Slow Computer

[ajbrun]

My computer has just started being quite slow starting up and logging onto the internet. It's going it's normal speed before it gets to the desktop, but starts being slow when it loads the antivirus, MSN and everything else. I just have to wait a while longer for it to load up .

When it loggs onto the internet however, it either loads for a really long time, or it just freezes and crashes (sometimes) .

I'm pretty sure this can't be anything to do with servce pack 2, because the problem happened after I installed it . I have recently installed MSN messenger though. Could this be the problem ?

Any help will be hugley appreciated (I hate slow computers ).

[Spunkey]

this happened to my missus laptop - it was fine until you go online with it, then it would slow down and die.
i bet if you look at your task manager it'll be IE thats hogging 100% of your cpu time.

i found it was a combination of a virus/spyware. check here for how to remove spyware from your system.

after i ran all those programs listed the machine was fine again.

HTH!

[ajbrun]

Oh yeah - I forgot to mention. I ran al the spyware, virus and error checking programs I have. I ran spybot, ad-aware, cw-shredder, windows de-frag, pc-cillin virus checker, windows error checking.

I'll look at the link you gave, but I've already done loads.

[ajbrun]

As I said in my last post, I ran most of the programs listed in the article. The only two I didn't run were hijack this and auto runs. The article says hijack this should only be run by advance users because it can harm the system if not used correctly, so I didn't want to touch that. But I did run auto runs, and I don't think it came up with anything I didn't recognise.

[yamangman]

Presumably your running either XP/2000

Get taskmanager up, give it a few seconds after you've logged in and loaded up, and tell us what processes your running. For the crashes, check your application logs in the Management Console.

[ajbrun]

I have loads. I'll just take a screenshot and load it on the web. Check back, the link will appear.

I cancelled a few programs after a few suggestions. I restarted, and it's a bit better, I'll try to cancel a few more if the problem comes up again.

[ajbrun]

Here's the link: http://upfree.mihopa.com/store/Processes.bmp

[yamangman]

Your right theres a fair few there. Instead of telling you what you dont need, have a look at this little list to see what you need for pretty much the bare minimum.

Bear in mind F-StopW.exe is my antivirus, and zlclient.exe and vsmon.exe are my firewall. All of the rest are Windows processes that you should have running. I say this becuase some of the processes you have there you may need.



Run 'msconfig.exe'
and 'services.msc'

to stop processes running at startup.

A good idea is to google the process names you are unsure about to see if you need them or not. On the services tab check 'hide Microsoft services' to see only 3rd party ones and remove what you need to. On the startup tab remove the services you need to. I shouldn't worry too much about services.msc.

E.g.

[Allen]

I'm not up on all the latest viruses as I haven't had any probs for a while, but nothing seems to be out of place on that list, as far as I can see.

Go to View -> Select Columns and tick CPU Time. Then sort the column by time and watch it to see if any one particular program hogs CPU cycles. Also check the memory used up by those programs, see if the memory is having troubles.

[ajbrun]

I can't find some of the processes in the programs you suggested I run. In the msconfig one, there's only 4 non microsoft ones, andonly 2 of them are in use (anti virus). For example, I can't find Tmntsrv.exe. If I can't find them in the lists, then how can I stop them?

I have to go out soon, so I'll google a few of the names later

[yamangman]

Don't forget the startup tab in msconfig, there will be loadsa stuff in there.

[ajbrun]

The only one in there that I don't know what it is is ctfmon.exe in system32 - I'll google it later.

[Allen]

ctfmon.exe is a Windows process. No probs with that. Dunno if it's vital though.

[yamangman]

Still, you may want to look into turning some of them off, I mean, they altogether use almost 200mb of memory, not including what you may have open when browsing, like your connection manager, browser and maybe media player your running out of RAM. Mine dont use even 80mb of RAM.

Tells us what your Windows logs says about your application crashes. Maybe its a particular process thats giving you problems.

[ajbrun]

So the answer is to google everything, which I will do when I have time.

[ajbrun]

It all seems to be starting up quicker now, but it still often crashes when I go on the net. It usually only does this when I go on the internet after being on the computer for some time, but if I connect straight away, it seems to work fine.