Computer restarts and is slow as molasses

[Ragnar Midtskogen]

Hello,

A few days ago my desktop started acting up, now it restarts for no apparent
reason and it is very slow. After the restart I get a message that Windows
has recovered from a serious error. The message also says to try to find out
which device driver caused the problem.
I checked the event log and found a lot of entries that said server, classid
C7E39D60-7A9F-42BF-ABB1-03DC0FA4F493 failed to register with DCOM within a
certain time.
I searched the Registry and found that the ID is associated with McAfee
Agent. I am thinking about uninstalling McAfee just to see if that gets rid
of the error.
The last time it happened the message stated that the video device driver is
the culprit. When I checked the event log the error message still lists the
same class ID.
Did Windows get smart, or is this just more typical Microsoft misleading
info? I am skeptical about the video driver being the culprit, but the
problem looks like it could be a device driver.
Has anyone had this problem with McAfee?

I guess I will have to bite the bullet and start up just system services,
then add others and see if anything breaks. The problem with that is that
there seems to be nothing consistent about the reboots.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Ragnar

 

[You Know Who ~]

As a first step I would uninstall McAfee. Hard to do, check the directories
and registry entries it leaves behind even after uninstall.

 

[Ragnar Midtskogen]

Thank you YKW,

I did not uninstall but I removed it from the startup, along with all the
other protection stuff, SpywareDoctor, AdAware etc., and the system has not
rebooted since.
But, the system is still pretty slow, so there is still something wrong
somewhere.

I also found that on one of my other computers, something wanted to make a
Registry change, and when I looked at the details it would add a spyware
program to the startup.
I had a lot of those messages on the problem computer also and I assumed
they were legit, since I had McAfee, SpywareDoctor and AdAware's AdWatch
running, so I didn't check the details carefully.

I am also wondering if there could be a virus behind all this. I have had
McAfee since the machine was new, so there should not be any virus, but I am
running a full scan, just to be sure.

I am wondering if it would not be quicker to wipe clean and reinstall
Windows and all the software.

Ragnar

 

[Ragnar Midtskogen]

I uninstalled McAfee and that seems to have fixed the problem. Machine has
been running for several hours with no problems.

Ragnar