Guest ship Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Hi Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow about 2 days ago. I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED including: Windows Search, Google Desktop, Logmein.com and SpyBot - Search & Destroy. I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU time though. In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it takes a VERY long time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds to immediately re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer (normally fairly slow to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 seconds I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any viruses. Any thoughts? Ship Shiperton Henethe
Guest ship Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" lookssuspicious...) P.S. I always defrag quite regularly and there is plenty space in my disk. (80GB c.25% free)
Guest ship Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" lookssuspicious...) I am also suspicious of the new Windows Search which I can't quite see how to switch off! Ship
Guest PA Bear [MS MVP] Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Unexplained computer behavior may be caused by deceptive software http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827315 Run a /thorough/ check for hijackware, including posting your hijackthis log to an appropriate forum. Checking for/Help with Hijackware http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878 http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/ http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware When all else fails, HijackThis v2.0.2 (http://aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.exe) is the preferred tool to use (in conjuction with some other utilities). HijackThis will NOT fix anything on its own, but it will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware with assistance from an expert. **Post your log to http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30, http://forums.spybot.info/forumdisplay.php?f=22, http://castlecops.com/forum67.html, or other appropriate forums for review by an expert in such matters, not here.** If the procedures look too complex - and there is no shame in admitting this isn't your cup of tea - take the machine to a local, reputable and independent (i.e., not BigBoxStoreUSA or Geek Squad) computer repair shop. -- ~Robear Dyer (PA Bear) MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002 AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net DTS-L http://dts-l.net/ ship wrote: > Hi > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU > time though. > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > takes a VERY long > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > to immediately > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > (normally fairly slow > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > seconds > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > viruses. > > Any thoughts? > > > Ship > Shiperton Henethe
Guest db.·.. > Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) the svchosts are not always the problem and there are a lots of things that can slow down the pc. the two things to try is: 1) is see if the o.s. has become corrupted by booting into the safemodes and examining the performance of windows and/or 2) reboot normal/regular windows in a clean state: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353 ------------ there is another technique you can use as well while in windows. open the task manager and simply begin killing/ending any and all processes that it permits you to. if a process is the issue then you will be closer to identifying it. incidentally, when you kill explorer.exe you will unload the registry. so go to the first tab and relaunch explorer.exe as a new task. -- db·´¯`·...¸><)))º> "ship" <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3bdf7aa9-b6b8-42d3-9584-5fb50536fd24@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > Hi > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU > time though. > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > takes a VERY long > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > to immediately > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > (normally fairly slow > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > seconds > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > viruses. > > Any thoughts? > > > Ship > Shiperton Henethe >
Guest Gerry Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) How much RAM? 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 the computer on 24/7 I would be interested in seeing a Disk Defragmenter report. Open Disk Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select View Report and click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it is more informative. You might find HD Tune (freeware) gives you a clearer picture of what is going on. HD Tune only gives information and does not fix any problems. Download and run it and see what it turns up. http://www.hdtune.com/ Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. What mode is supported and what is active? Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full surface scan with HD Tune. -- Hope this helps. Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ship wrote: > Hi > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU > time though. > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > takes a VERY long > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > to immediately > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > (normally fairly slow > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > seconds > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > viruses. > > Any thoughts? > > > Ship > Shiperton Henethe
Guest witan Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" lookssuspicious...) On Aug 13, 7:03 pm, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am also suspicious of the new Windows Search which I can't quite see > how to switch off! > > Ship I had a similar problem a sometime back, and it was because the harddisks had slipped down into "PIO" memory access, rather than the normal DMA. You can check this by right-clicking "My computer" >> Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller:and then Primary IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel. The slipping into PIO happens usually because of disk error, including too long a spin-up time.
Guest witan Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" lookssuspicious...) On Aug 13, 7:03 pm, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am also suspicious of the new Windows Search which I can't quite see > how to switch off! > > Ship I had a similar problem a sometime back, and it was because the harddisks had slipped down into "PIO" memory access, rather than the normal DMA. You can check this by right-clicking "My computer" >> Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller:and then Primary IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel. The slipping into PIO happens usually because of disk error, including too long a spin-up time.
Guest Jim Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) "witan" <tsr1936@gmail.com> wrote in message news:9367c252-3af0-4a19-b776-42bb29b9d09f@b38g2000prf.googlegroups.com... On Aug 13, 7:03 pm, ship <ship...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am also suspicious of the new Windows Search which I can't quite see > how to switch off! > > Ship I had a similar problem a sometime back, and it was because the harddisks had slipped down into "PIO" memory access, rather than the normal DMA. You can check this by right-clicking "My computer" >> Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller:and then Primary IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel. The slipping into PIO happens usually because of disk error, including too long a spin-up time. Also, the driver is permanently set for PIO mode. The fix is to remove the driver and reboot. During startup, XP will load the driver from the \i386 folder. Jim
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted August 13, 2008 Posted August 13, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:58:56 -0700 (PDT), ship <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. A sudden unexplained drop in performance like that is extremely likely to be caused by malware infection. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". That's normal. > They are not taking any CPU > time though. > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > takes a VERY long > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > to immediately > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > (normally fairly slow > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > seconds > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > viruses. Viruses are only one kind of malware. Non-viral malware, such as spyware, remains a distinct possibility (also note that no anti-virus program is perfect, and even viral malware is still a possibility). -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Guest Daave Posted August 14, 2008 Posted August 14, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) ship wrote: > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. Something obviously happened 2-3 days ago. It might have been an automatic update. It might have been something you purposefully or accidentally did. (Do you recall anything in particular?) If your issue is not malware-related (malware should always be ruled out first), the first thing I would suspect is logmein.com. See: https://secure.logmein.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=17525&mpage=1嗄 I doubt exiting will fix your problem. A process or two are probably still running in the background. Use msconfig or Autoruns to disable logmein and see what happens. Maybe the problem is with Windows Search. Maybe the problem is with a recent Windows update. You can uninstall the most recent updates (assuming they occurred in the past couple days) and try a System Restore to three days ago.
Guest Unknown Posted August 14, 2008 Posted August 14, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) When was last time you ran disk clean up? "ship" <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3bdf7aa9-b6b8-42d3-9584-5fb50536fd24@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > Hi > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > about 2 days ago. > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > including: > Windows Search, > Google Desktop, > Logmein.com and > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU > time though. > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > takes a VERY long > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > to immediately > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > (normally fairly slow > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > seconds > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > viruses. > > Any thoughts? > > > Ship > Shiperton Henethe >
Guest ship Posted August 28, 2008 Posted August 28, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" lookssuspicious...) No idea. What exactly is "Disck Clean Up" ? And is it safe? Ship Shiperton Henethe > When was last time you ran disk clean up?"ship" <ship...@gmail.com> wrote in message > > news:3bdf7aa9-b6b8-42d3-9584-5fb50536fd24@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > > > > > Hi > > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? > > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). > > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow > > about 2 days ago. > > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. > > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED > > including: > > Windows Search, > > Google Desktop, > > Logmein.com and > > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. > > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- > > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU > > time though. > > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it > > takes a VERY long > > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds > > to immediately > > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer > > (normally fairly slow > > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 > > seconds > > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any > > viruses. > > > Any thoughts? > > > Ship > >ShipertonHenethe- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
Guest Tom [Pepper] Willett Posted August 28, 2008 Posted August 28, 2008 Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) Re: PC has suddenly started to crawl ? ("svchost.exe" looks suspicious...) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312 "ship" <shiphen@gmail.com> wrote in message news:281308ad-c56a-4933-bd4f-176255b684c2@z66g2000hsc.googlegroups.com... : : No idea. : What exactly is "Disck Clean Up" ? : And is it safe? : : Ship : Shiperton Henethe : : : > When was last time you ran disk clean up?"ship" <ship...@gmail.com> wrote in message : > : > news:3bdf7aa9-b6b8-42d3-9584-5fb50536fd24@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... : > : > : > : > > Hi : > : > > Any thoughts about why my PC is suddenly running dead slow? : > > It is running Windows XP Pro (SP3). : > : > > I last updated it about 20 days ago. And then it started running slow : > > about 2 days ago. : > > I have now installe dall the latest patches but it is still dog-slow. : > : > > I have various things installed but which I have now EXITED : > > including: : > > Windows Search, : > > Google Desktop, : > > Logmein.com and : > > SpyBot - Search & Destroy. : > : > > I notice in Windows "Task Manager" that even just after on a cold re- : > > boot, I have 7 copies of "svchost.exe". They are not taking any CPU : > > time though. : > : > > In fact the CPU is running at about 2-3%. But when I open FireFox, it : > > takes a VERY long : > > time to open (about 90 seconds first time, and still about 15 seconds : > > to immediately : > > re-open it with nothing else open). Whereas msInternet Explorer : > > (normally fairly slow : > > to open now opens in about 8 seconds and re-opens in about 2 or 3 : > > seconds : > : > > I am running AVG Anti-Virus Free (v8.0.138) - but it can't find any : > > viruses. : > : > > Any thoughts? : > : > > Ship : > >ShipertonHenethe- Hide quoted text - : > : > - Show quoted text - :
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