System performance slow

[lucien.jaegers]

Hi all,

I'm running Windows XP Media Center for a while and everything has
been fine until a few weeks ago. I have no clue as to what happened
exactly, but my system performs very slowly lately. Booting takes
ages, and copying files even longer. Moving a 1 GB file takes more
than 20 minutes, whereas copying the same file on Ubuntu Linux (the
file is on a FAT32 partition I've shared with Ubuntu) takes only 72
seconds.
How come this huge difference?? I've defragged the disk, switched off
the virus scanner, removed unnecessary apps.

Does anybody have any idea what to do?

Kind regards,

Luke

 

[Leonard Grey]

Perhaps you should switch that virus scanner on again.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi all,

I'm running Windows XP Media Center for a while and everything has
been fine until a few weeks ago. I have no clue as to what happened
exactly, but my system performs very slowly lately. Booting takes
ages, and copying files even longer. Moving a 1 GB file takes more
than 20 minutes, whereas copying the same file on Ubuntu Linux (the
file is on a FAT32 partition I've shared with Ubuntu) takes only 72
seconds.
How come this huge difference?? I've defragged the disk, switched off
the virus scanner, removed unnecessary apps.

Does anybody have any idea what to do?

A sudden slowdown in performance suggest the possibility of malware
infection. I recommend that you begin troubleshooting by going to MVP
Malke's malware removal site at
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware and
following the instructions there.

 

[nass]

Hi all,

I'm running Windows XP Media Center for a while and everything has
been fine until a few weeks ago. I have no clue as to what happened
exactly, but my system performs very slowly lately. Booting takes
ages, and copying files even longer. Moving a 1 GB file takes more
than 20 minutes, whereas copying the same file on Ubuntu Linux (the
file is on a FAT32 partition I've shared with Ubuntu) takes only 72
seconds.
How come this huge difference?? I've defragged the disk, switched off
the virus scanner, removed unnecessary apps.

Does anybody have any idea what to do?

Kind regards,

Luke

* Give it a good Rub and it will come back Brand New LOL*

Go through these Cleaning steps:
1... First, try to clean up your caches, Internet files and delete cookies
by doing this:
Click Start >> Control Panel >> Double click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options.
On the IE properties windows you will see these Tabs:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs |
Advanced
Under General Tab clear your History, Internet Files and Cookies.
Then click on Advanced tab and scroll down to under the Browsing Option:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) uncheck this box.
Then click on Programs Tab and click Manage Add-Ons and Disable all non
Verified Add-Ons (You should Renable them later one-by-one and see the
culprit and update it or remove it.
How to manage Add-Ons:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883256
Scan for malware from here:

SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
RootkitRevealer v1.71
By Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/RootkitRevealer.mspx


Run a scan from here on-line:
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
Download Avast Cleaner (offline scanner) from here:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-virus-cleaner.html
Lots of tools to download and disinfect your machine (offline scanner):
http://www.bitdefender.co.uk/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/

After the scan run disk cleanup on your drive.
HTH.
nass

 

[Gerry]

Luke

It could be malware as others have suggested.

How much RAM memory?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in
the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports or Duplicates please. Indicate which also appear in
a previous boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? Right click on
the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties,
Hardware,Device Manager. If yes what is the Device Error code?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[lucien.jaegers]

A sudden slowdown in performance suggest the possibility of malware
infection. I recommend that you begin troubleshooting by going to MVP
Malke's malware removal site athttp://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malwareand
following the instructions there.

Thanks Ken and all the other guys for the quick response. My apologies
for coming back on this after seven days, but all this time I've been
working on virus/malware removal stuff. And a backup of my present
files. Yet I found out something interesting: it wasn't malware/virus,
but a driver setting issue thing. Running ProcessExplorer while doing
the file copy revealed an unusually high hardware interrupt rate.
Googling this showed a.o. "http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/03/
lousy-performance-high-hardware.html", which talks about a badly
configured ATA controller. And that turned out to be the culprit! Just
thought you might like to know this, especially as the local computer
show support man told me he had never heard of this before.

Best regards and a Happy New Year.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks Ken and all the other guys for the quick response. My apologies
for coming back on this after seven days, but all this time I've been
working on virus/malware removal stuff. And a backup of my present
files. Yet I found out something interesting: it wasn't malware/virus,
but a driver setting issue thing. Running ProcessExplorer while doing
the file copy revealed an unusually high hardware interrupt rate.
Googling this showed a.o. "http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/03/
lousy-performance-high-hardware.html", which talks about a badly
configured ATA controller. And that turned out to be the culprit! Just
thought you might like to know this, especially as the local computer
show support man told me he had never heard of this before.

Thanks for the update, and glad you got it fixed.