Computer Slowdown

[nixname]

Hi all,

I have a wee-bit of a conundrum going on over here. The short story is that my computer has slowed down significantly for a variety of tasks. The longer story is that my girlfriend has been using the computer this week, and swears that she hasn't installed anything, but I know this isn't super true because there were new icons on the desktop. However, they primarily seemed like the she clicked ok when AVG asked her to update and did similarly with iTunes. Still none of this should break a computer. However, when I turned it on the play Grid (which it usually does at greater than 50FPS on full settings, I am now getting huge lag and slowdowns (unplayable style). I have noticed this in other programs as well such as IE, and Power DVD.

Things I have done:
0. Restarted etc...
1. Checked task manager for odd CPU usage
2. scanned for viruses with AVG
3. Checked for hard drive fragmentation
4. Deleted contents of temp folder (minus a couple that said they were in use...suspicious?)

On all of these topics my computer has come back with a clean bill of health. Any thoughts?

Here are some computer specs.
CPU: X3 BL
RAM: 4gb
HDD: Seagate 7.12 1TB (only 200 gb used)
VC: 4870

 

[nixname]

I just wanted to add some quick information. The core CPU temperature is between 23-30c

Also, when I click on IE of Chrome or anything it just hangs forever, and then says that an unspecified error occurred in AVG, and rather than the Cores all being maxed out they all read at 0% load. WTF is going on. This doesn't make any sense, and I am starting to get upset.

 

[nixname]

Also I should mention that I am running Windows 7 and that everything is up to date.

 

[nixname]

Now that I have uninstalled AVG things are starting to suck less...why would AVG be responsible, I have all the passive stuff turned off.

 

[nixname]

LOL and now the game I wanted to play (GRID) won't work at all. It is a steam game, it goes to the launching thing that steam does and the crashes...any thoughts on this one?

 

[jjb8675309]

download and run spybot which is a free utility that will cleanup and spyware that avg may not have caught i run it simultaneously with avg and it finds stuff all the time just from basic webrowsing and yeah, if youve had spyware accumulating on your pc for a while than you can potentially take a large performance hit, as far as steam i would back up you game saves and your game, uninstall all your games and the steam client and reinstall everything. If all else fails just wipe your hardrive partitions clean and reinstall windows fresh, your pc should run like a dream but short of doing that run spybot and see if it helps.

 

[archer7282]

1st of all do a complete full network shutdown and restart... (shut down and disconnect power from entire network (then repower starting with modem, then router, then computer...etc.))

If this does not repair it follow procedures listed here. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/248626-45-simple-free-guide-removing-malware

 

[archer7282]

also on a side note... recommend you try AVAST rather than AVG.

 

[nixname]

Thanks I will give it a go (AVAST) and see if that solves the problem.

It got a clean bill of health for the spy/malware.

 

[jjb8675309]

Thanks I will give it a go (AVAST) and see if that solves the problem.

It got a clean bill of health for the spy/malware.

well thats good that you have erradicated any spywaremalware issues, or didnt have any to begin with. Not familiar with AVAST but I am certain that AVG free does not have all the virus definitions (really no-one does(right off the bat anyways)) but perhaps AVAST does but AVG free is good for what it is IMO

 

[jjb8675309]

however it does sound like you have a virus so either get a better antivirus or reformat your harddrive and reload windows if all else fails bc that will fix it up for you in a quick 20 minutes or so then you wont have to go hunting for the problem.

 

[geofelt]

1) Could you do a system restore back to when things were working well?
2) For what it is worth, Microsoft security essentials is free, unobtrusive, supported, and works well.
3) Prune your installed programs. Remove unneeded apps and check out anything that looks like it does not belong there.

 

[Nishadk08]

Try the tune up utilities 2010 on your computer.
First remove unwanted programs.
After installation of this software run the registry clean, registry defrag,disk doctor and disk defragmentation,clean up windows etc. using this software.
This process will take much time but it works good
Sure that this will help you.