[Wolf802]

Hi, all. I've made some posts here before about a year (and a half?) ago about some virus issues, that, though somewhat tediously, you guys were able to help me fix, especially with the help of CookieGal.

Anyhow, I'm back again, about a different problem and different computer. A Sony Vaio laptop running Windows XP. Its specs are:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002.
Service Pack 2.

VAIO Computer
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU
T7400 @ 2.16GHZ
2.17GHz, 1.99GB of RAM

Anyhow. About a month ago it caught some viruses which seemed to just completely wipe out the internet on it, and nothing fixed it besides reformatting to factory settings. Besides the fact that some things had to be 're-calibrated' to the way the computer was before the incident, it was working just fine. For a little while.
Over the course of a few weeks (not even a month), about a week or so after the reformat, the computer slowed down and became sluggish, unresponsive, and even seeming to have a mind of its own sometimes.
Internet Explorer would freeze and crash at random intervals, along with Windows Explorer and numerous other programs. Often times I'd attempt to end the unresponsive programs, only to have even the end process approach through task manager just freeze up when it asks you if you'd like to end the process (as it might be something important that's supposed to be running).
I'd try to open My Computer and it'd be 5 minutes before the window even would come up, and then it would freeze and say it's unresponsive. I've checked the CPU usage and the commit charge. The CPU usage hardly ever goes above 20%, and the commit charge is hovering in the 1000/4000 range.
To be quite frank, the computer's just been acting very strange altogether with lots of various instances I could describe, but I won't right now.
Another notable thing, though. It seems to keep making 'click' sounds like when you click on an item of some sort at random intervals, and then the internet page might change or something like that, despite the fact that I never clicked anything.
Before the virus problems, the computer ran amazingly well and I NEVER had problems with it. And if it ever did slow down, a restart would easily fix it.

So...hopefully this is something you guys will be able to help me fix, and hopefully get my computer back to running smooth like it was. I really need it for business AND personal work. I'll happily provide any other information you guys might need. Thanks!

P.S.: I'm typing this up from a different computer was the Vaio is...well...not wanting to run IE, or any other browser really...
Also, I've done a disk defragment and that did very little.

[Phantom010]

You should update to SP3.

[lisss]

You can try chkdsk /f just in case. It seems simple thing, but in the case of similar problem(lost all internet connection, firewall, slow xp), it helped. Maybe it was virus, maybe not, but the ipsec file and some others were corrupted until chkdsk solved it and i was able to replace them. Until chkdsk i didn't even know that i have corrupted files.
I too checked for viruses first, found some, but it didn't entirely solve the problem.
Also look in my computer/manage/system tools/event viewer/system and look what red errors you have. They are very useful in pinpointing where the real problem lays.
Hope something from this will help you too.

[flavallee]

Do the following in the order listed:

Format that computer back to its original factory settings.

Upgrade Windows XP SP2 to SP3.

Go to Windows Updates/Microsoft Updates and do a custom scan, then select and install the post-SP3 high-priority updates so you can get Windows XP completely up-to-date.

Install HiJackThis 2.0.4, then do a system scan and save the log file, then copy-and-paste it here.

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