Hello all,

I'm fairly new to the forum(only 1 post) and while not a novice at general PC upkeep, I am with the programs that I've seen you talking about (Hijack This, etc.)
My PC has been slow to boot and slow to load on a lot of programs, runs near 100% when loading a program and recently I have notice a lot of Win 32 Errors popping up. I use Spybot Search and Destroy, but ever since I upgraded IE and reconfigured the security settings, it hasn't been picking anything up. That can either mean that it's not picking anything up because there's nothing there... or that it's just not finding it. I'm voting for the latter. Programs I typically use, but not always have running are iTunes, and City of Heroes (MMO) and Sims 3, all of which are pretty memory intensive. Once running these programs run great, but do have a heavy startup usage.

Basically, my PC runs worse than I would like and would like help from start to finish how to rectify the problems.

Thanks in advance!

Edit:
I run Windows XP, with AMD Athlon 64 3400+(2.2 GHz) and 2.25 gig RAM

This post has been edited by spidey329: Jun 18 2009, 01:11 PM

Hi Spidey.. Sorry we missed this post..

Lets run the PCPitStop test in order to get an overview of your system and what we can do to make it run better, here's how:

How to run PCPitStop's Overdrive tests:

• Please click here to go to the PCPitStop Overdrive sign-up page: Signup at PCPitStop (You need to use Internet Explorer with this test so that an ActiveX control can be installed.)
• Click "Create a free account"
• Enter in your relevant information on the sign-up page. You must sign-up in order to have your results recorded so that we can take a look at them here.
• After signing up you'll see the "Registration Complete" page, and you can click "Test Your System Now" to return to the test page.
• Login with your newly created e-mail address and password on the left hand side.
• Follow the directions to "Scan this system now." An activeX control will need to be installed. It is safe, and you should allow it to be installed.
• Once the tests have been run, you will see an "Almost there" page requesting further information about your computer and your experience with PCPitStop, just scroll down to the bottom and click "GO."
• A test results page will display, and I need the link to that page.
• Look in the address bar of your browser. It will look like 'http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/...' Please copy and paste that here to the forum.
  
  Note: PCPitStop may recommend that you use certain utilities to fix problems on your computer. At WhatTheTech, the help we provide is free. We do not endorse or recommend the use of any products PCPitStop may suggest. Instead, we prefer to help you with each issue manually without using possible pay to use programs.

Please clarify what you mean when you say Spybot is not catching anything anymore? Was it catching something, and what? I'll take a look at your PCPitStop test and advise from there. This may be a job for the malware removal guys.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jun 23 2009, 08:18 PM

New problem... Everytime I click the "Active X" control bar, IE freezes on me and that page becomes unresponsive and will eventually ask to End Now. It had done this to me a few days ago as well, when I was trying to install a new DSL router. Ugh...

Let's do this...

Click start -> run -> type cmd and press ENTER. At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r and press ENTER. When prompted about scheduling a scan during the next restart, answer 'Y'es. Reboot your computer and be patient while chkdsk scans your hard drive for bad sectors and file system damage. Keep your eyes open for messages about "Windows replacing bad clusters..." This is a sign of possible hard drive failure.

When the scan is finished, go to control panel -> internet options. Click the advanced tab, and click the "RESET" button (Not restore defaults, this isn't the same). Restart IE and try the PCPitStop tests again.

If you are running Internet Explorer 6 you will not have the "RESET" option. Instead, just ignore those instructions and try PCPitStop tests again.

You didn't answer anything about Spybot. Its very important that you answer these next couple of questions. What anti-virus software are you using? Does it have a valid subscription and is it up to date? And lastly, what are these products "finding" - that you hinted to previously? I'm not going to be able to assist you any further here until these questions are answered. I need to reasonably determine if we are dealing with malware or not.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jun 24 2009, 07:30 AM

Here is the link for the PCPitStop Scan, I had to enable all Active X downloads to get it though.... resetting that back to normal now. http://pcpitstop.com/betapit/sec.asp?conid=22306130
As far as Spybot scans, it would normally pop up with about 3-4 each time it ran a scan. it hasn't found any in a while, ever since I upgraded IE. It seemed like they were mostly cookie related ones. It still shows some that are greyed out atm. I'll get a scan done again later today to let you know which ones they are.

Thanks

Hi all!

Sorry to be so rudely interrupting, but I just wanted to put in my two cents. I saw that spidey had problems loading programs and had win32 errors, so something came to mind.

@spidey
• Please open Notepad.
• Ensure that Format>Word Wrap is unchecked.
• Copy and paste the following into Notepad:



• Save this as fix.bat onto your Desktop.
• Double click on fix.bat.
• A Command Prompt window will open and close quickly. This is normal.
• Could you post C:\check.txt here? Thanks!

Best Regards

Hello D4rkn1ght, and welcome to the forum.

I appreciate your interest in this thread.

I have reviewed your batch file and it appears to be harmless in all regards because it only exports a small portion of the user's registry for you to take a look at. That is ok. But, there is a policy at WhatTheTech where .reg and .bat fixes are reviewed by Tech Team or admins before being posted to the open forum because of the potential of malicious or dangerous code being passed to an unsuspecting OP. I'm sure you understand.

Just keep that in mind if you should decide to post any type of registry modification or more complex .bat file that will modify system components. Other than that, welcome aboard, and I look forward to your input here at WhatTheTech.

Hi Spidey... I notice that you really have a lot of things installed on your computer.

There are a few things we should do just as regular cleanup procedures that can be found here and here. Most importantly you need to clear out your temp files which are taking up quite a bite of space and system restore could stand to be reduced in size.

None of these things are probably causing the significant slowdowns that you are experiencing.

I do notice that your computer looks to be slimmed down. In other words, the number of running processes and memory usage is light for what I would expect with seeing all that you have installed on your computer. Have you been using msconfig to adjust services and startup items? Lets check. Please click start -> run -> type 'msconfig and press ENTER. Under the General tab, does it say "normal" startup? If you have disabled any necessary Microsoft services, this may be some of your problems.

I notice you have Avast installed.. Has Avast given you any warnings lately of malware infections? I see that you also have LimeWire which increases the potential that this may be an infection. Your FireFox version is out of date also and should be updated if you use this browser so that it is more secure.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jun 25 2009, 10:43 AM

I did just delete all my temp internet files and decreased the size of system restore and recycle bin. As far the light usage, I was experiencing problems with my ipod and in order to do a recovery on it since iTunes wasn't recognizing it, one of the suggestions to was to "Hide all Microsoft Services" and the disable all of them except the Apple ones, I just did that 2 days ago. The Limewire I hardly use especially in the last 4-6 months, and firefox I never use, to tell you the truth I wasn't even aware it was still there. As far as startup goes "Selective Startup" is checked with all sub-boxes checked. I've also recently done some uninstallation and defragging due to space constraints, getting rid of unused programs, etc. (After I got iTune I found it easier to delete all music I ripped with Media Player and rerip with iTunes than converting all 15 gigs) Avast hasn't given me any notices, but I also haven't noticed any scans either(I had them set to go off at 5am) the few malware that it has caught was durig live operation and not during a scan, that was a few months ago. If I'm missing any info you might need let me know.

Thanks

Hi Spidey.. I'm not sure that you clarified if you ran the chkdsk /r tests or not?

Can you export your event viewer logs for me to look at? I need the system and application logs.

Here's how:
How to capture an event log and upload it to the forum:

• First, open Event Viewer by clicking Start -> Run -> type eventvwr.msc and press ENTER.
• In the Event Viewer please right click the requested event log (i.e. Application, system, etc...) and click Save Log File As.
• Please save the logfile to your desktop and give it a recognizable name.
• Do this for each log that has been requested.
• When you are finished saving the necessary logs, close Event Viewer.
• On your desktop find the saved log files. Hold the CTRL key and click to select each event log.
• When all event logs are selected, right-click one of them, click Send to -> Compressed Zip Folder.
• A new .ZIP file will have been created on your desktop. Please attach that file to this forum in your next reply.

I did run chkdsk and it was all clear up until part 5 of 5, which unfortunately I missed. (I was watching TV with wife and keeping an eye on it's progress) last time I saw it it was 87% done with part 4... But no problems until that point. I just finished the AVG scan and it did find 2 malware files, both on my G drive(just a extra junk drive) which I moved to chest. As far as the logs you asked for go, here they are.

Can you please check your system's date and time? You can double click the time in the lower right hand corner of your desktop on the taskbar. Make sure your date, time, and timezone settings are correct.

Please tell me if your system date is set to some time in 2046?

If this is the case I see some issues in your logs.

You mentioned you scanned with AVG? But, in your PCPitStop tests it shows you have Avast installed. Can you please confirm which product you are using? In your event logs, I see errors related to both AVG and Windows Defender. Neither one of them appears to be functioning properly, and Avast appears to be what you have installed, not AVG.

So, please confirm this discrepency.

System time is correct. I noticed the 2046 dates myself and was kind of puzzled. Maybe time got changed a while ago by accident and was changed back...
As far as AVG vs. avast!, I use avast!. I used to have AVG and I guess I forgot I just tried to open Windows Defenderand it gave me an error, I unistalled it and tried to reinstall it... After 3 tries it finally downloaded. Everything came up clear in a quick scan. Haven't done a full scan yet due to time constraints.

Oops... sorry! Thanks for clarifying! I sure do understand!!

Best Regards

Spidey, please open Event Viewer and right-click the system log, and the application log, and choose to clear all events. When prompted to save the event logs that you have, you can skip that step by answering no.

Reboot your computer a few times and use it for a while.

Then, post new event logs following the instructions in my previous post.

Something is strange going on here because if your system time isn't 2046, I have no idea where your other event lof entries are because there are no current ones.