near the bottom of that page.

 

there is no CPU hoggage all at 00 except for system idle, and I have 3.25gigs of ram, so thats why i just dont understand why all of a sudden weird slowness, its never acted like this since i got it over a year ago.

 

Since this seems to have started happening only recently, give some thought about what software/hardware changes you might have made immediately prior to the slowdown problem's first appearance. If you made any such changes (including updates), then those are the things I would investigate first.

Perhaps you can use System Restore to revert your computer to the state it was in before the slowdown started occurring.

I also tend to get a little paranoid when my computer starts misbehaving so the first thing I do (after exhausting the above suggestions) is to run malware scans with several reputable anti-malware applications.

Some Online Virus Scanners

• http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm
• http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner
• http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

I also recommend the following applications because they are designed more towards detecting malware not technically defined as "viruses ".

• Spybot Search & Destroy: http://www.safer-networking.org/
  (Be sure to immediately update after installing and before you "Check for problems ".)
• Ad-Aware 2007 Free: http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
  (Be sure to immediately update after installing and before you scan.)

EDIT: If any malware is found and if any repairs are made, then be sure to keep close track of exactly what is found/done by these applications so you can inform our malware-removal experts about them. That information will help them decide how to proceed to further remove malware and its remnants after you have cleaned with these applications.

 

Hi croth, just to add to checks I have Belarc Advisor installed on my PC's and when I've experienced a slow down I use Belarc to check whether MS updates have downloaded correctly. When Belarc does it's scan on your computer it will indicate if MS updates are installed properly with a tick in the box. An X Will indicate a need to go to MS Updates and to download and reinstall. Then recheck after to ensure it has ticks on all boxes. This has generally been a help for me. Neil

 

Good idea, retiredlearner! Thanks!

croth, here are those links.

• Belarc Advisor (free for personal use)
• Belarc Advisor Update Link
  Updates should be downloaded and run within a few days of Microsoft's security patch releases which usually occur on the 2nd Tuesday of each month (sometimes referred to as "Patch Tuesday ").

Any time you want to check to see if your computer is up to snuff with MS patches, just click on the Belarc Advisor icon on your desktop and you'll get a fresh report in your web browser window.

For example, I have one troublesome update (KB902400) that I try to keep tabs on with Belarc Advisor. I have had to reinstall that update several times over the last 10 months.

 

pandasoftware and bitdefender freeze my internet and kaspersky wont install,

spybot and adaware have only found MRU objects and tracking cookies,

belarc advisor is all ok, no troublesome updates,

I have recently uninstalled Norton2007 and am now using AVG, and my computer did seem to get back to its usual speed, other than that are there any other suggestions anyone has for me?

O and my google constantly redirects everything I type in it, and have used, windows defender, adaware, spybot, and am currently using spyware blaster and cant seem to find anthing at all related to the redirecting.

 

Post a Hijack This log. Might give some leads.

 

Hi, croth.

I concur with mattman.

Click here to download "HJTsetup.exe ".

1. Save HJTsetup.exe to your desktop.
2. Double-click on the HJTsetup.exe icon on your desktop.
   (By default it will install to C:\Program Files\Hijackthis)
3. Continue to click Next in the setup dialogue boxes until you get to the Select Additional Tasks dialogue.
4. Put a check by Create a desktop icon and then click Next again.
5. Continue to follow the rest of the prompts from there.
6. At the final dialogue box click Finish and it will launch HijackThis.
7. Click on the Do a system scan and save a log file button.
   (It will scan and the log should open in Notepad.)
8. Click on "Edit" > "Select All" to higlight the entire Notepad contents.
9. Then click on "Edit" > "Copy ".
10. Come back here to this thread and Paste the log in your next reply.
    (Right-click in the message body field and select "Paste ".)

CAUTION: DO NOT have HijackThis "fix" anything without carefully following expert guidance. Otherwise, you might render your computer unstable or even unbootable. Most of what HijackThis finds will be harmless or even required.

I suspect your C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS file has been tampered with. If you have not installed any custom HOSTS file, then the default one should have only the following line active.

127.0.0.1 localhost

(Inactive "comment" lines in the HOSTS file begin with the # symbol.)

You can probably open the HOSTS file with Notepad to view its contents. I suspect there are several active lines in your HOSTS file that do not begin with 127.0.0.1 and have other IP addresses instead (i.e., for www.google.com).

In any case, a HijackThis log might help us sort this issue out.