sluggish performance over dial up connection with XP

[Guest]

This is not about the modem being slow, I expect that type of slowness on dial up

The problem I am having is that after I make a dial up connection and then call up any program that access the connection (explorer or outlook express) my system freezes and it takes 10 to 15 minutes for the program to come up. In the meantime, everything on the tool bar is inaccessable, only shows the hour glass, but programs not related to the connection with shortcuts on the desktop will come up and run. If I call up taskmanager using Ctl, Alt, Delete, it always only comes up after a long delay. Usually when it comes up, so does explorer and/or outlook express. I noticed tonight a program shown in taskmanager with the name alg.exe. When I told taskmanager to stop that process, then explorer came right up. On search, I find two incidences of alg.exe. One in the the windows/system32 subdirectory and one in the windows service pack subdirectory

Any clues folks?

 

[Chuck]

This is not about the modem being slow, I expect that type of slowness on dial up.

The problem I am having is that after I make a dial up connection and then call up any program that access the connection (explorer or outlook express) my system freezes and it takes 10 to 15 minutes for the program to come up. In the meantime, everything on the tool bar is inaccessable, only shows the hour glass, but programs not related to the connection with shortcuts on the desktop will come up and run. If I call up taskmanager using Ctl, Alt, Delete, it always only comes up after a long delay. Usually when it comes up, so does explorer and/or outlook express. I noticed tonight a program shown in taskmanager with the name alg.exe. When I told taskmanager to stop that process, then explorer came right up. On search, I find two incidences of alg.exe. One in the the windows/system32 subdirectory and one in the windows service pack subdirectory.

Any clues folks?

My guess would be a parasite (spyware or virus).

Do an online virus check:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Check for spyware, similar to viruses but detected with different
techniques. Use HijackThis, Spybot S&D, and expert advice at SWI
Forums (all free). Complete instructions are available at:
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?showtopic=5187

See what is going on during those 10 - 15 minutes. Get Process
Explorer (free) <http://www.sysinternals.com/> to see what process are
running, and taking up cpu resources. Get Port Explorer (also free)
<http://www.diamondcs.com.au/portexplorer/index.php?page=home> to see
what network activity is going on. Start both before doing the dial
up, then switch to one or the other (Alt-Tab) and see what is up.

Cheers,

Chuck
(e-mail address removed)
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