XP Pro lost in a quagmire - WTF ??

[JDK]

home comp - P4 2.4, 512, ATA133 80GB w/ 8MG buffer.

In the last 3-4 weeks XP Pro (sp1) will gradually slow down to the
point of being unusable. A cold reboot fixes this for a while (maybe a
day or two), then applications start taking minutes to launch instead of
seconds. Even bringing up a dialog box will drag on to the point of
wondering if your click even registered. It doesn't seem to matter if
the comp is logged into an account or just sitting idle at the login prompt.

I suspected a hardware problem and ran SisSandra but it didn't
report anything that it hadn't reported in the past when the comp was
running fine. The CPU is running at 48C (118F). Not cool but not
excessive, and other than reboots and the occasional power outage its
been running since April when I built it. The board is at room
temperature and the power supply is about 10-12 F. above room
temperature. Same specs as when it was built.

A Norton scan quarantined one of the Klez varieties in a downloaded
file saved for future use but of course that didn't help. I haven't
(until well after the problem started) allowed Windows update to install
anything for months as the comp was running fine. I have no idea what
could have happened, the only app I installed was Note Pad Lite that I
tested for work and then removed. I even removed the gPhotoShow screen
saver that is mostly useless with multiple users on timed logout.

One thing I did notice is that logging off one user and then
logging into a different one appears to prematurely trigger the slow
down. I haven't found a pattern as to which of the three users of one
account or the admin. account on this comp are used after a reboot to
trigger the slowdown, not that it matters, as the slow down will occur
at some point anyway.

The error logs only show Zone Alarm 'True Vector' errors (Has
anyone found a fix for this yet?), a Ghost startup service error that
isn't enabled on purpose, Mozilla fail to connect errors (I know its
buggy but we have been Netscape users since the time that Netscape was
the only show in town.) and the usual notices of failing to unload the
registry file (still in use) when logging out of or switching users.

We normally leave the machine running 24/7 and shutdowns only occur
if there is a power outage but lately we are cold booting just to get a
reasonable response from this P4-2.4! Folks, its not supposed to be this
way.

What could have happened? Surely it isn't time to re-install after
only 5 months of XP Pro use? The previous home comp running NT4 took
over 3 years before that was even a consideration!

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
John

 

[Nhoj]

Have you scanned for Spy Ware?
Go to http://www.lavasoft.nu/
and download the free scanner. That *may* be the problem.

 

[davexnet]

Have you scanned for Spy Ware?
Go to http://www.lavasoft.nu/
and download the free scanner. That *may* be the problem.

Have you opened up the task manager during the slowdown to look
a task using high cpu?
Are you using fast user switching?

Dave

 

[JDK]

Have you scanned for Spy Ware?
Go to http://www.lavasoft.nu/
and download the free scanner. That *may* be the problem.


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Pad Lite that I


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that Netscape was


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shutdowns only occur


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supposed to be this


re-install after


running NT4 took

Yes

 

[JDK]

Have you opened up the task manager during the slowdown to look
a task using high cpu?
Are you using fast user switching?

Dave

TaskMan. - nothing out of the ordinary - CPU doesn't even spike?

Fast user switching is enabled and works well, but normally we log out
before switching users. Not that it makes any difference as its seems to
be a time thing. Originally (4 weeks ago) it was every couple hours but
lately it takes a few days before the slogging starts. Some XP updates
have been installed since then which seem to have improved the
situation, but who knows, tomorrow could be different? I can list every
update from day one along with their install date if it helps. Could
also do that with apps.

Thanks,
John

 

[M. Linsenbigler]

Right click on a blank area of the task bar and select task manager. Check
the various tabs.
Mainly how much free memory and id any programs are running hi cpu usage.

I installed a program a few weeks ago that was OK but then I went to run
UT2003 and I got a out of memory error. I went EH? never got that in XP
before. And after a few days it was slowing down more and more. Checking,
this program was gobbling up the mem. I have 512mg DDR. Usually even with
stuff open I have 128-256 meg free. It was down to less than 10k free. I
leave the comp on 24/7. I checked task manager..... uninstalled this
program and all is back to normal.

 

[Alexander Grigoriev]

Check if RPC service is running. If it's been disabled as a precaution
against MSBLAST, I'm afraid you have to reenable it. If the slowdown started
just after you installed SP1 (and if you installed MSBLAST fix _before_
that), try to reinstall the MSBLAST fix, and then enable RPC service.

I've seen weird problems on a machine with RPC disabled.