# Computer Has Become Extremely Slow All of a Sudden



## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Before I call Computer Guy, I want to run this one by y'all for any suggestions you may have.

My wife's computer has gone nuts.  All of a sudden, it takes forever to open a program.  You can double click on anything on the desktop, and it may or may not open.  It can take as long as 10 mintues for it to open, it may never open.  Sometimes we can get IE to open up, most of the time not.  If we can get IE to open, it is impossible to go anywhere.  We can get the home page (Google) but that's about it.

The computer gives new meaning to the term, "extremely slow."  The hard disk has not crashed - it still works.  For example, every so often, she can open up a program and actually get it to work.

My first thought was to degrag the hard drive.  I went in and found out it hits defrag on a weekly basis automatically.

The only program installed recently on her computer was Carbonite (see my thread extolling the virtues of Carbonite on this Forum).  Carbonite is a cloud backup program that only puts a tiny piece of software onto the computer.  I can't imagine that this is the cullprit.

What do you do when you have a computer that starts to act like this?  Obviously, something is very wrong.


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## Warrior102 (Feb 21, 2013)

Buy a Macintosh.


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## iamwhatiseem (Feb 21, 2013)

Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del...choose "Task Manager"...go to the "Processes" tab...order by "CPU"...what is the process that is eating memory?


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## Warrior102 (Feb 21, 2013)

If a Mac's not in your future - create an account and post your problem/issue here -http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/

It takes a day or two for someone to get back to you, but once someone is "assigned" your problem - they stay with you. Many of these volunteers are overseas, so there's a day or so "lag" between you posting and what next step to take. I shit you not, back in the day when I ran Microsoft - these guys helped me out a lot. 

Good luck.


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## Warrior102 (Feb 21, 2013)

At that site I suggested - scroll to SECURITY then to Am I Infected, What Do I Do.


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## High_Gravity (Feb 21, 2013)

Don't watch so much porn.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

iamwhatiseem said:


> Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del...choose "Task Manager"...go to the "Processes" tab...order by "CPU"...what is the process that is eating memory?



if you can't seem to do this as is try a reboot and try it first thing then watch it for something maxing out the system.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

High_Gravity said:


> Don't watch so much porn.



It's his wife's computer.


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## Warrior102 (Feb 21, 2013)

Another option - get it into the DOS mode. 
At the C prompt type Format and hit return. 
It's a charmer


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## Luissa (Feb 21, 2013)

High_Gravity said:


> Don't watch so much porn.



I actually listened to a podcast about how safe porn sites are now due to the bad reputation they got. Lol


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## High_Gravity (Feb 21, 2013)

emptystep said:


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And? I used to watch Brazzers on my ex girlfriends lap top.


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## High_Gravity (Feb 21, 2013)

Luissa said:


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Thats good news.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

High_Gravity said:


> Don't watch so much porn.



It's my WIFE's computer, not mine.  The chances that any porn was ever viewed on that computer are somewhere around 1 in infinity.  Discussion over.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Luissa said:


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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-glb-_heEg]The internet is for porn- Avenue Q - YouTube[/ame]


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Warrior102 said:


> Another option - get it into the DOS mode.
> At the C prompt type Format and hit return.
> It's a charmer



Thank you very much.  


Wise guy . . . . .


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

iamwhatiseem said:


> Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del...choose "Task Manager"...go to the "Processes" tab...order by "CPU"...what is the process that is eating memory?



Can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, but nothing happens thereafter.  Part of the entire problem.


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## Meathead (Feb 21, 2013)

Download this. It's free and works well:

Spybot - Search & Destroy from Safer-Networking Ltd.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Meathead said:


> Download this. It's free and works well:
> 
> Spybot - Search & Destroy from Safer-Networking Ltd.



I have what I think is probably the best malware detection program available - Malawarebytes.  I have run scans with it and nothing turns up.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

As someone who has been on the Internet since before the WWW here's an interesting fact about the exponential growth of the Internet. The Internet was a geeky tool so scientists could pass astrological data around the world and that kind of thing. Some people used it to play text based games but still extremely small audience. Then some nerd somewhere realized that the binary streams could be used not only to pass images of far away stars but also some closer stars, some without their clothes on. The rest is, shall I say, history. Even if it is unwritten history. I guess that makes it prehistory.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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You use Firefox and is it updated. They had a nasty issue with their component container or something like that.


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## Meathead (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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Did you update?


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## iamwhatiseem (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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You have a virus...no doubt.
Take it off of your home network before it infects other computers.
Anytime a Microsoft task (like taskmanager) does not work - without a doubt your are infected as this is usually the first program a virus will disable.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

iamwhatiseem said:


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Would starting in safe mode help. I'm a Linux guy myself.


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## Flopper (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> Before I call Computer Guy, I want to run this one by y'all for any suggestions you may have.
> 
> My wife's computer has gone nuts.  All of a sudden, it takes forever to open a program.  You can double click on anything on the desktop, and it may or may not open.  It can take as long as 10 mintues for it to open, it may never open.  Sometimes we can get IE to open up, most of the time not.  If we can get IE to open, it is impossible to go anywhere.  We can get the home page (Google) but that's about it.
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> ...


The first thing I would do is start task manager, by right clicking on the task bar at the bottom of the screen, then click on task manager, and then processes.  This will show you what's running.  Those that don't show zero cpu are running.  There is a good chance one of the running processes is responsible.  You may have to Google the name of the process to get some information you can use.

If this doesn't reveal the culprit, I would delete the application that was recently installed to see if that helps.   Here is a good link on eliminating programs that start when you boot your computer.  If you follow these instruction, you have a good chance of finding the culprit.

How to Disable Startup Programs in Windows

Unfortunately Microsoft does not provide a good tool to diagnosis performance problems.  There are a lot of tools to do things like defraging drives, cleaning the register, but not much to help you determine the problem.


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## Defiant1 (Feb 21, 2013)

You must be in the top 1% of internet speed.  Obama is taxing your bandwidth.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Meathead said:


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Yes.


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## iamwhatiseem (Feb 21, 2013)

Let me say it again...you...have...a ...virus.
Anytime a Microsoft system application will not run like taskmanager or msconfig etc...you are virtually guaranteed you have a virus or working malware.
I sstrongly suggest you disconnect this computer from your network before it infects your other computers and take it somewhere to get it cleaned if you can't do it yourself.


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## Rat in the Hat (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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Download Spybot and run both. I have had SB catch malware that MalwareBytes didn't catch, and vice versa.


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## Sallow (Feb 21, 2013)

iamwhatiseem said:


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This is absolutely correct.

It's almost a sure thing you have a virus.

Get some good virus protection software like MaCafee.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Sallow said:


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I've had McAfee for years.  It didn't catch anything.  Have had it on auto-scan.  Auto update.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Rat in the Hat said:


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I can't run anything on the computer, let alone download anything.  That's the problem.


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## Flopper (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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I thought the problem was the applications were just running slow.  If nothing will run, then you probably have either a hardware problem, windows is damaged, or you have some undetected malware.  If it just runs very slow, then there are many causes.

If the computer has been turned off for say an hour and you boot the machine and the problem is not present immediately, then you could have overheating problem.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Flopper said:


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It isn't that I can't run anything - I may have overstated that.  I can run some things.  For example, there is a game my wife loves to play.   She can play it.  It just is very jerky when it runs, if you know what I mean.  Other things just won't open.  Other things will, but you can'r really do anything with them.

Everyone is so sure I have a virus - I'm not so sure.  I can turn the computer off, leave it off for half an hour, turn it back on again and the desktop will appear.  If I want to open a program (let's say it's Word), I will double click on the Word icon.  It will take a long time - perhaps as much as 5 or 10 minutes.  Then Word will open.  If I try to open another program, it may or may not open and will take much longer.  It's almost like it's a memory issue.


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## Flopper (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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I would not jump on the virus bandwagon, if you have good malware protection.  Of course almost any problem can be caused by some type of malware.

Here is a link to a problem description and recommend action that sounds similar to yours.

WINDOWS 7 - when I right click on any icon, in desktop, programs, my - Microsoft Community

For a problem like this, I like to use a process of elimination, removing programs that were not install on your computer when you bought it, stopping non-windows tasks and services, and removing startup programs.  Of course, always uninstall any programs that were recently installed.  Also just stopping your security software to see if it's the source of the problem is a good idea as long as you restart it.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Flopper said:


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I have considered doing a system restore.  I know how to do that, having done it before when I had a browser hijack.  Just go back to a day or two before the hijack appears, and you are good.  Whether that would work here, I don't know.  I am also considering uninstalling Carbonite.  The problems all began within two or three days of installing that program.  But my wife's computer is identical to mine - same OS, although (obviously) somewhat different software on each.  My computer has worked fine with Carbonite on it.

Uninstalling Carbonite wouldn't affect the backup that has taken place, right?, since that backup is in the Cloud.


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## George Costanza (Feb 21, 2013)

Flopper said:


> I would not jump on the virus bandwagon, if you have good malware protection.  Of course almost any problem can be caused by some type of malware.



That's another thing - we pay a lot of money for McAfee, which is installed on both computers and which scans at regular intervals on a schedule.  It also updates automatically.  One would hope (and expect) that any virus would be detected and eliminated as fast as it came in - that's what we're paying for, right?


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## Flopper (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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I would uninstall Carbonite first, boot the computer and see if that fixes the problem.  If not, then I would try a system restore.  With problems like this, you often just keep trying things until something you do fixes it and you never know just what caused the problem, but who cares if it's working.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 21, 2013)

Start the computer in safe mode, once it boots up then run your antivirus/malware programs.  If that doesn't work do a restore from a point before the problem showed itself.


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## Flopper (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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I have McAfee on my wife and daughter's computer.  I'm using Norton because I have a free copy.  I've also used AVG, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro.  I don't think there is much difference in the level of protection.  The differences are in support, transparency, and resource usage and this changes from year to year.

You can save money often by not buying the renewal when offered and shopping around for the best price.  I got a notice that My Nortion 360 was expiring and the company wanted $79 for the renewal.  I waited till the week before it expired and check their web site.  They were offered it for $39.  I checked  Frye's and they had it for free when I purchased another product.  It pays to shop around when it's time to renew, particularly if you have a number of computers.


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## Politico (Feb 21, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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This is why people shouldn't get advice on the internet.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 21, 2013)

Politico said:


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Try it with XP, Vista or Win 7...... go ahead, good luck.


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## emptystep (Feb 21, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


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Do it with any computer you like. Then put in a Ubuntu install disk and enjoy the improvement.


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## Papawx3 (Feb 22, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


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It won't work because DOS is no longer the primary OS, but rather an internal branch of the parent (Windows) OS.


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## uscitizen (Feb 22, 2013)

Just more of those Microsoft targeting viri that Apple generates to boost their sales.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 22, 2013)

Papawx3 said:


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Yeah, I know.


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## Wry Catcher (Feb 22, 2013)

Lots of info on this thread but the one solution I found most helpful was to ask one of my adult kids.  It goes like this, "hey, this is dad, help!"  A short time later I'm back on line.  Simple, clean and cheap.


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## George Costanza (Feb 22, 2013)

Did I mention that my wife's computer is six years old?


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## Zona (Feb 22, 2013)

System restore it back to.factory setting.  Did it once before.  Works like a charm.


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## George Costanza (Feb 23, 2013)

I think I fixed it.  I deleted Carbonite.  No change.  So I did a system restore to a couple of days before installing Carbonite.  Bingo!  All is working fine.  

I am going to run it a day or so to make sure it really is OK and, if it is, then I will reinstall Carbonite and see what happens.

Thanks for all your help.


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## Papawx3 (Feb 23, 2013)

You couldn't get me to use Carbonite if you paid me.  I use an external hard drive and set my system to back up on a regular basis.   With all the cyber hacking going on, it's easier than you thing for someone on another continent to decide he/she wants to 'browse' through other folks' private info.


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## George Costanza (Feb 23, 2013)

Papawx3 said:


> You couldn't get me to use Carbonite if you paid me.  I use an external hard drive and set my system to back up on a regular basis.   With all the cyber hacking going on, it's easier than you thing for someone on another continent to decide he/she wants to 'browse' through other folks' private info.



I understand your fears about Carbonite.  I share them to a degree.  My problem with backing up has been, simply, that I could never find a backup program that I could get to work properly.  Carbonite is a snap to use, which is the main reason I went for it.

You know, there comes a point where one just has to bite the bullet and put it out there.  Do you make purchases of any kind online?

I trust Carbonite.  A number of professionals I know back up highly classified information with Carbonite.


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## George Costanza (Feb 23, 2013)

This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . . 

It occurred to me that my computer was acting like a computer that was completely out of memory.  So I went into Task Manager and, guess what . . . 100% CPU usage going on.  It turns out that the villain was McAfee, which was using 99% of memory.  I uninstalled McAfee (never liked that son of a bitch anyway - too intrusive) and rebooted.  (Why, all of a sudden, McAfee decided to hog so much memory on my wife's computer is beyond me.  It had never done it before.  I have McAfee on my computer and my CPU memory usage runs around 19%.)

Memory usage after doing that?  12%.  All that was left to do was to put another anti-virus in there in place of McAfee.  That would be Avast!  I did some Internet checking on the best anti-virus programs, and Avast! was well toward the top.  We'll see.  It's my wife's computer, after all, and she doesn't go to high risk Net sites.

Several of you hit on this issue - had I paid attention when you posted it, we would have gotten to the solution a lot sooner.

So - all's well that ends well.  Thank you all!

p.s. And to boot, I didn't have to shell out the big bucks to Computer Guy!


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## depotoo (Feb 23, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> Flopper said:
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I canned McAfee for 3 reasons, still got viruses and it was notorious for having bad updates and being a hog. 

Haven't finished reading through the thread, but if you are still having the problem, start the computer in safe mode then go to Free Online Virus Scan - Antivirus Software - Trend Micro USA

scroll down the page past all the buying stuff to housecall and pick which version is best for your computer ie 32 or 64 bit and let it run.  It will find just about everything there could possibly be.  Good luck and if you do this let me know how it turns out.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 23, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . .
> 
> It occurred to me that my computer was acting like a computer that was completely out of memory.  So I went into Task Manager and, guess what . . . 100% CPU usage going on.  It turns out that the villain was McAfee, which was using 99% of memory.  I uninstalled McAfee (never liked that son of a bitch anyway - too intrusive) and rebooted.  (Why, all of a sudden, McAfee decided to hog so much memory on my wife's computer is beyond me.  It had never done it before.  I have McAfee on my computer and my CPU memory usage runs around 19%.)
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I use Avast and Malwarebytes as a backup.


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## Samson (Feb 23, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . .
> 
> It occurred to me that my computer was acting like a computer that was completely out of memory.  So I went into Task Manager and, guess what . . . 100% CPU usage going on.  It turns out that the villain was McAfee, which was using 99% of memory.  I uninstalled McAfee (never liked that son of a bitch anyway - too intrusive) and rebooted.  (Why, all of a sudden, McAfee decided to hog so much memory on my wife's computer is beyond me.  It had never done it before.  I have McAfee on my computer and my CPU memory usage runs around 19%.)
> 
> ...



My guess is that your McAfee contract had expired, and you needed to re-new to unleash the memory space.


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## depotoo (Feb 23, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . .
> 
> It occurred to me that my computer was acting like a computer that was completely out of memory.  So I went into Task Manager and, guess what . . . 100% CPU usage going on.  It turns out that the villain was McAfee, which was using 99% of memory.  I uninstalled McAfee (never liked that son of a bitch anyway - too intrusive) and rebooted.  (Why, all of a sudden, McAfee decided to hog so much memory on my wife's computer is beyond me.  It had never done it before.  I have McAfee on my computer and my CPU memory usage runs around 19%.)
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Good news!


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## George Costanza (Feb 23, 2013)

Samson said:


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Yes, except I have three, home computers on the same McAfee account, and the other two are doing just fine.  McAfee active on the other two, no memory hogging, no word from McAfee that they want more money.


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## George Costanza (Feb 23, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


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I use Malawarebytes as a backup as well.  So far, I like Avast.  But I don't know how to schedule scans.  I paid the $29.99 annual fee.  Do you know how to schedule scans?  PM me if you wish.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 23, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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I use the free version, it's always running in the background with active scans.  I like to control all aspects of what happens on my computers so I never set up automatic scheduled scans so no, I have no idea, sorry.  I even have all my updates set to notify me and I decide what and when to download and install, that way nothing starts running when I'm in the middle of something.
Check the Avast site, the how to should be there somewhere.  
Another thing you might be interested is a driver updater like SlimDriver , I'm trying it out now.  I bet most of her systems drivers are out of date.  The one thing to be careful of when installing many of these programs is to select the advanced install option and unselect any checked boxes.


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## namvet (Feb 24, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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if all else fails BU everything and do a system recovery. what ya got to lose???


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## Flopper (Feb 25, 2013)

George Costanza said:


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If you have time, you might want to re-install McAfee to see if the problem reoccurs. Quite often a software installation is damaged and you just need to re-install it.


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## Flopper (Feb 25, 2013)

namvet said:


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System Restore does a good job of fixing windows but only a mediocre job of fixing applications because it does not restore the application folders but rather selected file types. So it may or may not fix  an application problem.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 25, 2013)

Flopper said:


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Why should he when Avast is free, does a better job and is no where near the resource hog McAfee is by leaps and bounds.


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## Zoom-boing (Feb 25, 2013)

We switched our antivirus from Norton to Kaspersky about a year ago.  Just after my daughter installed in on her laptop she started having problems very similar to your wife's problems.  It continued to get worse, she started getting the BSOD, computer would just shut down randomly, programs were difficult to open, etc.  Searched for solution with no luck.  She bought a new laptop a few months ago so hubs took her old laptop (Dell), wiped it, reinstalled Vista.  All was well until we reinstalled Kaspersky.  Then the problems started again.  It was especially bad while on the internet (Firefox).  He could get onto the net better/more reliably with IE but . ... yeah, IE.  Couldn't find a solution anywhere until someone at Bleeping Computer suggested trying another browser.  Downloaded Chrome and haven't had a problem since.  Must be some kind of conflict with her particular computer (which is nearly the same as our other laptop), Kaspersky and Firefox (yes, we updated FF, Java, Adoble Flash to no avail).  Perhaps there is just some weird conflict with Carbonite and that computer.  Uninstall it and see what happens.


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## George Costanza (Feb 25, 2013)

Zoom-boing said:


> We switched our antivirus from Norton to Kaspersky about a year ago.  Just after my daughter installed in on her laptop she started having problems very similar to your wife's problems.  It continued to get worse, she started getting the BSOD, computer would just shut down randomly, programs were difficult to open, etc.  Searched for solution with no luck.  She bought a new laptop a few months ago so hubs took her old laptop (Dell), wiped it, reinstalled Vista.  All was well until we reinstalled Kaspersky.  Then the problems started again.  It was especially bad while on the internet (Firefox).  He could get onto the net better/more reliably with IE but . ... yeah, IE.  Couldn't find a solution anywhere until someone at Bleeping Computer suggested trying another browser.  Downloaded Chrome and haven't had a problem since.  Must be some kind of conflict with her particular computer (which is nearly the same as our other laptop), Kaspersky and Firefox (yes, we updated FF, Java, Adoble Flash to no avail).  Perhaps there is just some weird conflict with Carbonite and that computer.  Uninstall it and see what happens.



Thanks for the input.  I think it must have been some type of conflict with my wife's computer because, as mentioned, I have McAfee on my computer and no problems at all with McAfee hogging memory.  

Carbonite is totally blameless in this situation.  I did uninstall Carbonite, and the problem continued.  Once I uninstalled McAfee, everything works fine, including Carboinite.  Ironically, it was the Carbonite techhie who put me onto the solution.

I have heard that Kapersky can cause memory problems on some (not all) computers, which is why I went with Avast!  So far, I really like Avast!  It isn't free - but the cost is only thirty bucks a year; cheap enough for a virus protection program that actually works.


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## Flopper (Feb 25, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


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The reason for re-installing McAfee is to get a better idea of what caused the problem. If after re-installing, the problem never reoccurs then the McAfee files were probably damaged due to some activity on the computer or a conflict with another application which is no longer occurring.  If it does reoccur, then McAfee should be able to trace down the problem.

When removing an application seems to fix a problem, you may be just removing a symptom of the real problem.  If possible, it's far better to trace down the problem.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 25, 2013)

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If removing a program resolves the issue and it does not reoccur afterwards then the typical use doesn't give a damn.


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## Flopper (Feb 25, 2013)

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I agree and the typical user buys a new computer or pays someone several hundred dollars to fix relatively simple problems.


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## Synthaholic (Feb 25, 2013)

Rat in the Hat said:


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> 
> 
> > Meathead said:
> ...



Then it probably wasn't malware.

Avira Anti-Virus is famous for flagging non-harmful items that it just isn't familiar with, in their database.


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## Synthaholic (Feb 25, 2013)

Flopper said:


> George Costanza said:
> 
> 
> > Rat in the Hat said:
> ...


Also, failure of the video hardware will cause similar problems.

Also, a registry hook can cause similar problems.

George, see if you can try START>CMD>MSCONFIG

START






Type CMD, hit ENTER

Type msconfig, hit ENTER

Change it to Diagnostic boot and click apply, then OK, then affirm the reboot.

This will at least confirm that your major hardware is working.

Make sure you change it back afterward.

If there are no problems, go to the Startup tab and uncheck all non-essential items, like printers, Quicktime, Google, etc.

Then reboot and see if it frees up enough resources to do anything.


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## Synthaholic (Feb 25, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . .
> 
> It occurred to me that my computer was acting like a computer that was completely out of memory.  So I went into Task Manager and, guess what . . . 100% CPU usage going on.  It turns out that the villain was McAfee, which was using 99% of memory.  I uninstalled McAfee (never liked that son of a bitch anyway - too intrusive) and rebooted.  (Why, all of a sudden, McAfee decided to hog so much memory on my wife's computer is beyond me.  It had never done it before.  I have McAfee on my computer and my CPU memory usage runs around 19%.)
> 
> ...


Well, then disregard my last post!


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## Synthaholic (Feb 25, 2013)

Flopper said:


> namvet said:
> 
> 
> > George Costanza said:
> ...


Plus, a lot of times when you are having computer issues, System Restore won't work, and ends up telling you that it failed to restore your machine.


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## Synthaholic (Feb 25, 2013)

Zoom-boing said:


> We switched our antivirus from Norton to Kaspersky about a year ago.  Just after my daughter installed in on her laptop she started having problems very similar to your wife's problems.  It continued to get worse, she started getting the BSOD, computer would just shut down randomly, programs were difficult to open, etc.  Searched for solution with no luck.  She bought a new laptop a few months ago so hubs took her old laptop (Dell), wiped it, reinstalled Vista.  All was well until we reinstalled Kaspersky.  Then the problems started again.  It was especially bad while on the internet (Firefox).  He could get onto the net better/more reliably with IE but . ... yeah, IE.  Couldn't find a solution anywhere until someone at Bleeping Computer suggested trying another browser.  Downloaded Chrome and haven't had a problem since.  Must be some kind of conflict with her particular computer (which is nearly the same as our other laptop), Kaspersky and Firefox (yes, we updated FF, Java, Adoble Flash to no avail).  Perhaps there is just some weird conflict with Carbonite and that computer.  Uninstall it and see what happens.


I don't trust those Ruskies.


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## Flopper (Feb 26, 2013)

Synthaholic said:


> Flopper said:
> 
> 
> > George Costanza said:
> ...


msconfig is the only diagnostic tool, that has ever help me diagnosis problems on Windows systems.  Dr Watson and windows event logs have never helped me.  It's too bad, there isn't a tool that would translate this information into something useful for a user.


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 26, 2013)

Warrior102 said:


> Another option - get it into the DOS mode.
> At the C prompt type Format and hit return.
> It's a charmer



There's a reason you have a mac, and it's not because you know what the fuck you're doing...


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 26, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> It's my WIFE's computer, not mine.  The chances that any porn was ever viewed on that computer are somewhere around 1 in infinity.  Discussion over.



Facebook is the #1 source of malware, these days. Porn doesn't even compare.


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 26, 2013)

Sallow said:


> Get some good virus protection software like MaCafee.



Good virus protection, or McAfee? You can't have both.

For Vista, Windows 7, or 8, use;

Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows

For XP, which is what you have, since you're infected;

avast! | Download Free Antivirus Software or Internet Security

This is my top choice because it has a boot scan mode that will catch many viruses that hide inside of Windows.

AVG Free | Antivirus | Free Virus Protection

Also a good choice.

HijackThis Download

The best utility to find out what is going on; will do some minor clean up, but mostly identifies problems.


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 26, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> Papawx3 said:
> 
> 
> > You couldn't get me to use Carbonite if you paid me.  I use an external hard drive and set my system to back up on a regular basis.   With all the cyber hacking going on, it's easier than you thing for someone on another continent to decide he/she wants to 'browse' through other folks' private info.
> ...




Seriously?

2BrightSparks | SyncBackFree, SyncBackSE, and SyncBackPro

Free and works stupendously.


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## George Costanza (Feb 26, 2013)

Uncensored2008 said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > Get some good virus protection software like MaCafee.
> ...



Am using Avast! now.


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## George Costanza (Feb 26, 2013)

Synthaholic said:


> George Costanza said:
> 
> 
> > This just in.  Disregard everything I have said thus far.  Here's the deal . . .
> ...



You just can't resist, can you?


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## George Costanza (Feb 26, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


> Flopper said:
> 
> 
> > Ringel05 said:
> ...



File me under typical user . . .   But thanks anyway, Flopster.

Actually, the problem was so disconerting that I don't even want to think about it happening again.  It was so bad that I was almost unable to uninstall McAfee.


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## Synthaholic (Feb 26, 2013)

Fuck a bunch of McAfee - it's yesterday's mashed potatoes.


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 26, 2013)

George Costanza said:


> Am using Avast! now.



Good product, only problem is the yearly nag to renew, with the usual hard sell tactic to buy the paid version.


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## Ringel05 (Feb 27, 2013)

Uncensored2008 said:


> George Costanza said:
> 
> 
> > Am using Avast! now.
> ...



He bought the paid version.


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## George Costanza (Feb 27, 2013)

Uncensored2008 said:


> George Costanza said:
> 
> 
> > Am using Avast! now.
> ...



It only costs thirty bucks per year - hardly something that is going to put one out of business.  And, considering the cost of fixing what could happen if you don't have it, it's well worth the price, seems to me.

Think of it kind of like a condom . . .


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## Book of Jeremiah (Feb 27, 2013)

High_Gravity said:


> emptystep said:
> 
> 
> > High_Gravity said:
> ...




...........which is how she became his "ex-girlfriend"!


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## Uncensored2008 (Feb 27, 2013)

Ringel05 said:


> Uncensored2008 said:
> 
> 
> > George Costanza said:
> ...




Then they'll just nag to renew the paid version...


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