XP problem - explorer/PC unresponsive for short periods

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timmmay

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#13474 11-May-2007 21:16

In the past week my PC has started acting a little strangely - it randomly hangs for 10-20 seconds - then comes right. I'm on XP SP2, Athlon X2 4800+ 2GB RAM. Just now I double clicked on a word document, explorer didn't respond for 10 seconds, then word opened, took ten seconds to open the document. Then I hit select all, copy, and switched to another app. It hadn't done the copy, and now word has hung. It often happens when I double click a JPG - it takes 20 seconds for ACDSee to open, all that time explorer is unresponsive - but while that's happening if photoshop is open I can use file -> open to open the JPG. Same thing when I click a link in thunderbird - it takes 20 seconds to open in firefox - which is already running.

One thing I have done recently is uninstalled Kaspersky antivirus - I had a trial version and it kept taking 50% of the CPU. Right now i'm not running virus protection.

Any ideas?

Al

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#70461 12-May-2007 08:04

I would start with the concept that it could be virus or malware causing this.

I just cleaned out a pc that had a similar problem that was riddled with trojans and malware.

First up go to windows update and make sure you are up to date with all the critical updates.

Download the free version of AntiVir and while your at it download Spybot and AdAware if you don't have them already.

Starting with AntiVir allow it to download the latest definitions then let it do a full scan of the pc. I got a successful clean of the last pc by doing the scan in safemode. Delete all infections that it finds.

Also make sure Spybot and Adaware are up to date and let those programs have a scan.

If that hasn't fixed it then it must be something else but at least you'll have a clean safe pc

timmmay

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#70469 12-May-2007 11:40

Thanks Al. I'm adware and antivirus free (just scanned) - i'm running a hardware firewall which catches most of the nasties, and my email server filters out viruses. Any ideas how to get this stupid machine running? I don't really want to have to reinstall windows it'd be a real pain - but it's probably due - install is maybe 3 years old.

freitasm

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#70470 12-May-2007 11:58

Another thing is to check how much (in bytes) you have on your desktop. Explorer can get really slugish if you have large files on the desktop (even more if you have the antivirus active).

timmmay

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#70471 12-May-2007 12:00

Half a dozen small text files on my desktop is all.

Al

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#70502 12-May-2007 18:41

timmmay: Thanks Al. I'm adware and antivirus free (just scanned) - i'm running a hardware firewall which catches most of the nasties, and my email server filters out viruses. Any ideas how to get this stupid machine running? I don't really want to have to reinstall windows it'd be a real pain - but it's probably due - install is maybe 3 years old.

Your hardware firewall will not pick up all nasties.

If the email server filter is Xtra forget it. Quite a few will still easily slip through

Did you check to make sure you are up to date with windows critical updates?

Open internet explorer, click on Tools then Windows Update to be really sure.

You need an antivirus program on the pc to keep it clean, there are credible freeware antivirus out there, ie AntiVir and AVG.

Download one of them, update it and then do a scan with the pc in safe mode.

Al

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#70503 12-May-2007 18:46

And I forgot to add

Download Ccleaner and let it do a clean of your hard drive, you'll be surprised at the result of just that.

timmmay

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#70504 12-May-2007 18:48

Thanks for your advice Al, i'm a software engineer with a degree in computers so in general i'm quite capable of protecting my PC. I don't use Xtra, I have a shared server in the US, but given I use Thunderbird and i'm careful what I email open it's not a problem. Also I don't download or install random things. I do agree that antivirus is a good idea though, i'm thinking about what I want to use. I uninstalled Nortons a month or so ago, I read it was a bit of a resource hog, then tried Kaspersky but didn't like it because it ate my CPU and my PC didn't seem as stable with it - plus it gave me lots of annoying warnings. I might reinstall nortons, I used it for years with no real problem - except price perhaps.

I used a Kaspersky removal progam I found on their website, and it seems to have solved the problem. Thanks for all the thoughts and advice.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

timmmay

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#70505 12-May-2007 18:55

Al: And I forgot to add

Download Ccleaner and let it do a clean of your hard drive, you'll be surprised at the result of just that.

Done, ta :)

Al

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#70512 12-May-2007 19:06

I've found Nortens to exceptionally greedy on resources and as a result recommend others with lower specs pcs' to stay away from it but if your pc is up to date with the latest (at least 1GB of ram etc) then you'll be fine.

I only said double check your critical updates as the last pc I work on I was told the same "It's up to date" but when I checked I found around 60MB of critical updates waiting.

They had it set on auto updates and were on broadband but somehow it failed to download the updates.

I'm now wondering if your pc is freezing due to an auto update issue I have recently heard about.

Try these sites to see if you have the same prob

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread75130.html

antoniosk

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#70513 12-May-2007 19:09

Or even this one I've just blogged about:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/antoniosk/2893

________

Antoniosk

timmmay

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#70514 12-May-2007 19:13

It's a dual core machine with 2GB of RAM so it can probably handle it. Kapersky reviews well but works poorly in my experience. I don't use auto update, I manually update windows every week or so, so it shouldn't be that. It seems better now so I might leave it alone.

Thanks again Al.

AK - it's not that problem, but thanks.

Al

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#70517 12-May-2007 19:28

timmmay: II manually update windows every week or so,

So do I, I like to see what is going on when updating.

Did you use Ccleaner? It is a fantastic free program

I use the "issues' part of Ccleaner to bring the pc back to it's original speed plus it can also get rid of those annoying start up programs that load themselves over time.

Cheers
Al

timmmay

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#70518 12-May-2007 19:30

Just ran CCleaner, it got rid of a bunch of old files laying around, thanks.