[Sandamon]

I have 512 RAM With Pentium 4 running Win XP -- Last couple of weeks the computer got slower at boot time, took long time to load up the system tray icons. I figured I just had too much there. Ran Free Norton and found nothing.. Suddenly got so slow it would not start --- I used Ultimate Boot CD - had to reset the password and roll back a few days. Finally got back into my system - Found Joke32, and Joke Geshank on the system and removed them. Spybot SD found some sort of residual spy stuff but no Trojan per se left, some registry changes though , of course those coulda been me.

Long story short - computer goes very slow - shows that 98 percent in System Idle Process even if I try to have 3 windows going at once. Programs drop off and freeze, and it takes like 30 minutes to get all the systray and icons to load. Also for some reason it keeps saying to chkdisk my second disk even if I have done that the last 3 logins . I don't want to pay for a Regeditior if that is not the problem or if that can be avoided. any thoughts?? Even switching from one program to another using alt tab takes a long time.

[Facedown98]

It sounds like you're probably still infected with different types of malware. I highly recommend posting your HijackThis logfile in our malware section. There, an experienced Geeks to Go! Malware professional will analyze your logfile and help you remove any naties you may be infected with. If you have any questions, please let us know.

[Sandamon]

OK I have checked in Hijack this and they say the system looks clean. I ran TrojanHunter just to be sure and it also found nothing. I have defragged the harddrive, deleted temp files, run a registry clean called Tuneup Utilities 2006, as well as a registry defrag. The reg clean helped some as I had lots of files that are out of date etc that it found and deleted. However it still takes a long time to boot. Less than 40 min now but still rediculously long. Also it freezes up when I try to go into programs or hit the start button.

First is there a way to have it quit doing a chkdisk each startup? That might just be a result of all the reg cleans but I am not sure. Second I have noticed that WindowsFormsParkingWindow seems to not close when I log off. Is this a problem?

This ram program I installed called FreeRam or some such shows the ram usage at around 221 right now of 512, it has yet to go over 320. Task manager shows 5 percent CPU if I strain it, but typically around 96-98 percent on the System Idle Process. That means it just isnt using the CPU for some reason.

I read on a post to Matt_T a recomendation to try using the WinXp disk to "repair" - I have not done that yet as I don't know where the disk is right now, it is in storage. Would redownloading SP2 help? Would I lose all the stuff i have if I reinstall SP2 from a download? I am out of ideas of my own. I think that rather than having a cluttered computer I am missing some key item in my registry or something that makes it bog down. As I mentioned earlier - there were/are several commands to load a desktop.ini file according to EZPCFix - I have not seen any other program make note of that, but perhaps my regcleans have taken care ofthat - I need to run the EZPCFix again - but for the moment my internet explorer is working so I will type this.

Often it freezes when switching aplications or starting up an application. It could be my imagination but using Windows Task Manager and alt Tab seems to kick start the applications when they freeze up. Sorry for the rambling - Anythoughts on this?

[wannabe1]

Hi Sandamon...

Let's try a Selective Startup to see if it's one of the startup applications causing the problem.

Click Start, then Run, type msconfig and click "Ok". Under the "General" tab, tick the button next to "Selective Startup" and remove the tick in the box next to "Load startup items". Accept the change.

Reboot. Upon restarting you will receive a selective startup dialog window...this is normal. Tick the box to not show it again and click "Ok".

Does this improve the startup time significantly?

wannabe1

[Sandamon]

Unfortunately it didn't speed it up. It got to the background picture faster it seemed. Then it waited there for a long time with no control bar at teh bottom. After a long time the icons and bar came, with the automatic wireless utility and a safely remove hardware icon in the system tray. But it had the hourglass going if i put the mouse by the system tray. Finally it let me in - but was freezing the screen a lot. The safely remove hardware icon seems to be there because I upgraded the driver for my wireless usb device. Do i still need the auto wireless utitlity also - seems odd to have two utilties that do the same thing. I managed to get rid of the chkdisk by running chkdsk from the ultimate boot cd - for some reason it is a different version of chkdisk or seems different. I will try switching to the only important system items diagnotistic start up and see what that does...

[wannabe1]

What we're trying to determine is whether the problem is a hanging application or a driver issue. It's starting to sound like it may be a driver. Does the machine start in safe mode any faster?

[Sandamon]

Will try the safe mode idea - when i tried using that diagnostic mode with only basic stuff starting up it loaded very fast. I realized that part of the reason it didn't speed up as much to get rid of the start programs is because about half of them had been disabled by winpatrol. when they all load as well as the services it takes forever again. But I did notice that the services are nto all loading - when i run msconfig and click on services it shows some of them as stopped and some as loading up even after the computer has been on for awhile. Also if I have to end a program there is several minutes before window comes back asking if I want to report that to microsoft.

I tried only loading a few of the services and got some success, but it seemed that perhaps more than one were causing the slow up as I couldn't get it to go fast with all but one group.

[Sandamon]

Safe mode was definitely faster loaded up almost right away like one would expect. However clicking on Internet Explorer icon was a short delay before it loaded up.

What next?

[wannabe1]

Let's get some of this other stuff out of our way to make things a little easier.

Quote

First is there a way to have it quit doing a chkdisk each startup?

Click Start, then Run, type cmd, and click "Ok". In the command window that opens, type fsutil dirty query c: at the prompt and press "Enter".

Does the result of this indicate the drive is "Dirty"?

[Sandamon]

I managed to get the chkdisk to stop. It says the drive is Not Dirty. Also I failed to mention that the windows registration came up- it sensed I had computer problems so it wanted me to reverify that I had a legitimate windows. It was a hassle since things were going so slow - the utility kept timing out - but I finally was able to get it through. I wonder though if the "Genuine Windows" download was/is part of the problem or just a coincidence.

[Sandamon]

I used a different checkdisk program on the c drive. It turned out that the sens.dll file was corrupted. Don't know what sens is but it fixed it and now the computer is almost completely back in order! It seems that did the trick *knock on wood* so we shall see -