Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
5 Posts
0
1930
March 12th, 2008 00:00
Dimension 3000 slowed down
Help! About a month ago our computer went from working just fine to taking forever to use any of the applications or access the internet. I have McAfee and ran a full scan...it took six days! There were several quaraintined files that I deleted. We are still having problems. It is amazingly slow. I suspect a virus or something else, but I just don't know what else to do. I have run several of the Dell Diagnostic programs, defragmented, and tried several other troubleshooting ideas from the Help and Support window of windows XP Home Edition.
The only thing that I can think of that might have started the problem is that around the same time our Dell slowed down I got a MacBook and wirelessly connected it to a router that is connected to the Dell. Not knowing what I was doing I did alot of messing around with the Network stuff on the Dell. I was trying to find ways to share folders and set up the network, etc. Who knows what I might have changed.
My hope is that someone will say, "Oh, I know exactly what you did when you were messing with the network. Just do this and this and you will be done!" I hope this isn't wishful thinking.
JW
No Events found!
Ryanh6178
670 Posts
0
March 12th, 2008 15:00
Hi JW,
Well, I wouldn't suspect that the wireless configuration update would affect your system taking six days to scan. (Unless you welcomed and unwanted application that's affecting your system)
First things first...
How much memory do you have? (preferably over 512MB)
How much hard drive space available? (preferably over 3 or 4GB left)
What and which version of OS do you have? (preferably XP - SP2 or later)
Given that your operating system is up to par on updates and you're meeting the above hardware suggested requirements the next thing to check would be "running applications".
You could try using the task manager to identify what's running, but it won't be very descriptive so I'll suggest two utilities to you that I find most helpful.
Procxp - Shows what processes are running and who owns them. (If a process doesn't have a valid publisher listed then you might want to pay special attention to it. It would be useful to search it online to verify if it's valid or not) IE. Java update applet doesn't show publisher, but it's valid from SunMicroSystems.
Autoruns - This application shows you a overall view of what's running and started from where. You can disable selected processes to keep them from running. Again, very useful when looking for processes that don't have a publisher listed. If a process/application you disable comes back on the next boot up, then you might just have a virus. Very helpful tool.
I use these tools to identify applications that shouldn't be running when working on systems. There are a number of useful tools at the site. It's now owned by Microsoft, but you can get there via -
www.sysinternals.com
Ryanh6178
670 Posts
0
March 12th, 2008 16:00
Hey JW,
Yeah, that would have been an easy $100 for someone IF they would have found it. =)
I'm glad it turned out that easy. I would still suggest you try Procxp in the previous post. It's much better to identify processes.
gjward1215
5 Posts
0
March 12th, 2008 16:00