Hard disk perpetually in use; system unbearably slow

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

My hard drive is contantly in use & the simplest activities take forever. The
problem not disk fragmentation, spyware or viruses. I have Windows XP
Professional, my hard disk, is 40 Gig & only about 1/2 full. 256 meg of
memory. Most commonly used programs are MS Office XP Professional. Norton
Anti-virus and Internet protection running in background. Opening a program
can take 3-5 minutes. Opening a file 2 minutes or longer. Shutting down my
computer can take 10 minutes. Any ideas what may be the cause and solution?

 

[Chuck]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:14:05 -0800, "Robert McN"
<RobertMcN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>My hard drive is contantly in use & the simplest activities take forever. The
>problem not disk fragmentation, spyware or viruses. I have Windows XP
>Professional, my hard disk, is 40 Gig & only about 1/2 full. 256 meg of
>memory. Most commonly used programs are MS Office XP Professional. Norton
>Anti-virus and Internet protection running in background. Opening a program
>can take 3-5 minutes. Opening a file 2 minutes or longer. Shutting down my
>computer can take 10 minutes. Any ideas what may be the cause and solution?

Robert,

Why do you say not spyware or viruses? What diagnostics have you run?

Get Process Explorer (free) from
<http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml>. Provides way more
information than Task Manager. Find out what activity is going on.

--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Thank you for your question: I use Norton Anti-virus and update it regularly
and periodically do a complete scan of my disk. As for spyware, I use
Spyware's Search and Destroy, which I also update periodically and use to
scan my hard disk. For that reason, I don't think the problem is
fragmentation, viruses, or spyware. Maybe there are programs/viruses that
these programs are missing, but if so, then how would I correct the problem?

"Chuck" wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:14:05 -0800, "Robert McN"
> <RobertMcN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >My hard drive is contantly in use & the simplest activities take forever. The
> >problem not disk fragmentation, spyware or viruses. I have Windows XP
> >Professional, my hard disk, is 40 Gig & only about 1/2 full. 256 meg of
> >memory. Most commonly used programs are MS Office XP Professional. Norton
> >Anti-virus and Internet protection running in background. Opening a program
> >can take 3-5 minutes. Opening a file 2 minutes or longer. Shutting down my
> >computer can take 10 minutes. Any ideas what may be the cause and solution?
>
> Robert,
>
> Why do you say not spyware or viruses? What diagnostics have you run?
>
> Get Process Explorer (free) from
> <http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml>. Provides way more
> information than Task Manager. Find out what activity is going on.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Chuck
> Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Viruses, spyware or both.
--
Ted Zieglar


"Robert McN" <RobertMcN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1A8DBDA3-CC1E-4F8B-90C6-609E28F04E8D@microsoft.com...
> My hard drive is contantly in use & the simplest activities take forever.
The
> problem not disk fragmentation, spyware or viruses. I have Windows XP
> Professional, my hard disk, is 40 Gig & only about 1/2 full. 256 meg of
> memory. Most commonly used programs are MS Office XP Professional. Norton
> Anti-virus and Internet protection running in background. Opening a
program
> can take 3-5 minutes. Opening a file 2 minutes or longer. Shutting down
my
> computer can take 10 minutes. Any ideas what may be the cause and
solution?

 

[Chuck]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 07:01:01 -0800, "Robert McN"
<RobertMcN@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Chuck,
>My sincere thanks for your reply. I have a comment and a question. My
>comment is that I have come to think that you are probably right... this is a
>problem of spyware. My reason for my change of opinin is because my computer
>(a wireless IBM laptop) is generally always connected to the internet.
>Yesterday, I was in a remote location for the whole day without internet
>connection, and my hard disk acted normally for the first time in weeks.
>
>My question is this: I'm under a ton of pressure now (and my work is all on
>my computer). The recommendations you have given are so comprehensive, it
>looks as if it would take a few days of full-time work just to load all the
>programs and launch them. Second, I don't know how I would keep track of so
>many programs (I don't konw how you do it!) So while I *do* want to take
>your advice seriously, I'm wondering if there is a phased approached, where I
>might try a segment of what you are recommending and then if that doesn't do
>the trick move on to additional measures.
>Thanks again. You are clearly a real professional and it's very generous of
>you to share your knowledge with a stranger like me.
>All the best, Bob

Bob,

This is not a conventional approach, but I have had it work well in limited
occasions.

If your NAV is religiously updated and used, you're probably safe from viruses.
If possible, though, try one of the online virus scans too.

Then start with HijackThis, and post your HijackThis log here. This is not an
efficient approach - without running AdAware, Spybot, and Stinger, and having
75% of the easily identifiable problems removed first, the HJT log may be a bit
bulky. But it should be easy to run thru the log, and confirm that the other
tools are absolutely necessary.

I don't recommend this lightly, and it is usually not a good idea to post a HJT
log in this newsgroup, but if your unique circumstances require it, I'll be glad
to help.
HijackThis <http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3155>

--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.