CPU being eaten. Machinr runs slow

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brucemillar

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Hi

My trusty Dell Dimension Win XP SP3 runs so slowly it is becoming useless.

It uses up max CPU on nearly every program you start and I can't see why.

I have run Malaware Bytes - No faults found
CCleaner - all good
I have also run MS Security essentials - No fault found.
De-fragged the disc
Removed ALL games.

I have used Revo uninstaller to remove all unwanted programs and have reduced the Startup files to almost zero with no obvious CPU grabbers left.

It boots fine and goes into the user account fine. Then you try and start a program (lets say Thunderbird) CPY immediately shoots up and it can take up to 2/3 minutes to start. If you look in task manager it shows no unusual process.

Any clues. It used to be a great box. Old but good enough for email and browsing.
 
Couple of thoughts from me,

1. The hard drive is starting to fail, CPU usage may indicate repeated tries to read from the drive.
2. Memory failing, resulting in exessive use of the swap file on the HDD, again lots of CPU usage.
 
Hi

My trusty Dell Dimension Win XP SP3 runs so slowly it is becoming useless.

It uses up max CPU on nearly every program you start and I can't see why.

I have run Malaware Bytes - No faults found
CCleaner - all good
I have also run MS Security essentials - No fault found.
De-fragged the disc
Removed ALL games.

I have used Revo uninstaller to remove all unwanted programs and have reduced the Startup files to almost zero with no obvious CPU grabbers left.

It boots fine and goes into the user account fine. Then you try and start a program (lets say Thunderbird) CPY immediately shoots up and it can take up to 2/3 minutes to start. If you look in task manager it shows no unusual process.

Any clues. It used to be a great box. Old but good enough for email and browsing.

Mine did something like this recently.

CPU running at 3.9 from 4.0GB with nothing open and it kept looking for an unidentified network.

I saved everything and did a complete reinstall - problem solved.

My local expert thought it was a virus.
 
Gents

Thank you for our responses.

I found this site and went through it. This has cured my problem for now.

Security Software | SingularLabs

I think I had some bits of AVG still running from an old install. Worth having a look in here as it list most of the big programs.
 

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