Explorer at 99% CPU

[Donald Campbell]

I have an XP Home machine that is effectively hanging on boot up.

If I come up in safe mode I can do little but ALT-CTRL-DEL does let me
look at what is running.

I have one scvhost running at 33%, a rundll32 at 33% and explorer at
33%.

Kill off the scvhost simply transfers the CPU usage to the other
processes. Killing the rundll32 just puts explorer at 99%.

Nothing will load and run.

-----

Booting into safe with command prompt allows me to kill the processes
and run things (no explorer to get in the way).

What antivirus I have run shows up clean.

I tried running system restore, but it claims it can not do it.

Anyone got any ideas?


BR
Don C

 

[Marc]

Booting into safe with command prompt allows me to kill the processes
and run things (no explorer to get in the way).

What antivirus I have run shows up clean.

I tried running system restore, but it claims it can not do it.

Anyone got any ideas?

Try searching for Spyware on your PC:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

 

[Donald Campbell]

Try searching for Spyware on your PC:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

I have tried AD-Aware. I use it all the time.

I have managed to install it but I can not to run so that it displays
what is going on.

I start the ad-aware from the command line it appears to run. It is in
the task list as using CPU, but nothing gets displayed!


BR
Don C

 

[Guest]

Is Ad-Aware in your task manager using somewhere between 4 and 6MB of memory
after you attempt to load it?

 

[MCR]

I have tried AD-Aware. I use it all the time.

I have managed to install it but I can not to run so that it displays
what is going on.

I start the ad-aware from the command line it appears to run. It is in
the task list as using CPU, but nothing gets displayed!


BR
Don C

Try running Adaware in safe mode, also download spybot s&d and run that.

 

[Brian]

It sounds like you still have viruses. What antivirus program do you have?
Try AVG next time. Go to Grisoft.com. If its thats bad you may have to take
your HD out of the pc and slave it to another system that works properly,
then run virus/adaware scans that way.

Brian Pugh
A+, Network +, MCP

 

[Donald Campbell]

Try running Adaware in safe mode, also download spybot s&d and run that.

I am unable to run anything in pure safe mode. Explorer is chewing up
all the CPU and does not let anything else in.


BR
Don C

 

[Donald Campbell]

It sounds like you still have viruses. What antivirus program do you have?
Try AVG next time. Go to Grisoft.com. If its thats bad you may have to take
your HD out of the pc and slave it to another system that works properly,
then run virus/adaware scans that way.

Brian Pugh
A+, Network +, MCP

When I "volunteered" to look at this young lad's PC, I assumed that I
could simply take out the disk and piggy back it on to one of mine.

It's got an IDE disk array, so that put an end to that idea.

It appears that it has/had AVG on it when it got nobbled.



BR
Don C

 

[Donald Campbell]

Is Ad-Aware in your task manager using somewhere between 4 and 6MB of memory
after you attempt to load it?

Size is 2,688


BR
Don C

 

[Guest]

This problem sounds somewhat like one I'm having (problems execute and show
up in Task Manager, but don't "finish" launching). I'm completely out of
ideas about where to look... I thought it might be Kerio Personal Firewall
(are you running that?), but now that's not even running.

Very strange.

 

[Brian]

There are a few things you can try from the recovery console. Copy the
System, Security, SAM, Software, and Default files from the Windir\Repair
directory into the Windir\system32\config directory.

Brian Pugh
A+, Network +, MCP

 

[Donald Campbell]

This problem sounds somewhat like one I'm having (problems execute and show
up in Task Manager, but don't "finish" launching). I'm completely out of
ideas about where to look... I thought it might be Kerio Personal Firewall
(are you running that?), but now that's not even running.

Very strange.

In safe mode very little is running.

I suspect that Ad-aware is trying to display and can not. It is
certainly using all the CPU but nothing gets to the screen.

I have downloaded a couple of other small ad-ware removers but none have
displayed anything.

NAI's stinger worked fine but did not find anything.



I do notice that the machine has had Kazaa loaded on in, which I have
found in the past to let things in.



BR
Don C

 

[Guest]

Hi Donald,

I have read every response to this thread and all of them make sense.
However none of them will work if your CPU is running hot. Open up your
machine and make sure that the CPU fan is running smooth, and then make sure
(yes, I know... yuck!) there is no excessive gunk built up between the fan
and the heat sink. WARNING: If this is the case the heat sink will burn your
hand, so make sure to turn the computer off for a few minutes before trying
this.

I went to a friend's house last night and ran into similar symptoms, and
like every good MCP/MCSA I started looking for OS issues, but when I came up
empty I looked under the hood... and blistered my finger for good measure
After 15 minutes literally scraping most of a pound of gunk out, her P4 ran
like a P4 again!

Let me know if this helps.

Mitch

 

[Kelly]

Install these, update them then run them in safe mode:

Run Ad-Aware SE, Spybot, CWShredder and HijackThis:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html

Note: Update the first two programs, once installed, before running.



--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

 

[Donald Campbell]

Hi Donald,

I have read every response to this thread and all of them make sense.
However none of them will work if your CPU is running hot. Open up your
machine and make sure that the CPU fan is running smooth, and then make sure
(yes, I know... yuck!) there is no excessive gunk built up between the fan
and the heat sink. WARNING: If this is the case the heat sink will burn your
hand, so make sure to turn the computer off for a few minutes before trying
this.

I went to a friend's house last night and ran into similar symptoms, and
like every good MCP/MCSA I started looking for OS issues, but when I came up
empty I looked under the hood... and blistered my finger for good measure
After 15 minutes literally scraping most of a pound of gunk out, her P4 ran
like a P4 again!

Let me know if this helps.

Mitch

Hi Mitch


I have found that running in "safe mode with command prompt" and then
killing off the svchosts and rundll processes I can get a system that is
just tickover.

The problem is that if I then try and run say Ad-aware, nothing appears
on the screen, so I can not respond and run a scan.

Stinger from NAI runs fine, but says the machine is clean.

I have been in the box. Its reasonable. A lot better than many I have
worked on. I normally use an air gun to clean the cooling fins.

I normally like people who put raid in their machines. but not in this
case.


BR
Don C

 

[Terra Prime]

Do virus and spyware checks IN SAFE MODE. Do the virus scan first and remove
every virus detected, then use the following 6 antispyware programs and
search for spyware.

--
Use these spyware scanners to erraticate your spyware problem:
*Make sure you check for spyware definition updates for all of these
scanners before using them.

Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4
http://www.safer-networking.org

Ad-Aware SE 1.06 Personal
http://www.lavasoftusa.com

Spyware Blaster 3.4
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Spy Sweeper 4.0.3 Build 405
http://www.webroot.com

XoftSpy 4.15
http://www.paretologic.com

CWShredder 2.15*
http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract/cwshredder_download.html

* = Use the standalone version of CWShredder.