Slow computer on random short interval of times, accompanie by fan noise

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Vinleboiteux

New Member
Hi there,

Not sure if this is the right section to post , if not tell me and i will move it. I was wondering if anyone can help me with this problem I have with my desktop.

It started something like 2 days ago, it doesnt matter what I am doing it will happen. The computer makes noise that escalates and sounds like a fan, the noise will then peak at a certain point and go back down to being silent. While this is happening EVERYTHING is super slow. If i am watching a movie, the picture gets jumpy (but not the sound), if I am loading a page on the internet it loads very slow, only game i play now and then is Warcraft 3, well if i am playing the game just stops and goes kinda like mini-freezes. I havent done anything that i do not do regurlarly on this computer, I havent even downloaded anything or added anything.

Now I do not know much of the advanced computer stuff and probly some of the basic stuff also. I was wondering if anyone could clue me up on this one because its a real pain, feels i can't do anything without being interrupted by this slowness, not even write this post :)

Here are the details for my PC (Im just copying i dont know what half of this means ). :

Gateway 831GH
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4CPU 3.00GHz
3.00GHz, 1.50GB of RAM

I am using windows XP service pack 3 , 2002 version.

I have a EN8600GTS for a graphic card

Hmm if you need more information, please tell me.

Thank you for your time!
I hope you can help me!

Bye bye
 
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Zatharus

VIP Member
Is it actually your system fans spinning up suddenly?

I suspect the issue is a disc in your CD drive that is spinning up and causing the racket. Depending on what process/program is trying to read the disc that could explain the slowdown and stuttering. If you have a disc in the drive. Try removing it. Does the problem go away?
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
I ran deffragler, its the fan. The hard drive makes those small clicking sounds right ?

A friend suggested maybe there is alot of dust ?

Is it possible my fan is accidently on something like "high speed" mode so every time it starts up my pc slows down ?
 
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Zatharus

VIP Member
Depending on your system, it most likely is controlling the fan speeds as the system's needs require. Running hot? Fans spin up.

Give Prime95 and SpeedFan a run. While running the Prime95 stress test, observe the fan speeds and temperature sensors. You should see a correlation between the CPU temp and fan speed. Do you see any erratic behavior like spikes or sudden dips in CPU temp?

It sounds like you have a process on your computer that kicks in and uses most of your available CPU power. This in turn heats your CPU and then your fans kick in to cool it.

Bring up the Task Manager to monitor the CPU load and what processes are suddenly spiking. You can do this by watching the Processes tab sorted by CPU usage. What process is it that you notice shooting to the top of the list when your computer slows?
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
Not sure how to interpret this, but this is what i get constantly :

Stresstest.jpg
 
Bodaggit23

Bodaggit23

Active Member
Vinleboiteux said:
So i dusted it, no more noise. But it still gets these fits of slowness at random intervals and i could be doing anything :(
Click to expand...

How did you dust it? You really need to use compressed air to get all the dust
out of your CPU heatsink and PSU unit.

Looks to me like youre CPU temp is a bit high, if that's idle temp.

The least bit of load (videos) could be putting the temps too high and
causing the stutter.
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
First print screen is running the stress test

Second is doing nothing

I dusted it with a canned of compressed air

I don't understand what you mean when you say this :
The least bit of load (videos) could be putting the temps too high and
causing the stutter.
Click to expand...

Videos on my computer would be causing this?...
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
More test results :)

OK this picture is the tasks running normally:
Normaltasks.jpg



Now this one represents the tasks running during a spike:
Spiketask.jpg


I checked a couple of spikes vsmon.exe is always on top. The two tasks who follow keep switching between second and third place those were CCEVTMGR.EXE and SPBBCSvc.exe

So, can anyone explain any of this ? :)

I sure can't lol.

Thanks for your help up to now
 
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Zatharus

VIP Member
First, vsmon.exe is part of ZoneAlarm. Second, the other two (ccevtmgr.exe and spbbcsvc.exe) are part of Symantec Norton Antivirus.

Which version of Norton are you using? Norton, especially the older versions, is notoriously power hungry. Also, how often do you have your antivirus set to scan your computer?

I would highly recommend grabbing Malwarebytes and Superantispyware and giving those a run just to make sure you don't have a bug that is causing these troubles. That could explain the sudden jump in ZoneAlarm activity as well. I would also recommend updating your antivirus software to the most current versions. There are several free clients out there (AVG and AntiVir for example), but if you would like to stick with Norton, get the most recent version. It is apparently much less of a resource hog.

Once you have scaned your system successfully and found no infections, try disabling ZoneAlarm and Norton (or uninstalling them completely) and seeing if the problem goes away. If you have an ancient version of Norton on your machine it is doing you more harm than good anyway. For these tests I would also suggest that you disconnect from the web.
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
Ok ill try those programs, ill get AVG, uninstal Norton since it is an ancient version.

I have had zone alarm and norton forever though , what might be causing them to do this now ? a virus or something?

Anyways ill get back to you after the tests.
 
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Vinleboiteux

New Member
So hmm i installed AVG and then my computer went insane, anything to do with AVg after that used 100% of my CPU and i could not do anything, not even close it. I finished by uninstalling AVG, one click at a time for like 1 hour.

I believe my computer is FULL of ugly stuff :(

For now im running the malware and superantispyware scans.
 
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Zatharus

VIP Member
Did you uninstall Norton first?

Also, you may want to run the Malwarebytes and Superantispyware scans from Safe Mode to try to prevent any bugs from loading on startup.
 
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