Having severe trouble with Windows XP - Please Help!!!

[Lifeblood]

defrag
free up more space and increase size of swapfile
do away with unwanted programs
scan for trojans, viruses and spyware
check your registry closely and purge it (VERY IMPORTANT!)
reinstall XP (what do you have to lose?)

Also if you think some process is jacking all the juice I highly suggest you use Taskinfo2003 to locate the perp. Windows task manager is totally useless. If you post a screenshot of Taskinfo then I can locate the problem if you want.

http://www.iarsn.com/taskinfo.html

Also make sure you have XP on a separate smaller partition from the rest of your stuff. Also stop running Norton or any other virus monitoring garbage in the background, this is will slow yer system down. Use a good firewall and check for viruses once a day instead.

 

[ainwood]

Instead of reinstalling XP, you can boot off the installation CD and choose 'repair and existing installation'. That might do it.

But I really suspect its spyware etc, if you've never run adaware of spybot.

 

[nixon]

No, because I'm experiencing the same problems and I run ad-aware and others on a regular basis. It's always that damn explorer.exe that hijacks it all!

Btw, is it safe to mess with the size of the swapfile and so on?

 

[nixon]

Another thing is that I don't understand why something called "System Idle Process" of around 20 kb (!) can use up 97% of the CPU!

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by nixon
Another thing is that I don't understand why something called "System Idle Process" of around 20 kb (!) can use up 97% of the CPU!

I am fairly sure the System Idle thingie is harmless, that is, it doesn't cause your computer to horribly slow up like "explorer.exe" thingie will, when it uses 90-98% of your CPU.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by nixon
Another thing is that I don't understand why something called "System Idle Process" of around 20 kb (!) can use up 97% of the CPU!

It only does that so that it's usage numbers can add up to 100%. It's not actually 'using' the CPU, just accounting for it. If you have 97% shown as idle, then only 3% of your CPU is being used elsewhere.

 

[ainwood]

As a random thought - do you have the indexing service turned on? that might account for the slowdown, especially on a fragmented hard-drive.

Other options: Go to my computer, right-click on teh hard-drive, select tools and use disk clean-up.

Have you installed SP2? If so, did you then uninstall it? (saw a reference to that).

 

[Goober]

Woah, a lot of suggestions pouring in. I just defragged my smaller HD that I have most of my stuff in. My larger, 160 Gig should not be a problem because it has hardly anything in it, and I defragged it recently. I have no clue what the "indexing service" is ainwood, please explain. I have SP2 installed. I will do the disk clean up, run RegSeeker, AdAware, am running SpyBot right now. Virus scan by Norton turned nothing up. I am considering getting a second firewall, is that advisable? What would you guys suggest. I am not experiencing the massive slow down this today, i came home after leaving the computer on for about 9 hours, and everything works decently. Thanks Duke of M, that helps a lot, now I finally know what that does.

Wow, a lot of things to do. Well, at least by the end of this, I wil have less SpyWare, etc. I suspect I am still cleaning up from what Imesh left behind. I have since uninstalled Imeash, and gotten WinMX. oh, Duke of M, I will run that Ram check thing you suggested as well.

Thanks everybody!!!

 

[Jeratain]

You have Service Pack 2 installed? I was unaware that they had already released a final version.

I know it's in Beta, but there's a final version available for download? First I've heard of this.

 

[Lifeblood]

Service pack 2 is Beta garbage and will cause you much grief if it is the integrated version. Reformat now or suffer the consequences. Just friendly advice.

 

[ainwood]

Re the 'indexing service': I believe its turned off by default. You can look at the details by doing a search in Help for "Indexing". What it basicaly does is make a hash table of every file on your PC, to (in theory) speed-up file searches. However, the references I've seen to it tell me that it in fact slows the PC down (and is the main reason why your PC hard-drive bursts into action when you're (supposedly) not doing anything).

 

[Goober]

I have a great annoucement: I found a temporary solution!!! I just go to the Windows Task Manager, and whenever "explorer.exe" is taking up all my CPU, I just turn it off, then go back to Task Manager, and turn it back on!!! It is so simple, yet effective. Now, it is temporary, and I am still going through all the suggestions that I am seeing here, but it works, and it is effective, and fast!!! I have defragged, run SpyBot, done a virus scan, and I am still having this problem. But I like my solution, mainly cause I find it very interesting that you do not need "explorer.exe" to keep your system running, amazingly enough, all you need is Windows Task Manager. How does that work, btw?

 

[Ankka]

Forget about Windows. Buy a mac. or a linux.

 

[Goober]

Originally posted by Ankka
Forget about Windows. Buy a mac. or a linux.

I would, but then I would not be able to play as many of my games on it. I am planning to get linux, but then I would not be able to run all those M$ programs that everyone uses, like Word, Excel, etc. Unless the Linux equivalents are compatable . . .

Dang Linux and Mac not being able to play games like M$ can . . .

 

[Grisu]

Originally posted by RealGoober

I am planning to get linux, but then I would not be able to run all those M$ programs that everyone uses, like Word, Excel, etc. Unless the Linux equivalents are compatable . . .

Dang Linux and Mac not being able to play games like M$ can . . .

as long as those office files don't use vba, openoffice is pretty compatible to ms-office.

but then you still got the gameing probem, though nowadays many games run with WineX (I once tried Civ3 and it ran just fine)

 

[marioh]

Are you fully updated with all the hot fixes from www.windowsupdate.com ?

 

[marioh]

Also, try this ....

Work around: Go to: Control Panel > Display > Appearance Tab > Effects Button and *disable* (uncheck) the transition effects

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819101

 

[GrandAdmiral]

The only time I have had a similar problem is when the hard drive that has my OS installed on it was near capacity or some adware apps were hogging my resources.

 

[Goober]

Yes, I am fully updated, and I have tried many of the things that have been previously mentioned - nothing has solved it yet. I will try the most recent suggestion, though. I am still getting the problrm, although the solution is so easy, I just close "explorer.exe", and restart it, all from the Windows Task Manager screen. Works like a charm, everytime!!!