Xp slow

[thegame8019]

I have been working on a friends pc it is a compaq presario w/ AMD Athalon, 512 G RAM, XP Home SP3. The pc was having an issue with pop-ups, and when I tried to begin working on it alot of .exe's were corrupted.I noticed the version of avg on the pc was expired. I deleted a few known malware programs such as PC Power Speed etc. and I was able to execute the programs that said they had a corrupted .exe. As I dug further I noticed windows firewall and automatic updates were disabled and could not be activated. I then went into Safe Mode with Com Prompt and got them turned on. Ran numerous scans with AVG, Malware bytes and Super Anti Spyware. I removed 7 Trojans, Many Tracking cookies and repaired 3 Reg errors. The pc is running much better than it was and i now have access to everything but it is still running slower than it should and when you have any program open, even if its is just sitting there idling, it is extrememly slow when doing other things, slower than it was before the infections that have been resloved. I would like the get this pc back to the owner soon and was wondering if anyone had any ideas i haven't thought of besides a reformat and reinstall of the os and everything else. Thank you for time and help.

 

[hang-the-9]

Re-install the OS, upgrade RAM to at least 1 gig. Bit too many issues with viruses and files to try to cobble together a clean system at it's current state. You can try just a RAM upgrade, 2 gig would be good, 1 is a bit low actualy.

 

[thegame8019]

Re-install the OS, upgrade RAM to at least 1 gig. Bit too many issues with viruses and files to try to cobble together a clean system at it's current state. You can try just a RAM upgrade, 2 gig would be good, 1 is a bit low actualy.

Thanks for the response. I have done a reinstall, added avg anti virus malwarebytes and SAS. The OS disc the owner had only had SP1, so i began windows updates everything was fine til after the sp 2 download then it starting lagging and hanging again. Now automatic updates freezes at 60% and if i try to manually download from Microsoft.com it sits on the screen when it is looking to see if there are any updates. I have run my scans, made sure nothing was disabled and still can't find any reason that it won't update now. The machine is clean based on scans. It seems like the connection just times out or something is stopping it.

 

[thegame8019]

Also, Compaq in their infinate proprietary wisdom does not give you a copy of the os like they used to the pc was bought from circuit city so it has an install disc that doesn't work and on this model for some reason compaq ( with said disc) won't let you boot from cd even if every is set up to boot from cd.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for the response. I have done a reinstall, added avg anti virus malwarebytes and SAS. The OS disc the owner had only had SP1, so i began windows updates everything was fine til after the sp 2 download then it starting lagging and hanging again. Now automatic updates freezes at 60% and if i try to manually download from Microsoft.com it sits on the screen when it is looking to see if there are any updates. I have run my scans, made sure nothing was disabled and still can't find any reason that it won't update now. The machine is clean based on scans. It seems like the connection just times out or something is stopping it.

Try this, re-install the OS clean again. Get all the drivers updated. Don't start automatic updates. Download manually and install SP3, then a newer version of I.E., install anti-virus, then turn on automatic updates and see how that runs.

Many systems now don't come with restore disks, just with a recovery partition, and an option for you to make your own disks from a utility. Which is a bit crappy as most people are cluless about that stuff, and never make a restore disk set.

 

[thegame8019]

Thanks ill try that and post the results.

 

[thegame8019]

Restored computer and ran into some issues. Microsoft won't let you manually download Sp2 and more so I had to do custom installs through automatic updates until I got it. Then i was able to download Sp3 maually. Still not sure if everything is ok yet. Not sure personally if there is an easier way to download the service packs since microsoft doesn't offer SP2 for maual download now.

 

[hang-the-9]

It does look like you need SP1a (which I never even new existed) to go right to SP3, I thought SP1 > SP3 would work.

You may want to look into creating an SP3 slipstreamed disk, it's not hard to do and saves lots of issues such as SATA support http://lifehacker.com/386526/slipstream-service-pack-3-into-your-windows-xp-installation-cd

 

[thegame8019]

Did clean install added SP1a then Sp3 evrey thing seems fine besides some now apparent HD clatter. Should be ok for the minimal tasks the user needs it for. Plan to replace the HD possibly in the future depending on if the user would rather buy a new pc in a few months or so. Also had to manually reinstall he automatic updates driver the install for it didn't work through the SP3 install. Thanks alot for all your help it is appreciated.

 

[thegame8019]

Best answer selected by thegame8019.

 

[hang-the-9]

To fix HD play-back, you need 2 gig of RAM in there, and a faster video card I'd guess. Depending on the CPU speed also. A P4 at around 2.8 gig will be able to play HD with a low-end newer video card with 2 gig of RAM.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

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