Total system slowdown

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure I've run into a bug in XP, but I have no idea what is causing
it or how to fix it. Randomly, sometimes when I'm playing a game, sometimes
when I'm watching a video on my computer, my performance will slow to a
crawl. My system basically becomes unusable. I check the task manager, and
all kinds of random processes are grabbing CPU cycles and choking my system.
This happens with different games, different videos encoded in different
codecs played in different players. It happens with different background
processes running, and there's no pattern to what processes start grabbing
CPU cycles when it happens. I know it's not a virus, I have scanned my
system twice with 2 different anti-virus and anti-spyware applications.
Almost nothing is the same with this bug except it happens during videos and
during games. But not all the time, even with the same videos and games. I
can't reproduce it myself, it just happens at random times. Any idea as to
where I should start looking would be great.

 

[Guest]

Here are a couple of things to check:
1) You mentioned 2 antivirus programs. Running more than 1 antivirus
software on your computer can cause conflicts.
2) Most antivirus programs will try to automatically update their virus
definition tables via the internet. McAfee, for instance, will cause a
system to hang for about 45 seconds while it is looking for an internet
connection. If one is not found, it will release the system, but then it will
try again in an hour (or whatever time period is specified for the automatic
update).

I would check for any software that may be trying to run an automatic update
for itself. Most programs will let you customize if or how automatic updates
are performed. Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

I only run one antivirus. The second one was an online scanner. I do have
my antivirus scheduled to update itself once a night at a specific time, and
this problem has been occuring at all times of the day. But when this
problem starts and my system slows down, it never recovers unless I reboot
it. If it were a program trying to update itself, my system would come back
to idle within 5 mins, but it doesnt. Thanks for the ideas tho.

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you are a pretty experienced user, so you've probably already
checked to make sure you have all service packs, drivers, and updates for
your system. The next thing I would check for is heat. Check that all of your
fans (including on your graphics card, if it's a desktop machine) are working.