Machine Slowing Down

Greetings, Everyone! I'm new to the community. My computer has been running noticeably slower for about two weeks, but I haven't had time to address the problem. Firefox and Opera run sluggishly, yet my Spybot and Adaware scans were normal, as was my antivirus (Norton 10) scans. Two days back, Adaware started shutting down halfway through the scan, and giving an error message about "location 0xc000000d" and "error 0x1006853e"; then it says there is a statement about "service error 6100" and "terminating gracefully". I tried reinstalling the program, but to no avail. Usually, only my family and I use this computer, and I check it regularly with Spybot and Adaware. Aside from the sluggishness, I've noticed a few unexplained high use of resources and high activity on the firewall (ZoneAlarm) when nothing is running, and also sometimes where the system hangs up inexplicably when running Word or Excel. Tallin and Doug had taken a look at my PC Pitstop report, and Doug noticed that my computer is running two antivirus programs, which he said causes problems. So, I was directed to this forum for assistance. I'm glad to be here and look forward to learning and hopefully contributing. I greatly appreciate any assistance/advice that you might be able to provide. Thanks, Jim

Hello Jim and welcome to the forums!

As far as the Ad-Aware issue goes, it looks like it is an issue with the program and not merely your system. The following link shows the developer's are aware of it and working on a resolution:
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?s…ost&p=54269

Also, press Ctrl-Shift-Esc and check what's running in the task manager. Sort by memory usage and CPU to determine what's taking up the most, you can post that information here if you want.

Regards,

Ax

Greetings, Ax! Thanks for the the welcome, and the suggestions! It's good to be here! Looking at the Task Manager, Rtvscan is taking up the most memory (51 MB), followed by firefox (38 MB). In looking at this, there is something called aawservice.exe that is running even though I didn't tell adaware to run? Then vsmon.exe, explorer.exe, MsMpEng.exee, and svchost.exe, iFrmewrk.exe, CFSServ.exe in descending order. All of the ones after this are less than 10 MB of memory utilized. However, it does say that there are 71 processes going, which might account for the system slowness… As for CPU usage, System Idle Process is always 95-99% consistently, with a few other processes briefly using 1-2% each. Just curious, but is there a way to copy the processes and paste them (to show you what is going on)? I attempted to copy the list, but didn't have success. Thanks for the link; I'm very relieved to know that it isn't just my system that is having the Adaware problem! Best wishes, Jim

You sure can get the task list in text format, I apologize for not mentioning earlier:

• Go to Start|Run
• Type cmd and press Enter
• Copy the following text:
  tasklist > %userprofile%\desktop\tasklist.txt
• In the command prompt, click the icon in the upper right corner and choose Edit|Paste
• Press Enter and close the command prompt
• You should find the tasklist in a "tasklist" text file on your desktop.

Also, check out the following KB from Symantec:
DoScan.exe causes high CPU usage

Regards,

Ax

Hi Ax! No worries! Thanks for the command, too. It worked! Image Name PID Session Name Session# Mem Usage ========================= ====== ================ ======== ============ System Idle Process 0 Console 0 16 K System 4 Console 0 232 K smss.exe 1368 Console 0 384 K csrss.exe 1424 Console 0 4,592 K winlogon.exe 1452 Console 0 1,884 K services.exe 1496 Console 0 3,528 K lsass.exe 1508 Console 0 2,856 K svchost.exe 1724 Console 0 5,176 K svchost.exe 1812 Console 0 4,744 K MsMpEng.exe 2012 Console 0 21,764 K svchost.exe 204 Console 0 21,112 K EvtEng.exe 324 Console 0 7,780 K S24EvMon.exe 504 Console 0 5,880 K svchost.exe 804 Console 0 4,932 K svchost.exe 928 Console 0 3,924 K vsmon.exe 968 Console 0 24,720 K ccSetMgr.exe 1900 Console 0 4,180 K ccEvtMgr.exe 1924 Console 0 3,372 K SPBBCSvc.exe 276 Console 0 3,300 K aawservice.exe 616 Console 0 25,880 K spoolsv.exe 1000 Console 0 6,192 K schedul2.exe 1112 Console 0 2,392 K CFSvcs.exe 1140 Console 0 516 K cvpnd.exe 1200 Console 0 7,904 K DefWatch.exe 760 Console 0 5,224 K DVDRAMSV.exe 1308 Console 0 1,728 K ehrecvr.exe 1848 Console 0 4,688 K ehSched.exe 2180 Console 0 3,000 K mdm.exe 2264 Console 0 2,772 K RegSrvc.exe 2396 Console 0 3,076 K SatSrv.exe 2612 Console 0 2,336 K svchost.exe 2640 Console 0 3,892 K swupdtmr.exe 2860 Console 0 1,200 K Rtvscan.exe 2984 Console 0 50,856 K svchost.exe 4092 Console 0 20,676 K mcrdsvc.exe 384 Console 0 3,036 K dllhost.exe 2824 Console 0 6,188 K alg.exe 3276 Console 0 3,560 K explorer.exe 3124 Console 0 24,264 K ehtray.exe 448 Console 0 1,876 K SynTPEnh.exe 3548 Console 0 5,580 K NDSTray.exe 3584 Console 0 6,232 K Hotkey.exe 3220 Console 0 6,420 K Toshiba.exe 3608 Console 0 3,336 K SmoothView.exe 3684 Console 0 2,200 K DLACTRLW.EXE 2448 Console 0 3,788 K ehmsas.exe 2668 Console 0 2,764 K igfxtray.exe 3456 Console 0 3,440 K hkcmd.exe 2372 Console 0 2,864 K igfxext.exe 3240 Console 0 2,780 K igfxpers.exe 3708 Console 0 2,908 K igfxsrvc.exe 3752 Console 0 3,048 K ZCfgSvc.exe 556 Console 0 7,832 K iFrmewrk.exe 1552 Console 0 12,368 K psqltray.exe 2384 Console 0 9,080 K keyacc32.exe 1808 Console 0 6,176 K fredirstarter.exe 2804 Console 0 1,060 K jusched.exe 3324 Console 0 2,048 K ccApp.exe 3524 Console 0 7,456 K VPTray.exe 1476 Console 0 9,056 K zlclient.exe 1488 Console 0 7,104 K Dot1XCfg.exe 1792 Console 0 7,972 K CFSServ.exe 2676 Console 0 11,788 K TOSCDSPD.exe 1664 Console 0 2,352 K ctfmon.exe 3412 Console 0 3,884 K GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe 2428 Console 0 432 K RAMASST.exe 5388 Console 0 2,580 K Ivpsvmgr.exe 4396 Console 0 4,368 K svchost.exe 5148 Console 0 4,288 K mmjb.exe 1276 Console 0 5,548 K MMDiag.exe 5652 Console 0 256 K mim.exe 4156 Console 0 860 K mm_director.exe 3496 Console 0 3,888 K MM_TDM~1.EXE 4212 Console 0 196 K firefox.exe 5496 Console 0 41,964 K taskmgr.exe 5892 Console 0 1,884 K cmd.exe 4660 Console 0 2,672 K wmiprvse.exe 4892 Console 0 6,456 K tasklist.exe 1748 Console 0 4,448 K I looked at the DoScan.exe link, too, and tried to download the registry file to fix it. Thanks much for your help! Best wishes, Jim

From what I'm seeing, you have the following security software:
Symantec Antivirus
Ad-Aware
ZoneAlarm
Windows Defender
Steganos Security Suite 2007

Security software hog resources. Sometimes there are issues also when you are not using the most up-to-date version of windows defender. I suggest reinstalling Windows Defender and reinstalling/updating any other trouble software manually.

Nice comprehensive software benchmarks:
http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/wha…_windows_down/5

Also, check the processes that you have running and determine which ones don't have to be run at startup. You can get that information in the Test Details section of your PC Pitstop results.

Regards,

Ax

Thanks for the suggestions, Ax! I had uninstalled McAfee Security Center a few months ago, but the uninstall apparently didn't remove everything. I found an uninstall utility and I am hoping that it finished the job, and then after reading the article you provided on benchmarks, I switched from Symantec to AVG and flipped my firewall back to Sygate. I also reinstalled Windows Defender, and wiped out a few of the unnecessary programs on startup. Some of the programs that are on my system are for work, so I doubt that I should mess with them. Steganos is one of them… Also, if I could ask your advice, would you recommend reading the different posts to learn more (in general), or is there a forum for newbies like me to start out (to get a base of knowledge to build on)? I tried reinstalling AdAware again, but still the same problem. I'll try to keep checking back on the link you provided about the error in hopes that they fix it. I ran PC Pitstop again after changing these things, and the only recommendations are on adjusting the receive buffer size. I greatly appreciate your help–again, thank you very much! Best wishes, Jim

You're welcome, happy to hear you've got things (mostly) straightened out. As for obtaining more computer knowledge, there is a good section right here in the forums:
Tech Tips - What the Tech

I hope this helps,

Ax

Would uninstall windows defender as it finds nothing and uses resources.
Lavasoft Ad aware also uses too many resources and is not real time protection even though it runs constantly.

Spybot search and destroy and avg anti spyware work much better.

Also Norton slows down computers. Avg anti virus is recommended.

http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/wha…_windows_down/3