help! huge sudden windows slowdown

[laniik]

Hi. As of two days ago, my computer all of a sudden experienced a huge
slowdown, in basically everything I do in windows. I have wracked my
brains trying to figure out what could have caused this. I know windows
tends to slow down in the long run, but this was a very sudden
decrease.

My first instinct was spyware, but I ran a bunch of spyware tests and
checked the running processes.

My second guess was memory, but I checked my memory, yup still good.

I have windows xp on an athlon 64 1.8ghz 1gb ram, everything ran fine
until two days ago, and now even the mouse cursor hops around the
screen (its not smooth anymore).


Maybe its a hard drive failure? I ran a drive speed test program, and
found that the drive averages 6000kb/sec write and 3500kb/sec read.
Are these speeds abnormally slow? could it be a windows driver issue?
If so, does anyone know what I could try next?

Thanks!

oliver

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi. As of two days ago, my computer all of a sudden experienced a
huge slowdown, in basically everything I do in windows. I have
wracked my brains trying to figure out what could have caused this. I
know windows tends to slow down in the long run, but this was a very
sudden decrease.

My first instinct was spyware, but I ran a bunch of spyware tests and
checked the running processes.

Your first instanct sounds right to me. Exactly what tests did you run? I
recommend that you go to Malke's Malware Removal site at
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware and follow
the instructions there.

My second guess was memory, but I checked my memory, yup still good.

No, that wouldn't account for the problem. Bad memory would cause your
system to crash, not slow down.

I have windows xp on an athlon 64 1.8ghz 1gb ram, everything ran fine
until two days ago, and now even the mouse cursor hops around the
screen (its not smooth anymore).


Maybe its a hard drive failure? I ran a drive speed test program, and
found that the drive averages 6000kb/sec write and 3500kb/sec read.
Are these speeds abnormally slow? could it be a windows driver issue?
If so, does anyone know what I could try next?

I doubt if it's either of those issues. I'd bet on malware.

 

[Rock]

Hi. As of two days ago, my computer all of a sudden experienced a huge
slowdown, in basically everything I do in windows. I have wracked my
brains trying to figure out what could have caused this. I know windows
tends to slow down in the long run, but this was a very sudden
decrease.

My first instinct was spyware, but I ran a bunch of spyware tests and
checked the running processes.

My second guess was memory, but I checked my memory, yup still good.

I have windows xp on an athlon 64 1.8ghz 1gb ram, everything ran fine
until two days ago, and now even the mouse cursor hops around the
screen (its not smooth anymore).


Maybe its a hard drive failure? I ran a drive speed test program, and
found that the drive averages 6000kb/sec write and 3500kb/sec read.
Are these speeds abnormally slow? could it be a windows driver issue?
If so, does anyone know what I could try next?

Check the settings in Device Manager for the IDE controller. Is it running
in DMA mode of PIO mode?

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

 

[laniik]

Check the settings in Device Manager for the IDE controller. Is it running

in DMA mode of PIO mode?

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm

I had heard about that problem, but it wasnt the case. Actually, I
found the error, and its tremendously anticlimactic. In trying to
remember what had changed on my system since the slowdown, I found out
that the problem actually came from an installation of winamp 5.32.
For some my computer had a huge allergic reaction to the new winamp,
even when *not* currently running. Even without the winamp monitor
(startup thing) off it was slow.

I cant explain it, but after removing the program entirely and
downgrading to 2.9, my computer is running smooth again.

thanks for the help!

oliver

 

[Rock]

I had heard about that problem, but it wasnt the case. Actually, I
found the error, and its tremendously anticlimactic. In trying to
remember what had changed on my system since the slowdown, I found out
that the problem actually came from an installation of winamp 5.32.
For some my computer had a huge allergic reaction to the new winamp,
even when *not* currently running. Even without the winamp monitor
(startup thing) off it was slow.

I cant explain it, but after removing the program entirely and
downgrading to 2.9, my computer is running smooth again.

Glad you got it resolved and thanks for posting back the resolution. Yep
it's important to keep track of changes. Some folks keep some form of a
brief log to track changes, especially software installs and driver changes.