XP Pro Laptop Turned to Slug

[OldGuy]

No changes that I can remember.

1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling
around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always.

2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful.

3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete.

4) No network activity unless I access the network.

5) Some programs are slow to start.

6) Virus scan finds no problems.

7) Malwarebytes finds no problems.

8) Spybot finds no problems.

9) Event Viewer has no errors.

What now?

 

[philo]

No changes that I can remember.

1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling
around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always.

2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful.

3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete.

4) No network activity unless I access the network.

5) Some programs are slow to start.

6) Virus scan finds no problems.

7) Malwarebytes finds no problems.

8) Spybot finds no problems.

9) Event Viewer has no errors.

What now?

Is the correct amount of RAM shown?

 

[OldGuy]

philo  explained on 4/10/2014 :

Is the correct amount of RAM shown?

Shows 3.4G RAM. There are 2 x 2G RAM sticks.

 

[Paul]

philo explained on 4/10/2014 :

Shows 3.4G RAM. There are 2 x 2G RAM sticks.

My machine can slow down a bit, when paged pool is full.

http://i58.tinypic.com/j7vymr.gif

I "fixed" that a bit, by using a Ramdisk (using PAE memory
above 4GB) and putting a pagefile on it (1GB page file).
The end result is, if the Paged Pool wants to "slosh around",
it uses less of the hard drive while doing it.

The pagefile split is supposed to be based on performance.
The 2GB "regular" pagefile on C:, is still there, and runs
at 135MB/sec. The 1GB pagefile sitting on F: RAMDisk, runs
at 4GB a second. Yet, the OS puts a percentage of paging
on the hard drive, and the RAMDisk doesn't get all of the
activity. Still, it has resulted in a bit better behavior
of the OS, when the OS is under a bit of stress. I no longer
hear long periods of "grinding" on C:, since some of the
paging is now on the RAMDisk (quiet). That makes the C: disk
more responsive for other things.

At one time, I'd assumed the Paged Pool would just sit
there at the high value forever, but once the stress is
removed, it seems to "drain". And I no longer have to
reboot the thing. By the next morning, with the programs
on the machine shut down, the paged pool drops from 298xxx
to 150xxx or so.

The machine in the picture above, is running 7ZIP on
a rather large file.

*******

I mention that, assuming you checked Task Manager
for busy stuff. Have a look with Process Explorer, if
there are any questions about Task Manager. (Process Explorer
can also hint at Interrupt Storm problems. Check Interrupts
or DPCs as in the picture below.) And you
don't happen to have something like a rootkit running on
there. With the right kind of malware, it can fake just
about anything it wants on the machine.

http://i60.tinypic.com/mto2nl.gif

Paul

 

[Mayayana]

In addition to Paul's tips, and assuming you're
unplugged from the Internet to be sure of no
activity like updating, there are a couple of
other things you might try:

* Make sure any AV/Malware hunter only runs as
needed and not every time you select a file.

* Delete TEMP files. (They can be in several
different places.)

* Check the IE cache size. Delete the IE cache
and then set it with a small limit, like a few MB.
By default it's nearly unlimited, and the tie-in
with Explorer can bring Explorer to a crawl.


| No changes that I can remember.
|
| 1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling
| around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always.
|
| 2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful.
|
| 3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete.
|
| 4) No network activity unless I access the network.
|
| 5) Some programs are slow to start.
|
| 6) Virus scan finds no problems.
|
| 7) Malwarebytes finds no problems.
|
| 8) Spybot finds no problems.
|
| 9) Event Viewer has no errors.
|
| What now?
|
|

 

[Daave]

No changes that I can remember.

1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of
fiddling around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as
always.
2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful.

3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete.

4) No network activity unless I access the network.

5) Some programs are slow to start.

6) Virus scan finds no problems.

7) Malwarebytes finds no problems.

8) Spybot finds no problems.

9) Event Viewer has no errors.

What now?

Please identify your virus program.

Also, are that program's and Malwarebytes' anti-malware definitions up
to date? This is crucial!

Also, sometimes there are remanants of previous antivirus programs on
the PC and they still take up resources. Please tell us the antivirus
history of your laptop. For instance, did it ever have Norton or McAfee?

It can't hurt to see if your hard drive's access mode didn't change from
DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.info/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://winhlp.com/node/10

Finally, open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab.
Then note the three values under Commit Charge (K): in the lower
left-hand corner: Total, Limit, and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. What are these values? (If both these figures
are below the value of Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have
plenty of RAM.)

Let's also see which programs and processes are running:

Use the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Processes tab. You
should be able to sort by CPU usage or Memory usage to get a good ideas
which ones are the resource/memory hogs. You should write down the names
of these processes for future detective work (or take a snapshot and
print it out). And let us know what they are.

If the above troubleshooting doesn't help, we can later have you do an
online virus scan as well as check out the condition of your Windows
Search and Windows Update.

 

[Ben Myers]

No changes that I can remember.
1) screen saver comes on as expected but it takes all kinds of fiddling
around to get back to the desktop. Same screensaver as always.
2) Acronis Drive Monitor says all is wonderful.
3) CCleaner find files to delete then takes forever to delete.
4) No network activity unless I access the network.
5) Some programs are slow to start.
6) Virus scan finds no problems.
7) Malwarebytes finds no problems.
8) Spybot finds no problems.
9) Event Viewer has no errors.
What now?

As mentioned by other posters, press "Ctrl-Alt-Del" and see what is
using the processor.

Ben

 

[OldGuy]

Thanks all for the suggestions.
I will get back on that laptop later today.