My XP pro system with 1GB ram is excruciatingly slow (explorer.exe

[Guest]

Hi,
I hope someone can help. My Dell Latitude with 1GB Ram running XP pro is
unbelievably slow. I suspect it's explorer.exe as it often floats to the top
of the CPU cycles in Task Manager.

I have tried Spybot, Ad-Aware SE, Trojan Hunter, HijackThis, CCleaner and
several others to determine if I have a virus, adware, malware, or a
parasite. It always comes back clean.

Yet even something as simple as clicking inside a form's text box or
alt-tabbing between windows can take several seconds. Web browsing is
painful -- I use my crappy Win2K system for that as it's much faster.

The only solution I've seen that I have NOT tried is msconfig, but I have no
idea what I should or shouldn't load as I don't want to make the system
unstable.

To see more background on my issue, check out my discussion on geekstogo:
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=121170&hl=

I'm considering buying a whole new system, but think there has to be a
better way.

Anyone have any ideas?
Many thanks,
Steve

 

[John Jay Smith]

it might be a dll loading with explorer from a shell extension..

this has happened to me in the past.

here is how you find it..

run a program that shows the dlls loaded with an exe, for example:

process explorer from sysinternals.. and look for any non microsoft ones
that can be creating the problem.

if you find them you can disaabling them by a program like moveonboot
*search for that name on google,

or disable them with shellexview from nirsoft

 

[John Jay Smith]

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

with process explorer click on explorer.exe and look at the list of dlls
loaded
investigate the non microsoft ones


good luck!

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi,
I hope someone can help. My Dell Latitude with 1GB Ram running XP pro is
unbelievably slow. I suspect it's explorer.exe as it often floats to the top
of the CPU cycles in Task Manager.

I have tried Spybot, Ad-Aware SE, Trojan Hunter, HijackThis, CCleaner and
several others to determine if I have a virus, adware, malware, or a
parasite. It always comes back clean.

Yet even something as simple as clicking inside a form's text box or
alt-tabbing between windows can take several seconds. Web browsing is
painful -- I use my crappy Win2K system for that as it's much faster.

The only solution I've seen that I have NOT tried is msconfig, but I have no
idea what I should or shouldn't load as I don't want to make the system
unstable.

To see more background on my issue, check out my discussion on geekstogo:
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=121170&hl=

I'm considering buying a whole new system, but think there has to be a
better way.

If you ran HiJackThis and posted the logs to one of the reputable
HiJackThis forums then that should have taken care of everything that
could/should be modified via MSCONFIG.

Explorer.exe is the GUI engine for Windows, but it should not be
consuming a high percentage of the CPU cycles except briefly while it
is loading or updating something.

Consistent high CPU usage by Explorer.exe almost always turns out to
be the result of a malware infestation and sometimes it take a lot of
different tools in order to uncover the culprit.

Try the free online scanner at http://housecall.trendmicro.com if you
haven't already done so. It is pretty good at rooting out malware.

Note: Sometimes it helps to reboot into "Safe Mode With Networking"
before doing an online scan.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[John Jay Smith]

read my posts.. as you can see it is not what you say always...

you cant find them in the startup nor can you see them with hijackthis...

I have had this occure to some clients.. and to me too in the past..

it needs some detective work as I describe in my 2 posts.

 

[Guest]

Thank you so much for the response.

The first thing I disabled, an Ewido Anti-Spyware .dll seems to have helped
my system. It's possible that it's just an artifact of re-booting, which
sometimes helps, but I went to Youtube and could actually watch a video
without pauses and jumps.

One question though. In the .dll list, I see a bunch of *.nls files such as
unicode.nls, sortkey.nls as well as a bunch of index.dats. Is this something
to worry about or disable?

Thanks,
Steve
T

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

with process explorer click on explorer.exe and look at the list of dlls
loaded
investigate the non microsoft ones


good luck!

 

[John Jay Smith]

Hello! To tell you the truth I had not noticed the nls things in the list,
because I use another program actually to look for the dlls, but it was not
free, and that why I didnt mention it.
This one does not list nls files : http://www.warecase.com/

After looking about nls files, they seem to be language related, and no
threat to the system,
and are normal. NLS is "National Language Support file"

See here:
http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=NLS
http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms221370.aspx

I took a look at process explorer and saw that I too had those files. So
they are normal. Here is a screenshot of what I have so you can compare:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1057/mylistofnlsanddatcd7.jpg

I would say you uninstall that antispyware compleatly if it did create
unstability...

So do you think you have found the reason? It was that dll?

Thank you so much for the response.

The first thing I disabled, an Ewido Anti-Spyware .dll seems to have
helped
my system. It's possible that it's just an artifact of re-booting, which
sometimes helps, but I went to Youtube and could actually watch a video
without pauses and jumps.

One question though. In the .dll list, I see a bunch of *.nls files such
as
unicode.nls, sortkey.nls as well as a bunch of index.dats. Is this
something
to worry about or disable?

Thanks,
Steve
T

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the excellent info. I'm unsure if my system is OK. It still
seems pretty slow. Maybe I do just need a new system. It does seem faster
since I disable the .dll however.

The system still seizes up occasionally, but I think it's because my system
is now 3.5 years old and all the software that has been loaded over time is
no longer compatible with each other, but who knows?

Many thanks for all your help.

Steve

 

[John Jay Smith]

Steve this is an old thread by now but if you read it,

try a format and reinstall, if you had a long time to do that, windows has
bogged down by old
registry entries and dlls and other trash.. I know this very well

I am sure that if you format and do a clean install then your computer will
come back to life!!

 

[Guest]

I'm really scared to do that with all the stuff I have on the system
(probably more of a reason to do it though). The OS was originally installed
by a company I worked for a few years back, so I'm not even sure I have the
installation CDs.

I guess I should consider a new system, although transferring all the stuff
over will be a big hassle.

Steve

 

[Guest]

Just a thought, have you added any Fonts to the system? If so, that will
also cause a slow down.

 

[Guest]

Juust a thought, have you installed any new Fonts to the system. That can
cause a considerable slow down also, But I really like the 'Buy New System
Cure.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Just a thought, have you added any Fonts to the system? If so, that
will also cause a slow down.

Sorry, but that's not correct. It was true in older versions of Windows, but
not in XP.