Dragging Computer

[thiggy]

My home computer has now for several weeks been extremely slow. It takes several minutes to boot up initially. I am on a cable ISP. It takes forever to go from one screen to another, or one site to another. The indicator light on my CPU shows that it is spending a great deal of time 'reading' the hard drive. When I look at Task Manager, it shows very high percentage of CPU usage, often 100%. I have run my diagnostics and it says that I do not need to defrag the hard drive. I have been told that if I have too many items in start-up that may cause my problems, and I will be checking it this evening. Can anyone give me some suggestions from afar that might help me to clear up this slow-down? Thanks

[crokett]

My first guess is spyware/malware/etc. Spybot is a good anti-spyware program. There are others - I would download 2 or 3 of the free ones and run them. I would also take a look at the processes you have running. If you don't recognize the names, google the executable and it will tell you what it is.

[TJG]

During the boot up process, the CPU may hit 100%, since it's trying to start many programs, services, etc. After the computer has booted, go into task manager and check the Processes tab. System Idle Process should usually have a high CPU value if the computer is setting idle. You want to check the other processes and see if any of them suddenly jump in CPU usage. This may give you some idea of what program(s) are creating the problem.

[LCHIEN]

I agree with Crockett - take a look in Task manager, at the list of processes. See which ones are taking more than 10-20% of your CPU
and Google the name of the EXE file associated with the task to see if that is a spyware/virus.

[WayneJ]

Had a problem much the same as you are having . one of the techi's from my wifes compamy checked the computer over and said it was droping packets and was a cable problem. Called the isp and they had me replace all the spliters in the cable string. Puters back up to speed and the T.V. is much clearer now to. The wifes happy, I'm happy and it did'nt cost me ,freebe. I bought the techi from the wifes company a case of cold ones.

[Crash2510]

Sounds alot like spyware. A nice free program is adaware se personal by lavasoftusa
quick easy and free

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Are you running XP? What is your latest restore point? You could try restoring your system to a previous date when your system was running better. If it improves then start looking for the spyware/adware/malware etc. God I hate that stuff.

[scorrpio]

Constant HD access is most likely caused by all the processes that hog the CPU to also hog system memory. When PC runs low on real RAM, it starts using virtual RAM to swap things in and out of physical RAM. Virtual RAM is located on HD, hance constant access. I personally think that virtual memory is a bad joke - when PC needs to use it, it is about unusable anyway.

In any case, bring up your task manager, click 'processes' and sort by CPU utilization. Should ID the culprit pretty easily.

[gabedad]

adaware se and a program called hijack this should be able to tell you what's happening

[Deadhead]

If you think it is spyware/malware/whatever, the makers of Adaware (Lavasoft) have an awesome support forum:
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

Read all the "read here before posting" stuff and follow their instructions.


I had a particularly nasty malware last year that would lock me out of Task Manager and Lavasoftsupport was able to help me get rid of it and a few other things I had that I hadn't noticed.