Win2K slow after hardware changes?

[Sean]

Hi

I've got win2K Pro and it was running fine. I had a Kensington mouse
connected via the green round plug, which then broke so I was using it
via the USB plug. I then needed to go online and so connected the
SpeedTouch USB modem to the USB plug, removing the mouse. I got
another mouse with a good green, round plug & connected that.

Around about then, Windows started having problems. Everything has
slowed incredibly... It takes ages - minutes/hours - to do anything:
open Windows Explorer, connect to the internet, download mail, open an
excel spreadsheet. I have rebooted several times and straight after
login, it practically freezes.

CPU usage is at 100% in Task Manager, Memory is pretty low. svchost is
running at 68% and System at 31% of CPU...

One funny thing - I try open a recent document and it says it cannot
find the file. The file exists! I checked the directory... In fact,
when I click on the file in the directory, it still says it cannot
find the file! (Excel spreadsheet in this case...) Not sure if it does
that for ALL files/docs though.

Can anyone please help?? The damned thing is useless like this...

Thanks
Sean

 

[David Brandt [MSFT]]

These can be difficult to troubleshoot sometimes, but obiviously something
is soaking up resources grinding everything to a halt. First thing just to
be sure is run your AV stuff with the latest signature files to be sure no
virus etc. If you boot into safe mode, does it work better without all of
the extra services etc started. If so then it becomes a matter of finding
the problem child, and you can start at either end (ie disable everything
that the system doesn't Have to have to boot and then start adding things
back in until the problem shows up, or start disabling things in groups of
2 - 3 until the problem goes away). If the latter, I'd start with those
things recently added/configured since the last time the box was rebooted,
or since you made known changes that worked.
Be sure that you're at sp3 at least if not sp4. Performance monitor may
help as well.

--
David Brandt
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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[Sean]

Hi David

Thanks for your help.

I booted into safe mode and it runs at normal speed. If I boot into
safe mode with network connections then it's slow again. How do I
narrow this down? ie. how do I switch on services when booted - by
manually starting them one-by-one from the Manage option on My
Computer? And if/when I find the culprit what should I do - reinstall
drivers / remove / other option?

I also found traces of msblaster.exe which I've subsequently removed,
so that's a worry.

If I was to do a re-install of Win2K, should that correct everything?
And would it lose my emails / contacts / My Documents / etc?

Thanks - your help is really appreciated!
Sean