Computer slow as leap year Christmas

[kemperhills]

I have a Dell Optiplex 170L with Windows XP, SP2, Home Edition. It has a Pentium 4 processor.

Here is the problem, it has become so slow that at times it locks up for 15 to 20 seconds to complete just opening a Microsoft Works file.

I have run Spybot S&D, CCCleaner and McAfee and found nothing.

Today a green square box showed up in the Task Bar. I showed the CPU running at 100%. I checked the computer over several hours and it continued to run 100%. The last time I checked the CPU was constantly varying from about 10% to 100%. I opened the Task Manager and found that as the CPU usage got higher iexplore would go up. I also noticed that I have two iexplore process running in Task Manager. One has a memory usage of 11,128k and the other 90,280k

Can anyone tell me why the CPU runs at 100% most of the time, when nothing is being done on the computer, why I have two iexplore exe's on the Task Manager, and how to fix this problem with this computer. Thanks

 

[johnb35]

If you are running IE8, that will cause 2 iexplore processes to show up.

Open task manager and look under cpu heading to find out what process is using the processor.

 

[kemperhills]

If you are running IE8, that will cause 2 iexplore processes to show up.

Open task manager and look under cpu heading to find out what process is using the processor.

Thanks John for the info. I am running IE8. I will look for what processes is using the porcessor sometimes today, thanks again.

 

[jamesd1981]

can you not do a full recovery and start a fresh.

 

[Drenlin]

If it's internet explorer, try uninstalling any toolbars you may have going...those really slow it down. Upgrading to IE9 would be even better.

 

[Nanobyte]

I'm not sure that IE8 is your problem but my experience with XP/SP3 was that it was completely useless. It took forever to load a site. I uninstalled and went back to IE7. I only use IE for Windows Updates so IE7 was fine.

Until you look at Processes, CPU column, as already suggested you can't identify the problem. The memory usage for IE is not particularly useful and is not that high considering two running. My IE7 uses 24MB immediately after startup. Chrome is using 40MB, Firefox 64MB. Not directly comparable.

 

[kemperhills]

If it's internet explorer, try uninstalling any toolbars you may have going...those really slow it down. Upgrading to IE9 would be even better.

Thanks I'll try that.

 

[Drenlin]

I forgot, IE9 won't run on XP...sorry

Firefox, Chrome, and Opera would all be very good alternatives. Anything but IE8....

edit: I noticed you mentioned that it was taking a while to open things? Opening programs and files has more to do with hard drive speed than your processor. If it's old enough to have a Pentium 4, then your hard drive may be getting old and tired. Or horribly fragmented, one of the two.

Try running these two programs:
CCleaner- http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Defraggler- http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

 

[2048Megabytes]

I second the information Nanobyte gave on Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. I upgraded to Service Pack 3 and did not like it. It ran much more sluggish than Service Pack 2 did. Shutdowns on Windows XP would take around 25 seconds. I reinstalled my Windows XP recently and just stuck with Service Pack 2.

Firefox and Opera are my choices for Internet browsers over Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

 

[linkin]

I forgot, IE9 won't run on XP...sorry

Firefox, Chrome, and Opera would all be very good alternatives. Anything but IE8....

edit: I noticed you mentioned that it was taking a while to open things? Opening programs and files has more to do with hard drive speed than your processor. If it's old enough to have a Pentium 4, then your hard drive may be getting old and tired. Or horribly fragmented, one of the two.

Try running these two programs:
CCleaner- http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Defraggler- http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

Definitely use those, they are on my essentials list for any computer I use.

 

[kemperhills]

I forgot, IE9 won't run on XP...sorry

Firefox, Chrome, and Opera would all be very good alternatives. Anything but IE8....

edit: I noticed you mentioned that it was taking a while to open things? Opening programs and files has more to do with hard drive speed than your processor. If it's old enough to have a Pentium 4, then your hard drive may be getting old and tired. Or horribly fragmented, one of the two.

Try running these two programs:
CCleaner- http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Defraggler- http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

Well, it is an older computer that worked great until recently. But I did find that the tea time for spybot was using a lot so I disabled it and it sped up some, how much I don't know yet. My wife is going to use it for a couple of days to see. I have been thinking about reverting back to IE 7 which doesn't have all the "stuff" that IE8 has but have been concerned about some of the sites that she visits not working properly with IE7. She does a lot of embroidery and goes to a lot of such sites. Any comments on what effect reverting to IE7 would have on these sites. . By the way guys, thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

 

[Nanobyte]

An alternative to rolling back IE8 is to install Firefox or Chrome and see how well they work. You can always uninstall. That will tell you if IE8 is the problem (which seems to be the case). IE9 is supposed to be along the same lines as them but is only a beta release.

I'm never keen on rolling back MS' stuff so I first tried reverting to IE7 on my secondary PC. It worked fine. I cannot say if losing IE8 features will affect your use. I only use IE for Windows Updates so I didn't avail of any frills. I don't recollect anything obvious.

 

[johnb35]

Open task manager and look under cpu heading to find out what process is using the processor.

Have you done this yet? Knowing what process is using up all the cpu will help tremendously.

Also please do the following so we can see whats running at bootup and some other vital info.


Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Copy and paste the log into your next reply.

 

[Drenlin]

Well, it is an older computer that worked great until recently. But I did find that the tea time for spybot was using a lot so I disabled it and it sped up some, how much I don't know yet. My wife is going to use it for a couple of days to see. I have been thinking about reverting back to IE 7 which doesn't have all the "stuff" that IE8 has but have been concerned about some of the sites that she visits not working properly with IE7. She does a lot of embroidery and goes to a lot of such sites. Any comments on what effect reverting to IE7 would have on these sites. . By the way guys, thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

At this point, I'd just use one of the other browsers I listed earlier rather than IE. They're all much more efficient with resources, and are still supported by security updates, which I don't think IE7 is.

 

[kemperhills]

Have you done this yet? Knowing what process is using up all the cpu will help tremendously.

Also please do the following so we can see whats running at bootup and some other vital info.


Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Copy and paste the log into your next reply.

Thanks, I'll do that as soon as I can.

 

[Nanobyte]

..... and are still supported by security updates, which I don't think IE7 is.

FYI, IE7 and SP3 are still being supported but I could not find any definitive dates at MS. For Kemperhills' info, SP2 is more of any issue. Support ended in July 2010. I have no idea what security updates you would get with IE7 or IE8 with only SP2 installed. Perhaps they are independent of SP?

I guess if you are browsing, Firefox or Chrome would be even more attractive, being lighter weight, more secure and definitely supported.

Johnb35's persistence with the CPU usage is still very relevant in case other forces are at work.