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lmoien
Contributor
Message 1 of 4

Scans come up clean... firewall deactivates, and computer is SLOW...

My laptop become suddenly SUPER slow on Easter.  There are no pop-ups or anything.  About 2 months previously we had the MS Removal Tool virus and used SpyHunter to remove it (we couldn't get anything but that to run).  With our current issue, all scans come up clean, but there is something disabling McAfee repeatedly.  I tried to uninstall and reinstall but it now won't reinstall correctly.  All program "quick" scans take hours if not days to complete to 100%.  We have 64 bit Windows VISTA.  Before we had McAfee we had Norton and all it would ever tell us was "high hard drive usage" but there are not too many programs running.  It is OBNOXIOUS.  I also installed Dell's System Mechanic thing but that doesn't help either (it can't complete a full scan period).  I takes about 5 minutes or more for any program to load.  We still have SpyHunter on the computer (although it is set to default to other removal programs).  We have all of our files.  Should we just wipe the sucker and start new?  It seems simpler.  Is there an easy way to do it?


HELP.  Anyone we send support logs or system snapshots to tell us that there is no infection.  Everything is fine.  IT IS NOT FINE. 

Thanks.

3 Replies
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 2 of 4

Re: Scans come up clean... firewall deactivates, and computer is SLOW...

Windows Vista - is Service Pack 1 installed?

Hardware questions :

- what CPU have you got, and what's its speed?

- how much memory have you got installed?

- what's your hard disk capacity, and what percentage of free space have you got?

Have you run chkdsk, defrag, cleanup? (All these just basic Microsoft tools)

Have you got Autoruns or Process Explorer? These will help you to see what's loading at startup, and which programs and processes are running.

And if you have SpyHunter as well as McAfee on your system, I recommend that you get rid of SpyHunter. Read what others have to say about it on WOT, and on the Siteadvisor review page.  Reviews are mixed, to say the least.

If you're going to run an anti-spyware program then you may as well go for Microsoft's Windows Defender, which sits happily alongside McAfee.

Edit - And I advise against using System Mechanic (or any other product) to do registry cleaning. It's likely to make matters worse.

Message was edited by: Hayton on 23/05/11 17:12:48 IST
lmoien
Contributor
Message 3 of 4

Re: Scans come up clean... firewall deactivates, and computer is SLOW...

I'm copying all of this directly off of my "system snapshot"

Vista Service Pack 1

Intel (R) Core (TM) 2 Duo CPU     T6400    @ 2.0GHz, 2000MHz, 2 Core(s),  2 Logical Processors

4 GB RAM

hard disk still had about 60% free capacity at last check (I'm not in front of the computer at this moment)

Disk Defragmenter runs daily, I haven't done clean-up manually as I've been sucked into the uninstall reinstall  mayhem.  Haven't tried chkdsk.  I've checked to see what is loading at startup and I've started uninstalling things but since the computer is so slow, it can take all day to uninstall one program.  Not fun when you several that seem unnecessary. 

I'm happy to get rid of SpyHunter... I just needed it to get rid of MSRemoval.  It's just the only program I can get to actually complete a full scan right now.

It's been running slow for so long I'm getting a wee bit desperate. 

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 4 of 4

Re: Scans come up clean... firewall deactivates, and computer is SLOW...

Before I start : if you can't do any of the following because Vista is set up differently from my XP, don't worry. There are alternatives to all of these. I'm just suggesting things that don't require you to download and install any new programs.

Best to start with the basics. Run chkdsk, and set it to fix file system errors. Disk Cleanup (System32\cleanmgr.exe) will remove temporary internet files and so forth. Both are safe to run.

You've got planty of disk space and memory, your CPU is not super-fast but fast enough. Dual-core, too. So before moving to the software problems, you'd better check that there isn't a problem with hardware or peripherals. If you've got a printer, disconnect it or disable it (if Vista has Control Panel, do it from there). Also from Control Panel, click on 'System'-->Hardware-->Device Manager and check for hardware problems.

When you've run chkdsk, if you see no problems on Device Manager double-check by running System Information (on XP it's at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo\MSINFO32.EXE) and check especially the entries shown by

- Hardware Resources->Conflicts/Sharing,

- Components->Storage->Disks,

- Components->Storage->Problem Devices,

- Software Environment->Windows Error Reporting,

- Software Environment->Startup Programs,

- Internet Settings->Internet Explorer->Cache->List of Objects

And finally, from Control Panel-->System-->Advanced select Performance Settings and make sure that your system is giving priority to programs; also check the size of the pagefile on disk. If in doubt let the system set its size.

Performance options.JPG

If you want an integrated program to tell you - in detail - about your hardware then I recommend Speccy, from Piriform Software

Message was edited by: Hayton on 23/05/11 18:31:51 IST
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