Resolved internet explorer or outlook express it takes a long time to open

Hi guys
I have a laptop, old Compaq Evo N610 with windows XP Pro. Sp3 installed and all updates installed.
When I open internet explorer or outlook express it takes a long time to open.
This BBS is my start page and even though it tells me after a search that it only took 0.5 seconds, it takes explorer 20 seconds to display the page. The hard drive light is on during that time. Some times, for no reason it wants to redraw the whole page including toolbars and icons and the hard drive light stays on. After 15 to 20 seconds I have control again. If I change page it starts all over again.

As an experiment I started windows in safe mode with networking, and the problem is gone. All pages open a lot faster and I get my mail faster.

Some times I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up task manager and it is always the same file that uses the most processor % The file is MsMpEng.exe sometimes 80%.

What is the problem?

If you think I have a virus, let me know and I repost in that forum with the logs attached

Thanks
Sven

 

"MsMpEng.exe" is part of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). You can try reducing its CPU usage its Settings tab: Click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Security Essentials. Click the Settings tab, select (check) the box to the left of "Limit CPU usage during scan to: ", then select something like "30%" in the pull-down at the right end of that line. Close MSE, reboot and then see if that helps any. If not, you might try replacing MSE with Avast.

 

Thanks to both of you.

I adjusted the CPU usage down to 30%, but it says “while scanning” at the time this happens it was not scanning, so I don’t think that did anything.

Evan, I could not download the guided help file, so I did it the manual way. I don’t see any improvement.
After loading a page, it says “done” at the lower left corner, but I will not have control of the page till about 10 to 15 second later. My scroll wheel on my mouse will not scroll the page till then.
Am I just to demanding on this old thing? It has a Pentium M4 in it and 758 ram.
Thanks
Sven

 

Yes I have ie8 installed and only 1 add-on (flash player) active.
Also I should mention that i only use the laptop when I can not get to my regular system.
You can view the specs on that and it flies compared to this, so I am a little spoiled.
I guess I mark this resolved

Thanks
Sven

 

Evan,
I also use slim browser and have the same problem.
When I got the system about 2 years ago, I paid 100.00 dollars for it.
I only use it when I go out of town to get my e-mail.
So it is not in use very much. Putting any money into this thing would be a waist of money in my book.

Again, thanks for trying to help

Sven