Computer has slowed way down

[bayskater]

I have an emachines T6520 computer with Windows XP Media Center edition
Service Pack 3 with 2.40Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor.128 Kb primary memory
cache 512 Kb secondary memory cache. 896 Megabytes installed memory.
My c drive has 150.17 Gb free.

I'm up-to-date on all of Microsoft hot fixes for Windows.
I use AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy and Super Anti- Spyware frequently.
I have McAfee Security system and recently ran a complete scan with no
troubles found. Usually when I try to defrag it says not necessary to
defrag, but a couple of days ago I did a defrag and it did not help .
I'm far from being an expert, but from what I've read it seems like I may
have too many programs on Startup and too much stuff running in the back
ground using up memory (or is it system resources?) The big users of memory
(using CAD) are:
iexplore.exe 23,088K
msimn.exe 54,900K
msntask.exe 38,544K
Mcshield.exe 101,124K
explorer.exe 15,348K
AAWService.exe 18,480K
sychost.exe 17,240K
There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47% up to
100%

Looking at the startup tab in msconfig I see about 25 items listed. Some I
can recognize as names of programs, but most have names I don't recognize
(such as atiptaxx, PDVDserv,Zhotkey Etc..) I copied several of the unknowns
into Google searches and, mostly I found vague descriptions and comments
such as "Not dangerous, not necessary, but recommend keeping it unless it is
known to be causing problems" I unchecked about 6 of them and don't notice
any difference in performance.

Finally, my question:
Can anyone suggest a sensible way to approach clearing out unnecessary stuff
in my Startup and Ctl/Alt/Del list of running processes? It would seem that
if I deleted them one-at-a-time, it would take forever and would be hard to
know if taking one out had made a difference. And, does it seem like this is
a good approach to speeding my computer up?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Fred

 

[nass]

I have an emachines T6520 computer with Windows XP Media Center edition
Service Pack 3 with 2.40Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor.128 Kb primary memory
cache 512 Kb secondary memory cache. 896 Megabytes installed memory.
My c drive has 150.17 Gb free.

I'm up-to-date on all of Microsoft hot fixes for Windows.
I use AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy and Super Anti- Spyware frequently.
I have McAfee Security system and recently ran a complete scan with no
troubles found. Usually when I try to defrag it says not necessary to
defrag, but a couple of days ago I did a defrag and it did not help .
I'm far from being an expert, but from what I've read it seems like I may
have too many programs on Startup and too much stuff running in the back
ground using up memory (or is it system resources?) The big users of memory
(using CAD) are:
iexplore.exe 23,088K
msimn.exe 54,900K
msntask.exe 38,544K
Mcshield.exe 101,124K
explorer.exe 15,348K
AAWService.exe 18,480K
sychost.exe 17,240K
There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47% up to
100%

Looking at the startup tab in msconfig I see about 25 items listed. Some I
can recognize as names of programs, but most have names I don't recognize
(such as atiptaxx, PDVDserv,Zhotkey Etc..) I copied several of the unknowns
into Google searches and, mostly I found vague descriptions and comments
such as "Not dangerous, not necessary, but recommend keeping it unless it is
known to be causing problems" I unchecked about 6 of them and don't notice
any difference in performance.

Finally, my question:
Can anyone suggest a sensible way to approach clearing out unnecessary stuff
in my Startup and Ctl/Alt/Del list of running processes? It would seem that
if I deleted them one-at-a-time, it would take forever and would be hard to
know if taking one out had made a difference. And, does it seem like this is
a good approach to speeding my computer up?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Fred

Hi Fred,
Are you sure this process spell right sychost.exe 17,240K or is it
svchost.exe?

If you typed it correct then your machine is infected and you need to run a
thorough scan by doing these cleaning steps:

sychost.exe LEOX.B VIRUS
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2004-032016-5436-99&tabid=2

Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the Non/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
Malwarebytes© Corporation - Anti-Malware
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam/program/mbam-setup.exe

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx

Run disk clean up on your C:\ Drive.

HTH
nass

 

[bayskater]

I have an emachines T6520 computer with Windows XP Media Center edition
Service Pack 3 with 2.40Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor.128 Kb primary memory
cache 512 Kb secondary memory cache. 896 Megabytes installed memory.
My c drive has 150.17 Gb free.

I'm up-to-date on all of Microsoft hot fixes for Windows.
I use AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy and Super Anti- Spyware
frequently.
I have McAfee Security system and recently ran a complete scan with no
troubles found. Usually when I try to defrag it says not necessary to
defrag, but a couple of days ago I did a defrag and it did not help .
I'm far from being an expert, but from what I've read it seems like I may
have too many programs on Startup and too much stuff running in the back
ground using up memory (or is it system resources?) The big users of
memory
(using CAD) are:
iexplore.exe 23,088K
msimn.exe 54,900K
msntask.exe 38,544K
Mcshield.exe 101,124K
explorer.exe 15,348K
AAWService.exe 18,480K
sychost.exe 17,240K
There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47% up
to
100%

Looking at the startup tab in msconfig I see about 25 items listed. Some
I
can recognize as names of programs, but most have names I don't recognize
(such as atiptaxx, PDVDserv,Zhotkey Etc..) I copied several of the
unknowns
into Google searches and, mostly I found vague descriptions and comments
such as "Not dangerous, not necessary, but recommend keeping it unless it
is
known to be causing problems" I unchecked about 6 of them and don't
notice
any difference in performance.

Finally, my question:
Can anyone suggest a sensible way to approach clearing out unnecessary
stuff
in my Startup and Ctl/Alt/Del list of running processes? It would seem
that
if I deleted them one-at-a-time, it would take forever and would be hard
to
know if taking one out had made a difference. And, does it seem like this
is
a good approach to speeding my computer up?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Fred

Hi Fred,
Are you sure this process spell right sychost.exe 17,240K or is it
svchost.exe?

If you typed it correct then your machine is infected and you need to run
a
thorough scan by doing these cleaning steps:

sychost.exe LEOX.B VIRUS
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2004-032016-5436-99&tabid=2

Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button
called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click
on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on
[
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on
your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there
Disable
the Non/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them
one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit .
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:
SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
Malwarebytes© Corporation - Anti-Malware
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam/program/mbam-setup.exe

Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx

Run disk clean up on your C:\ Drive.

HTH
nass

Thanks, nass.

My bad. Taking another look it is svchost.exe and the mem. usage has dropped
to 2,296K. Must get my eyeglasses upgraded.

Fred

 

[DL]

If your PC is idle, in processes only the system Idle proccess should show
any significant cpu useage
Provided your sys is clean and has sufficient memory (it does) & free space
(it does) 56 processes should not impact on performance.
Any start up shown in your system tray often has an option to disable the
auto start with Win

Try booting your sys into Safe mode and see how it then performs
Using MSUpdate to install drivers, as apposed to Critical Updates only, can
cause various issues.
Personally, even when I'm visiting sites I shouldnt, I dont run malaware
apps more than once a month, and even then they rarely find anything
significant

 

[Richard Urban]

I have an emachines T6520 computer with Windows XP Media Center edition
Service Pack 3 with 2.40Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor.128 Kb primary memory
cache 512 Kb secondary memory cache. 896 Megabytes installed memory.
My c drive has 150.17 Gb free.

I'm up-to-date on all of Microsoft hot fixes for Windows.
I use AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy and Super Anti- Spyware
frequently. I have McAfee Security system and recently ran a complete scan
with no troubles found. Usually when I try to defrag it says not necessary
to defrag, but a couple of days ago I did a defrag and it did not help .
I'm far from being an expert, but from what I've read it seems like I may
have too many programs on Startup and too much stuff running in the back
ground using up memory (or is it system resources?) The big users of
memory (using CAD) are:
iexplore.exe 23,088K
msimn.exe 54,900K
msntask.exe 38,544K
Mcshield.exe 101,124K
explorer.exe 15,348K
AAWService.exe 18,480K
sychost.exe 17,240K
There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47% up to
100%

Looking at the startup tab in msconfig I see about 25 items listed. Some I
can recognize as names of programs, but most have names I don't recognize
(such as atiptaxx, PDVDserv,Zhotkey Etc..) I copied several of the
unknowns into Google searches and, mostly I found vague descriptions and
comments such as "Not dangerous, not necessary, but recommend keeping it
unless it is known to be causing problems" I unchecked about 6 of them and
don't notice any difference in performance.

Finally, my question:
Can anyone suggest a sensible way to approach clearing out unnecessary
stuff in my Startup and Ctl/Alt/Del list of running processes? It would
seem that if I deleted them one-at-a-time, it would take forever and would
be hard to know if taking one out had made a difference. And, does it seem
like this is a good approach to speeding my computer up?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Fred

If it were my computer, and I wanted to speed it up, I would uninstall
McAfee. I would not substitute Symantec/Norton in its place.

There are many decent antivirus/anti malware programs that are free even.

Avast FREE: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

AVG FREE: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download?prd=afg

Microsoft Security Essentials:
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Threatfire: http://www.threatfire.com/

MalwareBytes Anti Malware: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

[bayskater]

Thanks, DL.
You're right. When my computer is idle, only System Idle Process shows any
CPU usage. (anywhere from 00 to 99). But many of the processes shown show as
using significant memory.

I right-clicked on several of the tray icons and none showed an option to
disable the auto-start, but I guess I could do that in msconfig startup if I
wished.

I tried booting into Safe Mode (first time I've ever done that on XP). Hard
to tell if any improvement in speed as can't even get to my internet home
page in that mode or another commonly used site. The "slowness" I've been
concerned with is the time it takes to go to a website or that it takes for
the links to work at the sites. When I get to a site, there's a delay before
my scroll-wheel begins to work for me.
When I said I use the anti-spyware pgms. "frequently" I meant every 3-4
weeks unless somthing is acting strangely.

A few years ago when reading from these MS forums, I believe someone said
"You should be able to shut down all processes except explorer.exe without
causing any problems" and could do so to troubleshoot problems. Is that
true?
Am I wrong to suspect that some program is gobbling up my memory and hence
slowing my computer down ? . Some of the slowness is evident even when I'm
using the computer off-line.
I've never used "disk cleanup". I've been afraid that it may dump some of my
programs that I haven't used recently, but still want.
Would you recommend me taking that risk?

Thanks, ... Fred

 

[Richard Urban]

Answers in-line!

Thanks, DL.
You're right. When my computer is idle, only System Idle Process shows any
CPU usage. (anywhere from 00 to 99). But many of the processes shown show
as using significant memory.

I right-clicked on several of the tray icons and none showed an option to
disable the auto-start, but I guess I could do that in msconfig startup if
I wished.

********************************************
********************************************

You have to go into the program that places the startup icon in the
notification area - usually under options or preferences. Look in each area
to find out how to stop a program from running at Windows Start.

********************************************
********************************************

I tried booting into Safe Mode (first time I've ever done that on XP).
Hard to tell if any improvement in speed as can't even get to my internet
home page in that mode or another commonly used site. The "slowness" I've
been concerned with is the time it takes to go to a website or that it
takes for the links to work at the sites. When I get to a site, there's a
delay before my scroll-wheel begins to work for me.

********************************************
********************************************

Uninstall McAfee and you may just see your surfing speed increase
tremendously.

********************************************
********************************************

When I said I use the anti-spyware pgms. "frequently" I meant every 3-4
weeks unless somthing is acting strangely.

********************************************
********************************************

Why every 3-4 weeks? Why not weekly?

********************************************
********************************************

A few years ago when reading from these MS forums, I believe someone said
"You should be able to shut down all processes except explorer.exe without
causing any problems" and could do so to troubleshoot problems. Is that
true?

********************************************
********************************************

If you don't know what you are shutting down - don't do it! You can do a web
search on every single process that is running to see if the process is
necessary for the O/S to function properly.

********************************************
********************************************

Am I wrong to suspect that some program is gobbling up my memory and hence
slowing my computer down ? . Some of the slowness is evident even when I'm
using the computer off-line.

********************************************
********************************************

That is why you Task Manager. You have to set the columns so you can see the
memory you are interested in. Click on the Process Tab, then View, then
Select Columns. Place a check in what you want to monitor. Then do so!

********************************************
********************************************

I've never used "disk cleanup". I've been afraid that it may dump some of
my programs that I haven't used recently, but still want.
Would you recommend me taking that risk?

********************************************
********************************************

Any automated cleaning tool has to be used along with YOUR judgement! If YOU
don't review what the tool has found, and wants to clean up - YOU live with
the consequences!

********************************************
********************************************

Thanks, ... Fred

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience/Security

 

[bayskater]

If it were my computer, and I wanted to speed it up, I would uninstall
McAfee. I would not substitute Symantec/Norton in its place.

There are many decent antivirus/anti malware programs that are free even.

Avast FREE: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

AVG FREE: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download?prd=afg

Microsoft Security Essentials:
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Threatfire: http://www.threatfire.com/

MalwareBytes Anti Malware: http://www.malwarebytes.org/

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience & Security

The more I read about computer slowness problems, the more confusing it
gets.
Searching for user comments on the free programs listed above showed all of
them are knocked by at least some of the users.
Lots of advice to Clean my registry and lots more to beware of registry
cleaners.
The McAfee program I'm using is offered free to Comcast customers. I
abandoned Norton/Symantec years ago and would never go back to it.
One site even advised backing up everything and re-installing XP.
Any thoughts on my question about using "disk cleanup" in Windows System
Tools?
How about "end process" for all my running processes?
What pgms do I really NEED in my Startup?
What really NEEDS to be running in the background?
Maybe I should just learn to love my slow computer?

Any experience with Uniblue Registry Booster program?

Thanks, ... Fred

 

[Richard Urban]

The more I read about computer slowness problems, the more confusing it
gets.
Searching for user comments on the free programs listed above showed all
of them are knocked by at least some of the users.
Lots of advice to Clean my registry and lots more to beware of registry
cleaners.
The McAfee program I'm using is offered free to Comcast customers. I
abandoned Norton/Symantec years ago and would never go back to it.
One site even advised backing up everything and re-installing XP.
Any thoughts on my question about using "disk cleanup" in Windows System
Tools?
How about "end process" for all my running processes?
What pgms do I really NEED in my Startup?
What really NEEDS to be running in the background?
Maybe I should just learn to love my slow computer?

Any experience with Uniblue Registry Booster program?

Thanks, ... Fred

Please, for your sanity, forget about using any registry tools except for
the tool included with the operating system. It is a manual tool and, if you
don't know or research what you plan to do in the registry - you shouldn't
be in there!

 

[bayskater]

Please, for your sanity, forget about using any registry tools except for
the tool included with the operating system. It is a manual tool and, if
you don't know or research what you plan to do in the registry - you
shouldn't be in there!

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience & Security

T hanks, Richard
I can see now that I've opened a can of worms. I'll proceed cautiously and
not ask for advice for any shortcuts.
I'll dump McAfee when I find something to replace it that looks like I can
have confidence in it. Apparently you feel that that's the answer to my
problems. At least I've learned where the notification area is and that
there is such a thing as a registry tool included in the operating system.
(and if I ever come across it NOT to use it).

Fred

 

[Daave]

(Replies inline.)

I have an emachines T6520 computer with Windows XP Media Center
edition Service Pack 3 with 2.40Ghz AMD Athlon 64 processor.128 Kb
primary memory cache 512 Kb secondary memory cache. 896 Megabytes
installed memory. My c drive has 150.17 Gb free.

Have you installed all the latest Windows critical updates?

896MB is a weird figure. Might you have 1GB of RAM and some of it is
being used by your motherboard's onboard graphics card?

1GB (or 896MB) is usually more than enough for most XP users. But when
you start running programs that require more physical memory than you
actually have, the phenomenon of paging occurs, which can really slow a
system down! Sometimes all that is necessary is adding more RAM.

A quick way to determine if you are relying too heavily on your pagefile
is to open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab.
Then note the three values under Commit Charge (K): in the lower
left-hand corner: Total, Limit, and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.

What are your figures?

In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode didn't
change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

I'm up-to-date on all of Microsoft hot fixes for Windows.
I use AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy and Super Anti- Spyware
frequently.

AdAware and Spybot S&D were once top-notch, but they have fallen out of
favor with many. Also people running IE8 have reported problems if they
also ran Spybot (but I believe there is a fix for that). And sometimes
AdAware can muck things up performance-wise (or at least it used to).

SAS is a good anti-malware program. I would keep this one and uninstall
the other two, And definitely run MBAM.

I have McAfee Security system and recently ran a complete
scan with no troubles found.

Both McAfee and Norton are well-known resource hogs. I wouldn't be
surprised if all or part of your problem is because McAfee is running.
I'd uninstall it, using their removal tool if necessary:

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507

NOD32 is a superior program, and it is anything but a resource hog. If
you're looking for a *free* antivirus alternative, AVG, Avast, and
AntiVir are all good.

Usually when I try to defrag it says not
necessary to defrag, but a couple of days ago I did a defrag and it
did not help .

Defragging isn't as important to Windows as it once was (that is, an
NT-based OS like XP doesn't need it like Windows 98 did). I would still
defrag, but two or three times a year is probably fine.

I'm far from being an expert, but from what I've read it seems like I
may have too many programs on Startup and too much stuff running in
the back ground using up memory (or is it system resources?)

The way to determine that is by the Task Manager exercise I gave you
above. It might be too many. Or not.

The big
users of memory (using CAD) are:
iexplore.exe 23,088K
msimn.exe 54,900K
msntask.exe 38,544K
Mcshield.exe 101,124K

Whoah, Nelly! Uninstall that beast!!!!! (McAfee.)

explorer.exe 15,348K
AAWService.exe 18,480K

I see no reason for AdAware to have a startup process. Just run it
whenever *you* want to do so. Better yet, uninstall it.

sychost.exe 17,240K

In another post, I see you corrected that: svchost.exe

There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47%
up to 100%

And the top five (and their CPU usage ranges) are?

Looking at the startup tab in msconfig I see about 25 items listed.
Some I can recognize as names of programs, but most have names I
don't recognize (such as atiptaxx, PDVDserv,Zhotkey Etc..) I copied
several of the unknowns into Google searches and, mostly I found
vague descriptions and comments such as "Not dangerous, not
necessary, but recommend keeping it unless it is known to be causing
problems" I unchecked about 6 of them and don't notice any difference
in performance.

It's possible to have a whole mess of these and not have a problem with
a performance. If they are not using too many CPU cycles and if the RAM
you have is adequate (to prevent paging), you need not worry about
these. Then again, a few may be problematic. The figures will tell you.

Finally, my question:
Can anyone suggest a sensible way to approach clearing out
unnecessary stuff in my Startup and Ctl/Alt/Del list of running
processes? It would seem that if I deleted them one-at-a-time, it
would take forever and would be hard to know if taking one out had
made a difference. And, does it seem like this is a good approach to
speeding my computer up?

Use the halving method. Disable all. Note performance. Re-enable half.
Note any changes. Repeat until you narrow it down to one.

So, say you have 40 programs. Disable 20. If performance is just as bad,
then you know it's still the fault of the 20 remaining, so disable 10 of
those, etc.

You can do the same with services in the Services Tab. Just make sure
you check the box next to "Hide All Microsoft Services" so that you
don't prevent a needed service from running!

Keep in mind that using msconfig is a diagnostic exercise. If there are
programs you want to keep but would like to prevent them from
automatically starting at each boot, you really should go into each
program's preferences to accomplish this (this is the preferred way;
otherwise you might find a brand new entry for the same process (!)
appearing in msconfig after the next boot!).

In another post, you had asked about registry cleaners. This page should
explain the reason to avoid them:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/61015-xp-fixes-myth-1-registry-cleaners.html

The bottom line is that they don't offer any noticeable performance
boost. And since their use could produce a situation that is undesirable
(like not being able to boot into Windows!), they are not recommended by
most knowledgeable people.

 

[Richard Urban]

T hanks, Richard
I can see now that I've opened a can of worms. I'll proceed cautiously and
not ask for advice for any shortcuts.
I'll dump McAfee when I find something to replace it that looks like I can
have confidence in it. Apparently you feel that that's the answer to my
problems. At least I've learned where the notification area is and that
there is such a thing as a registry tool included in the operating system.
(and if I ever come across it NOT to use it).

Fred

More people than I can count have destroyed their computer (turned it into a
paper weight) by careless changes to the registry either manually, or by
registry cleaners.

As far as anti virus goes, please give Microsoft Security Essentials a
chance. I have put it on all of my families computers and on the computers
of my friends and customers. I have not had a complaint yet.

And yes, McAfee DOES slow down the computer that much!

 

[bayskater]

Thanks a lot Daave. I've inserted a few replies into your message below.

(Replies inline.)


Have you installed all the latest Windows critical updates?

896MB is a weird figure. Might you have 1GB of RAM and some of it is being
used by your motherboard's onboard graphics card?

1GB (or 896MB) is usually more than enough for most XP users. But when you
start running programs that require more physical memory than you actually
have, the phenomenon of paging occurs, which can really slow a system
down! Sometimes all that is necessary is adding more RAM.

A quick way to determine if you are relying too heavily on your pagefile
is to open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then
note the three values under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand
corner: Total, Limit, and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.

What are your figures?

===============================================

Commit Charge (K)
Total 492644
Limit 2216992 (less than an hour since last reboot)
Peak 745692
896 Megabytes installed memory

Above was while sitting on this newsgroup.
When I went up to a web page these figures appeared:

Total 582096
Limit 2216992
Peak 745692
==============================================

In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode didn't
change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

=====================================================

As you said ... Whoa Nellie!
The above stuff is over my head. I'm an 80 y/o two-fingered duffer.
I downloaded the page file monitor and when I opened the read-only file I
lost whatever little bit of courage I had.
even to delete the downloaded file may involve having intercourse with my
registry.
I'll respectfully pass on that scientific stuff anf get about dumping my
McAfee.
Stay tuned.
======================================================

AdAware and Spybot S&D were once top-notch, but they have fallen out of
favor with many. Also people running IE8 have reported problems if they
also ran Spybot (but I believe there is a fix for that). And sometimes
AdAware can muck things up performance-wise (or at least it used to).

SAS is a good anti-malware program. I would keep this one and uninstall
the other two, And definitely run MBAM.


Both McAfee and Norton are well-known resource hogs. I wouldn't be
surprised if all or part of your problem is because McAfee is running. I'd
uninstall it, using their removal tool if necessary:

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507

NOD32 is a superior program, and it is anything but a resource hog. If
you're looking for a *free* antivirus alternative, AVG, Avast, and AntiVir
are all good.


Defragging isn't as important to Windows as it once was (that is, an
NT-based OS like XP doesn't need it like Windows 98 did). I would still
defrag, but two or three times a year is probably fine.


The way to determine that is by the Task Manager exercise I gave you
above. It might be too many. Or not.


Whoah, Nelly! Uninstall that beast!!!!! (McAfee.)


I see no reason for AdAware to have a startup process. Just run it
whenever *you* want to do so. Better yet, uninstall it.


In another post, I see you corrected that: svchost.exe


And the top five (and their CPU usage ranges) are?

===================================================
I think I misstated that - another responder had me look at the Processes
tab and said that when the computer is idle the only process that should
show more tha zero is the System Idle Process. I replied that was so. There
are 56 processes listed with CPU usages varying from about 47% up to 100%
The 47% and 100% came from the CPU usage at the bottom of the task mgr.
page. It was a changing % that varied from a low of 47% up to a high of 100%
( no top five)
=====================================================

 

[bayskater]

Hi Daave,

Well, I dumped McAfee. After it was gone, and before installing any other
security program I tried a little net surfing.
It was quite noticeably faster. It may not be the best it can be, but if it
was this fast I would not have been chasing trouble.
I also dumped Spybot and AdAware and downloaded Microsoft Security
Essentials. Looks good. Would you recommend that I add MBAM also? or would
that be overkill? (I kept SAS).

My thanks also to Richard Urban who also suggested removing McAfee.

Thanks, ... Fred

 

[Daave]

Thanks a lot Daave. I've inserted a few replies into your message

===============================================

Commit Charge (K)
Total 492644
Limit 2216992 (less than an hour since last reboot)
Peak 745692
896 Megabytes installed memory

Above was while sitting on this newsgroup.
When I went up to a web page these figures appeared:

Total 582096
Limit 2216992
Peak 745692
==============================================

896MB = 917,504KB. Since your peak figure never exceeds that, this means
you have plenty of RAM. I wouldn't even bother with the Page File
Monitor program. So, good news! No need to install more RAM.

=====================================================

As you said ... Whoa Nellie!
The above stuff is over my head. I'm an 80 y/o two-fingered duffer.
I downloaded the page file monitor and when I opened the read-only
file I lost whatever little bit of courage I had.
even to delete the downloaded file may involve having intercourse
with my registry.

LOL

Don't worry about it. Like I said, I'm sure you have plenty of RAM.

I'll respectfully pass on that scientific stuff anf get about dumping
my McAfee.
Stay tuned.
======================================================

That will improve your performace in a BIG way!

===================================================
I think I misstated that - another responder had me look at the
Processes tab and said that when the computer is idle the only
process that should show more tha zero is the System Idle Process. I
replied that was so. There are 56 processes listed with CPU usages
varying from about 47% up to 100% The 47% and 100% came from the CPU
usage at the bottom of the task mgr. page. It was a changing % that
varied from a low of 47% up to a high of 100% ( no top five)
=====================================================

If you wanted to, you could sort by CPU usage. I'd wager that McAfee
would be at at toward the top.

 

[Daave]

Hi Daave,

Well, I dumped McAfee. After it was gone, and before installing any
other security program I tried a little net surfing.
It was quite noticeably faster. It may not be the best it can be, but
if it was this fast I would not have been chasing trouble.
I also dumped Spybot and AdAware and downloaded Microsoft Security
Essentials. Looks good. Would you recommend that I add MBAM also? or
would that be overkill? (I kept SAS).

I know someone else recommended Security Essentials. I wouldn't
recommend it because I have absolutely no experience using it. I
recommended a combination of SAS and MBAM for your anti-malware programs
and one of the following for antivirus:

NOD32
AVG
Avast
AntiVir

(the last 3 are all free).

 

[DL]

Advanced System Care = snakeoil

I had a computer that took 30-45 seconds to start IE- it showed very
little CPU usage. Malwarebytes did not find anything, nor did Spybot S&D,
nor Spyware blaster, nor adware nor Norton. People blamed Norton, Glary
Utilities, Steven Goulds Cleanup, but then I found a great utility- free-
called Advanced System Care- found it on CNET as a download. The free
version found all kinds of problems but it also found three remote
processes running (probably something my wife downloaded when she opened a
link to some website to visit some cute cartoons that her friends send to
her. Well, those three things got shut down and the computer started
speeding up and has been relatively problem free since then. I also went
online and found some helpful hints to speed up Norton- and their online
techs were helpful there too... (I had been ready to dump Norton...and told
them as much)... and they proved their worth... check out Advanced System
care by IOBIT labs- It found a bunch of stuff to fix EVEN after all the
above programs did their thing and did their best... I was amazed at how
much more stuff it found to fix- including registry defrag....
six months prior to that I was very gung ho on malware bytes- as I had
somehow gottten bitten by some java worm/trojan while on google.com...
all of a sudden- lots of ad popups- mbm found 3 registry keys and 4 dlls
infected and cleaned it up in no time.

good luck

 

[bayskater]

To all who responded to my request for help:
My sincere thanks to all of you that took the time to try to help me out.
It seems that my problem has been solved.
The main cause of the problem seems to have been the McAfee Security System,
which I have uninstalled at the suggestion of a couple of people that
responded to my post.
In its place I have downloaded the free program Microsoft Security
Essentials It looks good. Easy to install and use and has nice features.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
I made the same changes to my wife's laptop and she's delighted with the
increased speed.
Along the way I learned some things that may help me solve future problems,
like using the Windows Task Manager.
Its great to have acess to these MS newsgroups so duffers like me can get
some expert advice.

Thanks again, ... Fred
===========================================================================

 

[Daave]

Thanks for letting us know the good news. Glad to help.

 

[Richard Urban]

To all who responded to my request for help:
My sincere thanks to all of you that took the time to try to help me out.
It seems that my problem has been solved.
The main cause of the problem seems to have been the McAfee Security
System, which I have uninstalled at the suggestion of a couple of people
that responded to my post.
In its place I have downloaded the free program Microsoft Security
Essentials It looks good. Easy to install and use and has nice features.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
I made the same changes to my wife's laptop and she's delighted with the
increased speed.
Along the way I learned some things that may help me solve future
problems, like using the Windows Task Manager.
Its great to have acess to these MS newsgroups so duffers like me can get
some expert advice.

Thanks again, ... Fred
===========================================================================

Glad you are up and running and are now a happy camper. Isn't it amazing at
how the big Antivirus/Anti Malware boys can bog down a computer?