RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 OK, mum-in-law's laptop. Packard Bell, Celeron something or other, 2.67GHz, 256MB ram. A reasonable spec, but running REALLY slowly, takes ages to run anything, pretty much since they got it over 18 months ago. Possibly since they got it from, yes you guessed it, a major highstreet PC retailer, whose "guarantee" turned out to be pants. Anyway, I finally get called in to have a look at it. They've got AVG and spybot, run searches, nada. Firewall and MS security all up to date and working. Try to download ad-aware from download.com, the SECOND I hit their page the computer crashes. Repeat this, crashes again. Hmmm. Suspicious. Tried the same process with a couple of other anti-malware programs at download.com, again it crashes - argghh! It's now 2am on bank holiday sunday. :angry: Eventually i get Ad-aware on there, just through trying different avenues to the download page, nothing obvious coming up, tried MS "Defender" beta, just came across some KazAa virus thing. Annhilated that, still slow. 5am I hit the sack, defeated. Poor RichM. OK, have I missed something obvious? What is going on here? Any suggestions? I think it's some malware/trojan horse thing, but for the life of me I can't find it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnd Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 - Your IDE drives are running PIO mode? (check google for that one) - Are all you drivers upto date? PS you need to mention which operating system is running Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 - Your IDE drives are running PIO mode? (check google for that one) - Are all you drivers upto date? PS you need to mention which operating system is running XP SP2 Will check out the PIO thing. Think drivers are up to date. There's nothing special there that needs a driver! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 You stayed up till 5am? I would have just reinstalled it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 You stayed up till 5am? I would have just reinstalled it! They don't have the XP disks anymore. Or Office etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 Why don't the high street retailers give out the disks with their machines? Aren't they being a tad tight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 I seem to remember that Microsoft won't let them give out real XP disks anymore. As for the machine, could the lack of RAM be a problem? I'm surprised XP even boots with 256MB... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righteous Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 OK, mum-in-law's laptop. Packard Bell, Celeron something or other, 2.67GHz, 256MB ram. A reasonable spec, but running REALLY slowly, takes ages to run anything, pretty much since they got it over 18 months ago. Possibly since they got it from, yes you guessed it, a major highstreet PC retailer, whose "guarantee" turned out to be pants. Anyway, I finally get called in to have a look at it. They've got AVG and spybot, run searches, nada. Firewall and MS security all up to date and working. Try to download ad-aware from download.com, the SECOND I hit their page the computer crashes. Repeat this, crashes again. Hmmm. Suspicious. Tried the same process with a couple of other anti-malware programs at download.com, again it crashes - argghh! It's now 2am on bank holiday sunday. :angry: Eventually i get Ad-aware on there, just through trying different avenues to the download page, nothing obvious coming up, tried MS "Defender" beta, just came across some KazAa virus thing. Annhilated that, still slow. 5am I hit the sack, defeated. Poor RichM. OK, have I missed something obvious? What is going on here? Any suggestions? I think it's some malware/trojan horse thing, but for the life of me I can't find it... It may sound strange at first but is the CPU fan working ? If not then your processor may be overheating and if so it automatically reduces its processing power by about 50% at first then down to about 20%. Eventually it will shut down. Also are you running it from the mains supply and not just the battery ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 Thanks everyone. Fan's working, mains in. MarkG - I know, but they're not running big games or anything, just Word and virus checkers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Righteous Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Make sure there is only one antivirus installed and only one firewall. Disconnect from the internet then reboot disable the antivirus and the firewall. Stay off the net while doing this. See how it goes and let me know. Does the hard drive make a lot of grinding noises ? I don’t mean like normal. Is there any background process’s going on, eg disk defragmenting etc ? Do Ctrl Alt Del and see what’s running. You could post a list and I will have a look through for you. While you’re there what’s the idle CPU running % ? What’s in your task bar ? Remove any CD DVD from the drives. Go into “device manager” and check there are no question marks for drivers. Any other software you know that has been installed other than the normal ? OK I hope that gives you something to play with for now. I will be working away Tuesday and Wednesday so I might not get chance to reply quickly. I will pop back to see how you got on though. If I forget PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theChuz Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Thanks everyone. Fan's working, mains in. MarkG - I know, but they're not running big games or anything, just Word and virus checkers. Apart from the obvious like running a disk checking utility (to make sure you havnt got a system file in a f*cked sector etc) and running sfc.exe to check/replace any corrupt system files, making sure system restore if OFF when removing nasties from the puter (it like to back them up) i can offer the little chesnut of disk space, make sure you have atleast 1.5 GB free disk space than windows can use as a swap area. Sounds alot dont it ... but it can actually need more than that depending on system config and applications. Delete all ya crappy temp files from failed shutdowns, clear all your internet related temps. If they have install/uninstall a LOT of stuff throw a defrag at it to. Most laptop hard drives are 5,200 rpm if i remember rightly? so you dont want it try to do disk writes all over the shop. Free hard drive space is critical when you dont have a lot of ram, windows itself needs the space just to get its fat ass to function let alone any programs you want to run. Also check out task manager and see if you have something gobbling up the cpu (i would do that first, ive seen corrupt start up program hammer the processor, and its the easiest thing to check). So much can go wrong with windows, i couldnt do any better myself but if it was a car i wouldnt drive it ( i do use xp though) anyone remember Windows ME it just didnt work. EDITED BTW 1.5 GB is a magic number ive made up from just seeing what works best, whether or not thats technically accurate i dont know but it works for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 Cheers guys, will chase those up. Sadly I'm back in the big smoke now, but will pass on my detailed instructions - MIL is fairly IT literate. As for a physical disk checker, is there one on XP somewhere? i do remember using scandisk on MDDOS, but again we're talking Britpop era stuff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theChuz Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Cheers guys, will chase those up. Sadly I'm back in the big smoke now, but will pass on my detailed instructions - MIL is fairly IT literate. As for a physical disk checker, is there one on XP somewhere? i do remember using scandisk on MDDOS, but again we're talking Britpop era stuff... Yea but you cant get to it through the run command (why bill why?) you right click on the drive icon then properties then tools its there as "error checking" or some ****** like that. Personally i use nortons disk doctor but thats not a freebie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 ...Apart from the obvious like running a disk checking utility (to make sure you havnt got a system file in a f*cked sector etc) and running sfc.exe to check/replace any corrupt system files, making sure system restore if OFF when removing nasties from the puter (it like to back them up) i can offer the little chesnut of disk space, make sure you have atleast 1.5 GB free disk space than windows can use as a swap area. ...Also check out task manager and see if you have something gobbling up the cpu (i would do that first, ive seen corrupt start up program hammer the processor, and its the easiest thing to check). Cheers Have checked task manager, there were a few things that looked dodgy that I've taken out. How do I make sure system restore is off? Disk space free was something like 14GB! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theChuz Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Cheers Have checked task manager, there were a few things that looked dodgy that I've taken out. How do I make sure system restore is off? Disk space free was something like 14GB! Start-> Programs -> Accessories -> system tools ->system restore, if its left on you run the risk of backing up a nastie which will keep showing up on a scan then you run the risk of restoring the thing. Personally i hate system restore with a passion so i leave it off. EDIT: oh and run -> msconfig -> startup and uncheck any drivel that its trying to load, generally xxxPornDialerxxx.exe is never a nice one to find there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 Yea but you cant get to it through the run command (why bill why?) you right click on the drive icon then properties then tools its there as "error checking" or some ****** like that. Personally i use nortons disk doctor but thats not a freebie It's all life skills I'm picking up here, nice one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theChuz Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 It's all life skills I'm picking up here, nice one Yea i just hope im not telling you a load of sh*t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 As for a physical disk checker, is there one on XP somewhere? i do remember using scandisk on MDDOS, but again we're talking Britpop era stuff... chkdsk c: (or whatever) will tell you if there are problems. chkdsk /f c: will fix the problems, but probably require you to reboot and then take half an hour to run. chkdsk /r will perform a thorough check and fix, but will take even longer to run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 30, 2006 Author Share Posted May 30, 2006 chkdsk c: (or whatever) will tell you if there are problems. chkdsk /f c: will fix the problems, but probably require you to reboot and then take half an hour to run. chkdsk /r will perform a thorough check and fix, but will take even longer to run. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzzMosiz Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Also run "Disk Cleanup", "Disk Defragmenter" and download a program to optimise the registery and remove any junk from it. Tune-Up is supposed to be decent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pharm Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 OK, have I missed something obvious? What is going on here? Any suggestions? I think it's some malware/trojan horse thing, but for the life of me I can't find it... Some trojans load extensions into the NT kernel which let them hide from virus scanners. You might get some joy out of starting the beast in Safe Mode (F8 during the boot process IIRC), and doing a scan then. Ideally, boot from some external known good source like a CD or floppy with a scanner on it. Eg Ultimate Boot CD or Ultimate BootCD for windows, or roll your own. That way you know that the scanning isn't being defeated by kernel mods... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichM Posted May 30, 2006 Author Share Posted May 30, 2006 Cheers guys. I really would be lost without you. Certain;y hadn't tried safe mode yet. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzzMosiz Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Cheers guys. I really would be lost without you. Certain;y hadn't tried safe mode yet. Richard Best to use Safe mode when doing a disk defrag too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnd Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Your running 256MB of memory - sounds like it's not enough and the PC is using the 'page file' on the harddrive and that is slowing the PC down To confirm this - press CONTROL-ALT AND DEL key together -> choose 'task manager' and look at the graphs If it's over 256MB 'memory usage' then that's the problem - you need more memory to reduce the PC's reliance on the 'page file' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OzzMosiz Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 To confirm this - press CONTROL-ALT AND DEL key together -> choose 'task manager' and look at the graphs Or hit CTRL-SHIFT-ESC to launch Task Manager. Another point about 'dnd' post above (which is a v good point) make sure programs like MSN, Quickview etc are not launching in the Tool bar (normally bottom right) 'waiting' after bootup - this just uses unnecessary resources. A lot of programs like Camera software etc does this too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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