Unresponsiveness

This XP machine always seems to run rather sluggishly. The hard drive light is always on and shutdowns always hang on the "Windows is shutting down" splash screen (the power button needs to be held down until hard power off, otherwise the machine stays on indefinitely). Additionally, IE8 cannot load the Windows Update website and times out.

Specs: Pentium 4 2.66GHz, 512MB DDR1, Geforce4 MX 440, 120GB 5400RPM IDE, XP Home SP3 32-bit

The only software I have running in the background is Microsoft Security Essentials. Its log says a trojan was detected and eliminated on July 29th.

Surely we don't need quad-core computer to run IE8?

 

Can you upgrade your memory to at least 2GB. That would be a start for the sluggishness. Can you open up the case and push down on the memory to make sure its seated properly. Just to rule out chip creep.

 

Run chkdsk /f on all partitions of hard disk.

Your system seems to be contaminated. Head over to Malware & Virus Removal Section.

 

Ok, after reformatting, running chkdsk /r and defragmentating, the computer is much more responsive. The motherboard can accept up to 1GB of RAM, so that means if I can push all the IDE cables out of the way of the second slot, the upgrade should be possible if I buy a second 512MB stick of DDR-333/ PC2700.

There's only one problem: Microsoft Updates doesn't work. I allow the installation of the ActiveX and have the system scanned for possible updates. It never finishes, that infinite progress bar slides back and forth forever. I've had to manually download and install Service Pack 3 (the recovery images only has SP1) and Internet Explorer 8.

 

I had to disable "Microsoft Updates" and revert to "Windows Updates" in order for the website to work. Why doesn't MU work?