[Dundoan]

Hi,

I have XP professional running on a Dell Latitude E6400 with SP3. I originally had Vista but ran into problems and decided to install XP. When I did this the fingerprint scanner saved my fingerprint so I could log on but I hadn't installed the Dell software. I decided to install the Dell security manager but it wouldn't install because of an "internal error". When I googled this I got an article that said it was something to do with Windows Installer and to download Windows Installer Clean Up and remove the Dell installation and reinstall. Unfortunately I choose Dell Resource CD and I think this is where my problems started.
After I rebooted I got a Wireless Configuration error "Notification dll not registered. This program will not operate correctly"
The system then started to be unresponsive. Any click on any item, Start button, My computer, Network Connections any icon, took about 2 mins for the system to respond. If you clicked serveral after two mins you could see all the key strokes kicking in. After this delay the system seemed to operate normally for about 10-15 secs and then went unresponsive. I then tried to see the properties of network places since it was a Wireless Configuration error but I got an error message that no network adapters were found. This was strange because I was logged into the domain and had wireless access to the internet. I contacted Dell support and after going through three "Specialists" I was told to carpet bomb the laptop and do a clean install. I choose to repair the XP installation because of the amount of software installed which gave me back my network connections but did not solve the speed issue. I have removed the Dell wireless adapter and run AFT cleaner, Malwarebytes and JV16 Power tools but have had no success.
I believe the problem lies with a corruption on the network adapter installation and that the system is going round in circles because of the corruption and that it is not an infection. I have Kaspersky 6.0 anti virus with the latest updates running.

Any help would be appreciated as I have a lot of specific software packages installed and it would take over a week to rebuild,

Regards

Dundoan

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Hello,

Can you please go to Start>run... type in devmgmt.msc , then click OK. Do you see any yellow or red marks showing up? Please post a screenshot in your next reply.

<snip>... and that it is not an infection.

Did Malwarebytes and/or Kaspersky pick up anything at all when you ran the scans?

[makai]

Hello,

Can you please go to Start>run... type in devmgmt.msc , then click OK. Do you see any yellow or red marks showing up? Please post a screenshot in your next reply.

<snip>... and that it is not an infection.

Did Malwarebytes and/or Kaspersky pick up anything at all when you ran the scans?

[Dundoan]

None of the scans have brought up anything. JV16 brought up the usual registry errors orphan keys etc but nothing serious attached is the screen shot.

Attached Thumbnails

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[makai]

According to the screenshot, nothing is amiss. If you removed the wireless adapter, I would expect to see a yellow/red mark under Network adapters. Did you reinstall it again?

Actually, I'm a little confused about the real problem you're having. First you mention the fingerprint reader, then the wireless, then slow operation, and then windows repair. Can you tell me what exactly you want to fix? I think you want to do a windows repair, but I'm not sure exactly why.

It almost seems like there is some process running and taking CPU cycles when you click on things. If you open Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del), and monitor it while you click on something, can you tell me what process is taking up the most CPU cycles.

[Dundoan]

Ok, I had only one fingerprint stored against the fingerprint scanner and thought it would be a bit dangerous if something happened so I wanted to add the software so I could scan other fingerprints. When I tried to add the software it told me that it couldn't install it. When I googled it, the most of the articles related to a Windows Installer issue. When I tried to resolve it my laptop started running slow and the only error was this Wireless Configuration error "Notificion dll not registered" which appeared after the login screen but before the desktop appeared. So in short trying to resolve why the software wouldn't install caused my laptop to stop operating correctly. Having spoke to Dell they told me it was an OS problem and to do a Clean Install. Wanting to avoid doing this I did a Repair. This did not solve my problem. Looking at other articles they pointed to some sort of Malware/Virus hence the scans. Having done that and not coming up with anything I thought that it something corrupted on the Dell network installation. In safe mode there is not a problem with the speed of the laptop but obviously you can't do all of what you want to do.
When I run taks mgr in normal mode the process tab is showing that the System Idle process is using 99%. There are the odd processes that will take up 1 - 2 % but nothing is hogging the processor. Another thing that I have noticed is that if I do manage to get Outlook and IE Explorer open for example, these two applications will work OK but is I switch between them with the mouse it will take the two min for the application to display, however if I use ALT TAB to switch between them I don't have a problem. I could have 6 apps open and as long as I use ALT TAB they all work OK it seems to be a problem trying to swap with the mouse or even bringing up the START menu.
The notification dll error has gone since I did the repair but something in the back of my head is suggesting that there is a background process on the network side of things that is running but taking the processor resources up because it's corrupted.
It's similar to a print problem a user at work had. All of a sudden their print jobs were taking forever to bring up the print dialog box and it was because she had a printer mapped that was taken off the network. Every time she went to print the print dialog box took an age, presumably trying to find a printer that didn't exist, then eventually displayed the dialog box with the offending printer offline. To resolve it we simply deleted the printer. I think that when I click on the Icons or start button there is some process kicking off in the background which eventually times out and then that's when I get control back for a few seconds but the process is getting called again when I try to do something else.

[Dundoan]

Ok I have made progress

I booted the laptop into Safe Mode and started MSCONFIG. I then turned everything off and the laptop booted correctly. I then enabled the startup programs rebooted and it booted ok so I reckoned that it was one of the services. Well after a load of reboots I have now determined that it is the Shell Hardware Detection service that is causing the problem. Back into safe mode and disabled it and the laptop boots correctly. Now I presume that MS didn't write this service for the fun of it and that I should have it running to if anyone can help resolving why it's not working correctly I would appreciate it. In the meantime I will work with it disabled.
One other thing is that when I open My Computer it takes about 1 min to discover my drives but then works fine after that.

Edited by Dundoan, 07 November 2009 - 07:16 AM.