Hey Forums,
My fathers friends are having some computer issues and I went over to see what the problem was today. They are using an old compaq computer from 2006 with windows XP. Their computer was freezing up and shutting down at random times unable to even startup properly.
I first opened the computer and cleaned out the tower, a good amount of dust but nothing to cause a heating issue.
I then booted into safe mode, and ran malware bytes and spybot. Both found a few things and I cleaned them off. I then used Registry Mechanic to fix the errors it showed.
using msconfig I turned off all startup software to see how fast the computer would be.
Restarting the computer It's still just as slow as before. Nothing seems to be changed. I used cntrl alt delete and found that 100% of the cpu was being used and that "System" was using over 100k of the computer speed. I am at a loss, not really sure what is going wrong with the computer anymore.
What should be my next course of action with this computer? They would prefer to stray away from reformatting, and are worried of losing important things.
She is also worried that somebody has "zombied" her computer and was wondering if there was a way to check to see if that was an issue. (I do not know how to check).
I am going back tomorrow to try and fix this computer once and for all but I need advice / help on what to do. I forgot to use Hijack this, even then I would not really be sure what to look for.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Ps:
It's like an amd athlon 6400 or something close to an I4 with 1g of ram. Their Harddrive has been defragged and they have ample room.
My fathers friends are having some computer issues and I went over to see what the problem was today. They are using an old compaq computer from 2006 with windows XP. Their computer was freezing up and shutting down at random times unable to even startup properly.
I first opened the computer and cleaned out the tower, a good amount of dust but nothing to cause a heating issue.
I then booted into safe mode, and ran malware bytes and spybot. Both found a few things and I cleaned them off. I then used Registry Mechanic to fix the errors it showed.
using msconfig I turned off all startup software to see how fast the computer would be.
Restarting the computer It's still just as slow as before. Nothing seems to be changed. I used cntrl alt delete and found that 100% of the cpu was being used and that "System" was using over 100k of the computer speed. I am at a loss, not really sure what is going wrong with the computer anymore.
What should be my next course of action with this computer? They would prefer to stray away from reformatting, and are worried of losing important things.
She is also worried that somebody has "zombied" her computer and was wondering if there was a way to check to see if that was an issue. (I do not know how to check).
I am going back tomorrow to try and fix this computer once and for all but I need advice / help on what to do. I forgot to use Hijack this, even then I would not really be sure what to look for.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Ps:
It's like an amd athlon 6400 or something close to an I4 with 1g of ram. Their Harddrive has been defragged and they have ample room.
