Why is my computer so slow?

[Dash1]

Alright, first of all, I'm not sure where to post this because it could be any reason to why computer have become so slow!

I believe I keep my PC "clean" by using AD-aware, Spybot S&D and Spyware Doctor, and do a system defrag. once in a while.

I believe to clear up some more diskspace is not an issue, seeing as I've got over 70% free diskspace by now, and to upgrade windows (XP) does not seem to help either?

But just as I booted up the machine earlier today, and it said that the CPU somehow had been chagned so I had to run the BIOS to adjust the CPU setting (SoftMenu with my Abit mainboard). This has happened a couple of times earlier aswell.

another issue to my problem could be that everytime I run Spybot S&D it keeps finding 18 various spybots, ALL the same ones everytime I run Spybot. well, they do get deleted when I try do do so, but they somehow re-appear every time I switch on my PC...


Hope this can give you a clue to what could be my problem!

 

[technoman2]

from what you have told me i believe that the 18 bots could be slowing your PC down, if SB can not delete the bots then you will have to download something like Microsoft Anti-Spyware and that should fix your spyware problems.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

 

[dreamweaverdude]

It depends on the type of spyware that is on your computer if it is something like LOP which is what we had it is almost impossible to remoce despite spending hours combing through the registry and adaware or spybot search and sestroy could not remove it either. The easy way to speed up your computer and to get rid of the spyware is to do a reinstall of windows

 

[darvocet_outlaw]

Spybot always finds about 3 different "threats" everytime I run it. They don't have any processes running though (and hence don't slow down my comp). I just always delete them.....but I don't think there a big deal.

 

[mr.monger]

it may be psbak.exe. i had it. it just sucks up all ur ram so ur pc lagggggggssss.
just press ctrl+alt+delete to see. check under the processes tab. if u have it than it should be there psbak.exe
one time it disguised itself as some other thing so be careful. anything that takes up too much ram like over 50000kb and keeps increasing is prob it.

i dont kno how i got rid of it but i did disk cleanup and defrag and it went away after

 

[David_the_tech]

do you have any programs running all the time for no reason, such as bonzai buddy, weatherbug...these sometimes get installed with messenger programs and file sharing programs. they will slow your computer way down and show that you have spyware on it. however, programs like spybot won't fix this. you have to manually fix them. its a pain.

how much ram do you have?

 

[cbachinger]

I agree with scanning with spyware, but if the pro is stil ther, run them in safe mode (F8 at startup) and also try a scan disk.

 

[dustinbumpy]

Your computer might be slow because it has low ram (like 32 to 256), you might have a slow CPU (1.0 GHZ and lower), or plenty of viruses.

 

[stlpnazi]

it may be psbak.exe. i had it. it just sucks up all ur ram so ur pc lagggggggssss.
just press ctrl+alt+delete to see. check under the processes tab. if u have it than it should be there psbak.exe
one time it disguised itself as some other thing so be careful. anything that takes up too much ram like over 50000kb and keeps increasing is prob it.

i dont kno how i got rid of it but i did disk cleanup and defrag and it went away after

The executable mr. monger is talking about doesnt necessarily have to be named psbak.exe. It can be named several different things. I have seen this virus on many different computers even WITH virusscan installed. When you press ctrl+alt+del, look for any process that takes up 99 or 100 percent CPU, or a great amount of memory. If you find one of these, download process explorer (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml) and determine where that exe file is located. On all machines I have seen with the virus, the file exists somewhere in system32 but it is completely invisible. You may have to have some external boot disk to delete the file. This may not even be your problem, but you may still want to look into it. Hope this helps!

 

[~mr mixx~]

Also be aware that if a trojan got onto your comp. slippin though your anti-virus protection. It could be slowing your comp. down. Trojans are usually used for freezing up your comp./ slowing it to a crawl, or enslaving it to send out duplicates of itself to other computers.