Please help - PC won't behave

taurusgb

I run zonealarm, nortan systemworks with norton AV, ad-aware and spyware doctor. I do very regular scans and also do a daily check that all security programmes are up to date with latest releases. I also defrag regularly and use Norton windoctor and one button check up to keep the system running smoothly.

My PC is running very slowly. Some programmes take ages to open, and then don't seem to work properly when they are up and running (MS Office 2003 is particularly affected). This has become worse since I downloaded and installed XP service pack 2 about 3 days ago, but was also the case prior to this download, which I had been putting off after reading about massive problems other users had encountered after installation. My reason for installing was that I thought perhaps it was that some programmes that were not working properly were configured to run with SP2 - seems I was wrong.:mad:

When I tried to use GoBack to revert my hard drive after installing SP2 (a thing which has often helped with problems in the past) it said there were no safe points to revert to, and has said the same ever since. I tried uninstalling and re-installing yesterday and it tells me it cannot find enough space, even though I have a 40gb hard drive and have only used half of it.

I tried WinXP system restore and it said virtually the same thing (can't remember the actual on screen message but what it meant was there was no point to restore to).

I have had low virtual memory error messages and have followed the instructions in the help files to increase this which has stopped the error messages but has improved nothing else.

I am not a PC expert - just a housewife being driven crazy, and I don't know what to do next (BTW I also ran the repair facility to MSOffice 2003 in case that was the problem but nothing changed). I can't really afford to take the darned thing to a repair place, and would be so grateful if anyone on here can advise me of anything else I can try (remembering of course that I know my way around a seewing machine much better than a PC:rolleyes: )

Thannks you so much for reading this and for any help you can offer.

Toxteth_OGrady

Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and look in Task Manager to see which processes are hogging the memory and/or cpu. List them on here.

When sp2 first came out well over a year ago it initially got a bad press due to driver incompatibilities. These have all been ironed out now by the OEMs and not having the enhanced security features of sp2 is a bad thing.

Poor performance can be caused by many hardware, software and malware problems so it'll be a process of elimination to try fix your problem.

:cool:

TOG

tightbarsteward

Could be the Norton crap you run. I just got rid of Norton Anti Virus 2006 off my PC's. Slowed me right down. My mate also complained of the same problem. Using AVG free edition now and both my PC's are running like a dream.

Sounds like you have a load of crap running in the background which could be hogging your free ram.

& buy a router & get rid of zone alarm. My Netgear router has a firewall in-built.

Browntoa

download hijackthis from here, flashing green button

http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

read through it and post a log back here to see if there is any background reason

Click the Save Log button to create a file named Hijackthis.log. A dialog box will pop up. Use it to select the location where you will save the log. Close the program.

Return to the Forum and reply to your original post. Open the Log in Notepad. Highlight the entire contents. Copy and paste the contents of the HijackThis log into your post. Wait for help.

albertross_2

SP2 and subsequent patches are a good thing to have, they protect you against known vulnerabilities in Windows and office.

how much memory do you have? If it is less than 257MB, then a visit to https://www.crucial.com may help alleviate the slowness, but it could also me malware, or just a clogged up system.