Please Help!!

[Guest HowardS]

I have a problem. Everything is either running very slowly or won't run

at all. I can use Firefox, but IE won't run. I have run some spyware and

antivirus scans that come up clean. I have tried to run an online scan

with Housecall and also with Panda, but gave up because they still

hadn't finished and 24 hours. If you need a Hijack This log, you will

have to guide me through it, sorry. I am using XP Service pack 2. Hope

someone can help.

Thanks.

[Guest Malke]

Re: Please Help!!

 

HowardS wrote:

>

> I have a problem. Everything is either running very slowly or won't run

> at all. I can use Firefox, but IE won't run. I have run some spyware and

> antivirus scans that come up clean. I have tried to run an online scan

> with Housecall and also with Panda, but gave up because they still

> hadn't finished and 24 hours. If you need a Hijack This log, you will

> have to guide me through it, sorry. I am using XP Service pack 2. Hope

> someone can help.

> Thanks.

 

It would be useful for us to know your computer specs as well as the recent

history of the machine. Your issues could be caused by failing hardware

instead of software (such as viruses). Unfortunately, there's no way for us

to tell from what you've written.

 

The First Question Of Troubleshooting: what changed between the time things

worked and the time they didn't?

 

Things to check (back up your data first)

 

1. The virus/malware status of the machine. Follow the steps at this link.

There are links there to specialty forums where you can post a HijackThis

log if necessary. We don't analyze HJT logs here in the MS newsgroups

because of a) privacy issues; b) and because it takes a great deal of time

and expertise to do this and this isn't the right venue for that.

 

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

 

2. See if the hard drive is running in PIO Mode instead of DMA. MVP

Hans-Georg Michna has information about that and a fix here:

 

http://winhlp.com/?q=node/10

 

3. Depending on what other computers and skill level you have available, a

quick way to test if issues are being caused by hardware or software

(Windows) is to boot with a Linux Live CD like Knoppix. A Live CD runs a

different operating system from the CD and doesn't touch your installed OS

on the hard drive. If the computer behaves under Linux, you know that

something in Windows is causing the problem. If the computer behaves the

same way under Linux, you know it's bad hardware.

 

4. Troubleshoot the hardware, starting with the hard drive:

 

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

 

The above should give you some starting points. After you've done some

troubleshooting, if you want more help then post back with details,

answers, results of what you've tried, etc.

 

If you can't do the testing yourself, take the machine to a professional

computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of

BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).There is no shame in admitting this isn't your

cup of tea. I don't hesitate to take my car to the mechanic or call a

plumber. If possible, have all your data backed up before you take the

machine into a shop.

 

Malke

--

MS-MVP

Elephant Boy Computers

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com

Don't Panic!