[ec1684]

Hello,

I thought that my home computer was "acting up" due to malware or spyware, so I went to Malware Removal.com (http://www.malwareremoval.com/). After approx. 2 weeks of correspondence with one of the experts there -- km2357 -- it was determined that my issues were probably not due to malware/spyware -- more likely I had a hardware/software problem. Here is a link to the thread that is on the malwareremoval.com website -- instead of describing the symptoms again I'll let you look this over first:

http://www.malwareremoval.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=30003

[I belive that I stated in my intro comments that my computer was an a600 series HP Pavilion. I posted that from my place of work (so I was not at my home computer @ that time). It is actually an a775c HP Pavilion.]

Please let me know what else I can do to help you to find a solution to my slow running computer. I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can offer.

Thank you very much,

Eric

[jasaiyajin]

Use Process Explorer and identify for us what process(es) may be taking up a high amount of CPU. If you right click on the process, select properties, and look under the "services" tab - if there's a list of services, please list them here, if not, just provide the process name that's taking up your CPU speed.

That model of HP should have at least 512 MB of ram, it is adequate to keep Windows XP running smoothly.

[ec1684]

Hello jasaiyajin,

(I tired to respond to your first message and somehow lost it. So here goes again.)

I did not have Process Explorer, so I downloaded it and it is running now. There seem to be many processes running and -- after I have right-clicked -- I do not see Services associated with each process. I only see a Services tab when I right-click on a process that is highlighted pink. There are several that have pink highlighting.

What next? Is this similar to pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL in sequence? That brings up the Task Manager, right?

Thanks for you help,

Eric Canfield

[ec1684]

Jasaiyajin,

Hello again,

Perhaps I do not understand how to use this site -- are you planning to respond or is someone else? I did not get a reply or do not know how to access your reply.

Please respond. Thank you,

Eric Canfield

[oshwyn5]

Okay, first thing to do could you go to my computer and right click on it and choose properties?
ON the General Tab at the bottom it should list your processor speed and amount of RAM.
Could you post that? As noted, with XP you want at least 512MB or RAM.



Go to my computer and right click on the drive which has windows (C: drive in your case) and choose properties. How big is the drive? How much space is used ? How much is free? If you have to little free space (windows likes having 20% free for optimum efficiency since many things are set to a percentage of the drive space) . If your drive does not have enough free space we can work with you to decrease the amount of space taken up by system restore, recycle bin, temp internet files etc.




Next thing to do, please hit the key combo of
Ctrl+Alt+Del
or go to start / run and type
taskmgr
and hit enter
This will bring up your task manager
Select the process tab.
Look under the column labled CPU. Is anything other than system IDLE (the percentage of time your cpu is sitting idle with nothing to do ) higher than say 20%? If it is a svchost entry showing high usage it is probably an automatic updater either windows update or your antivirus which has jammed at an update. The solution here is to go into control panel / security center and disable automatic update for windows, Go into your antivirus and turn off its automatic updater. Then manually launch windows update and get all critical updates and recommended software updates. Manually launch your antivirus updater and get all updates there. IT is generally best in this situation to get the updates one at a time so you may have to make several trips back to run the updater. Once done re enable automatic updates.


C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VS7DEBUG\MDM.EXE
Please launch Internet Explorer and go to tools=> internet options => advanced
Check the box Disable Script debugging Internet explorer
Check the box Disable Script debugging Other
Uncheck the box notify me of every script error.
Unless you are a web page author debugging Visual Basic and Javascript on web pages you are authoring there is no need to be running this.

C:\Program Files\Google\Google Desktop Search\GoogleDesktop.exe
Unless you actually use this and need it ; I would uninstall it or at least disable it. There are many cases of it conflicting with windows and causing a big slowdown.
http://blog.proud-geek.com/2007/06/1...computer-down/
for example
THE FACT THAT IT IS RUNNING TWICE MAKES ME THINK THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM ITEM.


Did this slowdown just creep up on you? Or was it a sudden developement?

[jasaiyajin]

Sorry it's been so long, I've been away and this site was being remodeled. I'm looking for a process that is taking up a high CPU amount.

With task manager, it will tell you the process name and the CPU usage. However, process explorer will help pinpoint the process and services associated with it. For example, svchost.exe will usually be running more than one at a time in the task manager with each running different services that process explorer goes further and displays. It's simply a tool to figure out what, if any, files or services are using a high amount of CPU.