Computer Issue

[Phantom0981]

Hey Guys,

I am having a issue with my computer that I am unable to resolve and I thought that maybe someone here might have an idea about how I might be able to fix it. Let me first explain the issue and then I'll tell you what I have done so far to attempt to fix it.

Issue:

For some reasons certain programs on my computer are running really slow/not at all/crashing computer. When the computer first starts up everything runs fine. Firefox, My Computer, iTunes, Norton (Awful but my parents pay for the subscription so...I'll take it) etc. After about 10 minutes something happens which slows down all of the programs I just listed. When trying to go into my external hard drives through "My Computer" it takes about 5 minutes for the different devices to show up. Also when I am using Windows explorer to browse files, if I right-click on a file it stops responding and I must restart the explorer.exe process to get the computer to work again. With Firefox the computer will run just fine for a minute and then I'll load a new page and Firefox will stop responding. I thought that this might have been the issue since all the issues seem to start with this program but I have since uninstalled it and the problem persists. I end the process and then try to restart Firefox and it won't. The process starts but nothing shows up on the screen. After this happens iTunes takes forever to load but eventually does. Norton then stops working and I have to restart my computer to the above programs functioning correctly. Once it reboots the computer runs fine for a couple of minutes (sometimes hours) then slows down again. What I don't understand is that almost all other programs work fine. Chrome, Microsoft Office etc work great it just seems to be these programs. Also I have looked at the task manager and my CPU is not running at full speed. Most of the time it is says 0-5% and occasionally jumps up but goes right back down. Also with ram my computer is using less than 1 GB.

Attempts:

At first I thought it was a virus and I am still not ruling that out. I have reinstalled windows about 3 times now. I format all the hard drives when doing the install so that it is like a new computer. After I do this my computer works great for a couple days and then the same issue comes back. I have taken data that was on the external hard drives and put it back on the computer (these are connected all the time to my computer) so maybe there is a virus in there. I have scanned all of these hard drives though with my laptop and it has detected nothing. Plus I have transfered all of these same files to my laptop and it has had no problem.

Specs:

HP Pavilion a6057c
3 GB Ram (2 x 512bm, 2 x 1gb)
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT 512mb (only upgrade other than added 2 GB of ram when I first got it)
Intel Core 2 4300 @ 1.8 GHz

Any ideas you guys have would be great. If there is any more information that I can provide just let me know. This could just be an issue with my computer since it is about 3 years old now but I thought I would see if I can fix it before I think about getting a new one. If I don't use the programs listed above it runs great but I use those programs quite a bit so it has been a pain. If you know of any good online virus scan websites that I could use as well that would be great. I have run Norton on this computer since the issue has started and it still says there is no virus. Thanks in advance.

[metalnick]

Well I would get rid of Norton as it seems that it always caused more problems for me than it solved. As far as your computer slowing down like that; have you checked for spy and adware? There's this cool little program that I use that helped me to solve some similar issues I had with my PC. It's called Spybot Search and Destroy and it has worked wonders for me. You might also want to check out Comodo Internet Security which works well for me as well. Both are freeware and I have not had any problems with either one.

http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Hope this helps you get your PC sorted man.

[Toa_Kaita]

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware works wonders too.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

[Nebula]

Might want to check out CCleaner as well.

[Phantom0981]

Well I would get rid of Norton as it seems that it always caused more problems for me than it solved. As far as your computer slowing down like that; have you checked for spy and adware? There's this cool little program that I use that helped me to solve some similar issues I had with my PC. It's called Spybot Search and Destroy and it has worked wonders for me. You might also want to check out Comodo Internet Security which works well for me as well. Both are freeware and I have not had any problems with either one.

http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Hope this helps you get your PC sorted man.

Thanks. I tried the search and destroy and it found some stuff but it didn't seem to fix the problem.

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware works wonders too.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Hmmm...I am having an issue with this program. I start the scan and once the scan starts it gets stuck on a file C:\Windows\system32\zipfldr.dll (runs for about 2 seconds) then stops responding. Could it mean that I have some sort of virus that is preventing it from running?

Might want to check out CCleaner as well.

I already have that program and still have the issue. CCleaner is pretty good. Thanks!!!

Thanks guys for any help. I may just end up reinstalling windows since that seems to work for a few days. Thing is the problem just keeps coming back...blah...stupid computers lol 

[metalnick]

Well it definitely sounds like some kind of malware has gotten a hold of your system. Although its hard for me to recommend anything without actually looking at your PC. If you do decide to re-install windows, try using Comodo for your Firewall and Antivirus. Also, when you ran Spybot, did you update it first? You might want to also try running it in Advanced mode as that has some nifty tools you can use.

[Vladko1]

Format your hole hard disk, format all sectors and etc and then reinstall. If this continue to show, maybe its a BIOS issue.

[King Class Scout]

*snip*
Thanks guys for any help. I may just end up reinstalling windows since that seems to work for a few days. Thing is the problem just keeps coming back...blah...stupid computers lol 

it may take more than just a format job, Vladko.  i'm starting to get the feeling the hard drive might be physically damaged as well.

[Senator]

Ok, stop.

I am rather sure, that if something is wrong with the BIOS, you wouldn't have a computer.
And if something is wrong with a hard drive, you would know it in all kinds of error-ry, data-lossy and possibly, noisy ways.
And generally, hardware issues do not get temporarily fixed by formatting, because, being hardware issues, they couldn't care less what software does. If the disk was bad, it would be bad continuously.

What this sounds like, is either a virus, which every time you re-install for some reason. Or some kind of conflict of something with something, including potentially Norton.

One thing worth doing, is to alt-ctrl-del when the computer is slow, and check the process thingy to see what thing (if any) uses the most CPU.

[Dalek]

I know the last time my computer started chugging was simply because the fan on the CPU wasn't working properly anymore and everything was overheating. It had the exact same symptoms mentioned by Phantom in the first post.

[milenent]

Do you have any .flv on your PC?

[TheConstable6]

Seems like Windows being Windows..... I'd give it up at the first opportunity.

I run Debian Linux on my secondary comps and have a Mac Pro with Mac OS X Snow Leopard & Win 7 running in VirtualBox for when I *have* to use Windows.

Most Linux distros are free. You might wanna check those out. They're great OSs.

[Captain_Licard]

okay, first, I agree with removing norton
Second, You familiar with DISKPART? heres what you do,
    you boot into the install cd but select repair instead of install
    When the repair console finishes loading, you open a cmd prompt (if it doesnt see the os its fine, select use tools)
    Once in cmd, type DISKPART and you will see the diskpart program load.
    You need to select a disk (eg. select disk 0)
     type "clean"
     select the next internal disk (it helps if you DONT have any external backups connected) and repeat.
     disconnect all but one of the hardrives and install windows INTO ONE PARTITION, do not have any other partitions than the little 100 meg part it uses for booting(yes thats why its there) once windows is finished installing, shutdown and connect each disk 1 at a time. When you attach the first disk, boot up windows, right click Computer and select "Manage" and select Disk MANAGEMENT
Select the disk that is unallocated and format it into a simple ntfs volume. Do this proscess for each of the other disks. Then, install Microsoft Security Essentials (its free and works better than norton) use only this and windows firewall DO NOT USE ANY OTHER FIREWALL PROGRAMS, they will start fighting and you computer will slow  down. Then restore your backups file-by-file meaning, only restore the things you absolutely need.

that should clear up your problem
if not, I got nothing

[Phantom0981]

Alright I think I may have discovered what the problem might be but I am unsure as to if this is the main cause of my issues. When I restart my computer, often it won't restart and it just starts beeping. 2 short and 1 long. It is an HP computer so I looked on the HP website and found this information:

"Unable to initialize video or video card required but not installed"

When I bought this computer it did not have a graphics card (just an integrated into the motherboard one) so I installed a Nvidia one on my own to get better performance. Could this graphics card be malfunctioning and causing the slowdowns I have listed in my first post. I wouldn't think so but this is the only persistent issue. Every time the computer restarts it beeps and I must shut it down and push the power button until the computer boots and the beeping stops. Any insights would be appreciated.

[086gf]

If you still have the original graphics card that came with your system it wouldn't hurt to switch them out and see if that does it. If not I don't know..if it does then you know what you need to do next...buy a new card.

[Phantom0981]

If you still have the original graphics card that came with your system it wouldn't hurt to switch them out and see if that does it. If not I don't know..if it does then you know what you need to do next...buy a new card.

Well I did what you suggested and I took out my graphics card and I am just running my computer off of the integrated one and I am having none of the issues that I had before. Even Malware-Bytes which would crash before is running. iTunes starts up quickly (at least for iTunes) and I can right click on things again. Thanks for all of your help in solving this issue. Apparently it was a hardware issue with my graphics card. Now I have an excuse to buy a new one!

[ECGadget]

One more idea... download Auslogics Disk Defrag and run that... works wonders