Machine has suddenly slowed to a crawl

[dave.logan1]

I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have Spybot S&D v1.4, Spyware Blaster v1.3,
and McAfee VirusScan v10, all up to date. I have defragged my hard
disk and run Chkdsk within the last week.

Yesterday, all of a sudden, my machine slowed to a crawl, to the
extent that when I'm typing, the screen can't update as quickly as I
can type and I have to frequently have to stop typing in order to give
the display time to catch up! It's not just typing, absolutely
everything is running incredibly slowly, but I'm just giving typing as
the most obvious example.

My CPU usage now hovers around 100% most of the time *whereas until
yesterday it used to be between 20-30% most of the time, unless I was
running a processor-intensive task*. (Even today it occasionally goes
down to around 30%, but is close to 100% most of the time, even when
I'm not doing anything on my computer at all).

If I look in Task Manager it says that the process that are hogging
most of my CPU are "System Idle Process", "taskmgr.exe" iexplore.exe
(if I have Internet Explorer open), and explorer.exe (if I have
Windows Explorer open), in roughly that order although the order
changes every second.

Disabling McAfee doesn't help.

Any ideas?

Dave

 

[Mike T.]

I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have Spybot S&D v1.4, Spyware Blaster v1.3,
and McAfee VirusScan v10, all up to date. I have defragged my hard
disk and run Chkdsk within the last week.

Yesterday, all of a sudden, my machine slowed to a crawl, to the
extent that when I'm typing, the screen can't update as quickly as I
can type and I have to frequently have to stop typing in order to give
the display time to catch up! It's not just typing, absolutely
everything is running incredibly slowly, but I'm just giving typing as
the most obvious example.

My CPU usage now hovers around 100% most of the time *whereas until
yesterday it used to be between 20-30% most of the time, unless I was
running a processor-intensive task*. (Even today it occasionally goes
down to around 30%, but is close to 100% most of the time, even when
I'm not doing anything on my computer at all).

If I look in Task Manager it says that the process that are hogging
most of my CPU are "System Idle Process", "taskmgr.exe" iexplore.exe
(if I have Internet Explorer open), and explorer.exe (if I have
Windows Explorer open), in roughly that order although the order
changes every second.

Disabling McAfee doesn't help.

Any ideas?

Dave

Download/install avast! or avg antivirus and scan with that. You'd be
surprised how much the major antivirus programs will miss. My nephew's
machine was littered with hundreds of viruses even though Norton was
installed, running, properly updated (latest virus definitions downloaded),
etc. After you've confirmed with avast! that no malware is present, use
system restore to roll back your system a week or two. Whether that helps
or not, SCAN AGAIN with avast! -Dave

http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

BTW, I hope you are running a software firewall, also. If not, try comodo
personal firewall.

 

[Jami]

Agreed with Avast. I've used it for years now. I don't go near norton
anymore, In fact I put Avast and Adaware on all my famlies computers. It
helps with Malware and trojan horses.

Adware website is. www.lavasoftusa.com

 

[JAD]

I'm running XP Pro SP2. I have Spybot S&D v1.4, Spyware Blaster v1.3,
and McAfee VirusScan v10, all up to date. I have defragged my hard
disk and run Chkdsk within the last week.

Yesterday, all of a sudden, my machine slowed to a crawl, to the
extent that when I'm typing, the screen can't update as quickly as I
can type and I have to frequently have to stop typing in order to give
the display time to catch up! It's not just typing, absolutely
everything is running incredibly slowly, but I'm just giving typing as
the most obvious example.

My CPU usage now hovers around 100% most of the time *whereas until
yesterday it used to be between 20-30% most of the time, unless I was
running a processor-intensive task*. (Even today it occasionally goes
down to around 30%, but is close to 100% most of the time, even when
I'm not doing anything on my computer at all).

If I look in Task Manager it says that the process that are hogging
most of my CPU are "System Idle Process", "taskmgr.exe" iexplore.exe
(if I have Internet Explorer open), and explorer.exe (if I have
Windows Explorer open), in roughly that order although the order
changes every second.

Disabling McAfee doesn't help.

Any ideas?

Dave

Heat issue and the CPU is throttling back.

 

[DaveW]

You do not list that you are using either a hardware or software
Bi-directional Firewall. (XP's included poor excuse of a firewall is
uni-directional and does not do much.). If not, you in all likelihood have
had your computer compromised by a hacker who is doing something like using
your system to forward e-mail spams while you are on line. Without an
active firewall, assuming you are using DSL or a cable modem, you have no
chance against getting hacked.

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi Mike

Download/install avast! or avg antivirus and scan with that. You'd be
surprised how much the major antivirus programs will miss. My nephew's
machine was littered with hundreds of viruses even though Norton was
installed, running, properly updated (latest virus definitions downloaded),
etc. After you've confirmed with avast! that no malware is present, use
system restore to roll back your system a week or two. Whether that helps
or not, SCAN AGAIN with avast! -Dave

http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

BTW, I hope you are running a software firewall, also. If not, try comodo
personal firewall

You're right that Norton AV is an appalling product but McAfee is one
of the best. Still I tried running Avast as you suggested, but it
didn't find anything. Any more ideas?

Dave

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi Jami

Agreed with Avast. I've used it for years now. I don't go near norton
anymore, In fact I put Avast and Adaware on all my famlies computers. It
helps with Malware and trojan horses.

Adware website is. www.lavasoftusa.com

Re. Avast see my reply to Mike. Re. Adware I use the ad-blocking hosts
file at http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Dave

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi JAD

Heat issue and the CPU is throttling back.- Hide quoted text -

Wouldn't my computer feel warm if so, at least around the air vents?
It doesn't.

Dave

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi Dave

You do not list that you are using either a hardware or software
Bi-directional Firewall. (XP's included poor excuse of a firewall is
uni-directional and does not do much.). If not, you in all likelihood have
had your computer compromised by a hacker who is doing something like using
your system to forward e-mail spams while you are on line. Without an
active firewall, assuming you are using DSL or a cable modem, you have no
chance against getting hacked.

Okay I'll try installing comodo as Mike suggested and post back.

Dave

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi again Dave

You do not list that you are using either a hardware or software
Bi-directional Firewall. (XP's included poor excuse of a firewall is
uni-directional and does not do much.). If not, you in all likelihood have
had your computer compromised by a hacker who is doing something like using
your system to forward e-mail spams while you are on line. Without an
active firewall, assuming you are using DSL or a cable modem, you have no
chance against getting hacked.

Well you and Mike seem to have been right about a hijacker; after
installing Comodo Firewall and restarting my computer, it Comodo came
up with a message: "DWRCS.EXE is trying to act as a server - what do
you want to do? Deny access or allow access? We have no advice to
offer. Click here to send this file to us for analysis."

I denied it access and then looked it up on Google, and it is indeed
a Remote Control Client Agent! But what confuses me about that is why
the Firewall software didn't know what it was and why it had to ask me
to send the file to them for analysis, as google found the details of
it straight away.

Anyway, many thanks both of you for pointing me in the right
direction.

The bad news though is that although the performance of my computer
has definitely improved and the CPU usage has gone down, it's still
much slower than it used to be a couple of days ago. Could there be
something that the hacker left behind that is still affecting my
performance, and if so is there a clean-up procedure?

Dave

 

[Dave]

http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

You're right that Norton AV is an appalling product but McAfee is one
of the best. Still I tried running Avast as you suggested, but it
didn't find anything. Any more ideas?

Dave

Yeah, use System Restore to roll back a couple of weeks and see if that
helps. Actually, I remember a similar problem that I ran across just a
couple of months ago. It was on a machine that was running a P2P program
(limewire?) and some anti-virus program (don't remember which one) with an
on-access scanner. Basically, the p2p was downloading like crazy and the
anti-virus was actively scanning every single packet (that's a good thing),
which really slowed things down (unfortunate side-effect). I doubt if
that's your problem, as it would be rather obvious when you see the CPU
usage goes mostly to anti-virus. -Dave

 

[Dave]

Hi Dave



Okay I'll try installing comodo as Mike suggested and post back.

Dave

comodo is pretty good. the first few days you use it, it will be kind of
annoying though. It's going to ask your permission for everything until it
gets itself programmed for the way you use your machine. Unfortunately,
you're going to have to watch all those hundreds of "should I allow this?"
messages carefully, too. But it's worth the effort. It seems to pop up
more windows at you than some of the other firewalls, but I still believe
it's the best of the freebies, and it's damned good, in spite of the price.
-Dave

 

[Fishface]

Re. Avast see my reply to Mike. Re. Adware I use

the ad-blocking hosts
file at http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

Did you read the page where you downloaded the
hosts file? Scroll down to where it says "Editors note."
Do that and see if it doesn't help!

 

[Fishface]

Scroll down to where it says "Editors note."

Uh, the second one...

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi Fishface

Uh, the second one...

I'd already set the DNS Client's startup type to "disabled" but thanks
anyway.

Dave

 

[hummingbird]

You're right that Norton AV is an appalling product but McAfee is one
of the best. Still I tried running Avast as you suggested, but it
didn't find anything. Any more ideas?

I've occasionally found my browser causing this problem and soaking up
100% CPU power if I'm logged onto a problem website (malfunctioning or
sinister). The first thing I do is to shut down the browser and clear
out the cache.

 

[hummingbird]

Well you and Mike seem to have been right about a hijacker; after
installing Comodo Firewall and restarting my computer, it Comodo came
up with a message: "DWRCS.EXE is trying to act as a server - what do
you want to do? Deny access or allow access? We have no advice to
offer. Click here to send this file to us for analysis."

I denied it access and then looked it up on Google, and it is indeed
a Remote Control Client Agent! But what confuses me about that is why
the Firewall software didn't know what it was and why it had to ask me
to send the file to them for analysis, as google found the details of
it straight away.

Now you have to wonder what that rogue program was doing.
If you keep personal and private stuff on your computer.....

Anyway, many thanks both of you for pointing me in the right
direction.

The bad news though is that although the performance of my computer
has definitely improved and the CPU usage has gone down, it's still
much slower than it used to be a couple of days ago. Could there be
something that the hacker left behind that is still affecting my
performance, and if so is there a clean-up procedure?

Ask in alt.comp.freeware for progs to clean up your machine.
One or two guys have lists of stuff to help...

 

[hummingbird]

Now you have to wonder what that rogue program was doing.
If you keep personal and private stuff on your computer.....



Ask in alt.comp.freeware for progs to clean up your machine.
One or two guys have lists of stuff to help...

It looks like DWRCS.EXE is a remote server control prog by Dameware.
hhmmm. There may also be a Service involved here which needs to be
terminated/disabled. Check your Windows Services.

 

[John Doe]

I denied it access and then looked it up on Google, and it is indeed
a Remote Control Client Agent! But what confuses me about that is
why the Firewall software didn't know what it was and why it had to
ask me to send the file to them for analysis, as google found the
details of it straight away.

The bad news though is that although the performance of my computer
has definitely improved and the CPU usage has gone down, it's still
much slower than it used to be a couple of days ago. Could there be
something that the hacker left behind that is still affecting my
performance, and if so is there a clean-up procedure?

I wouldn't hesitate to reinstall Windows. That's assuming you have a
copy of Windows. That's also assuming you know how to make a removable
media copy of important files from your hard drive. If you don't have
that backup, don't do anything else until you do.

Good luck.

 

[dave.logan1]

Hi hummingbird

It looks like DWRCS.EXE is a remote server control prog by Dameware.
hhmmm. There may also be a Service involved here which needs to be
terminated/disabled. Check your Windows Services

I don't know how to do that - please could you give me step by step
instructions?

Dave