Can I fix this myself?

[sms001]

here's a snapshot of my screen for the memory useage:

While lurking (don't want too many people shouting advice at you, I'm sure!) and waiting for the mem usage, I'd like to suggest you d/l and read the instructions for installing Hijackthis.

http://www.merijn.org/files/HiJackThis_v2.exe

Odds are good that your problem is going to be some background task not playing well with others, and it's a tool whose logs will help track it down.

I'm sure this doesn't need to be said, but better safe than sorry
Do not use the tool to get rid of anything!!!
Just scan logs may be enough and it's easy to fark your machine pretty badly with it!!!

P.S. Love the Prongs Plates! And where did you get the sticker?

[FuzzyKitten99]

Fuzzy, that is not memory usage.

That is Drive Management, your STORAGE usage. Hard drive.

To get a copy of memory usage, right click on your task bar (bottom blue bar) and select Task Manager.

A box opens, so click on the tab called Processes, and that lists a bunch of small programs/applications being run by you or the OS currently. Click on the header called MEM USAGE and it will sort by high or low, and you will see a listing of who's taking the most RAM.

Memory = RAM

storage = hard drive, dvd, cd, usb stick.....

Cute

Ok, I misunderstood. I thought that is what was meant by "usage"

I looked at processes and because of the long list, I did screen shots of the top and bottom halves and pieced them together in a bitmap:
anything look unusual?

[FuzzyKitten99]

P.S. Love the Prongs Plates! And where did you get the sticker?


license plate

thanks! The sticker was custom made by the company that my husband used to work for, which is also owned by my MIL's best friend and her husband. They make street signs (as well as various other signs & graphic appliques) and the lettering and reflective material on street signs, is actually thick plastic sheeting that adheres to the metal base plates-and you can apply it to any surface, and it is completely removable and won't leave a residue. The machine that cuts the lettering is controlled by a program on a regular pc computer, and you can upload any kind of picture or font into the program. They were able to upload the font from a Harry Potter fansite and make one for me. If you want one, I don't know how much it would run you (probably like $18-20, but I can't guarantee that), but here's the website (yes, they primarily do traffic control, but they still manufacture custom signs & graphics): www.ntsindustries.com . Just ask for Brent and tell him Tim's wife Lea referred you to them for a window sticker in the Harry Potter font that says what you want it to say.

Here's another sticker I have, which is made of the yellow reflective sign material:

[Pedersen]

Hey, FK, just to toss in my two cents worth: Nothing there jumps out as being out of whack, not to me, anyway. However, you might wanna edit that screencap. Your real name is included in it. Repeatedly.

[Der Cute]

The DSAgent.exe is a Dell Support agent...

Do you have some icon of Dell's in your system tray (by the clock) ? Are you actually using it on a regular basis? Or is it just included in the startup?

May want to not have it start with the computer. Personally, I don't need support agent thingys, I use the internet. And all the tubes in it. (joke for geeks here)

Otherwise, it looks ok.

What I'm talking about up there ^^ is fine-tuning. Which would be done after we've pinpointed the real root issue.

FK, can you get to Event Viewer?
Right click My Computer
Manage
opens a window.
Find on left pane Event Viewer.
Go click on the + next to Event Viewer.
Opens a list of logs.

Take a look in the System one ( do the same sort thing you did with the RAM! you did great on that!!) and sort by type, Error/ Caution / Generic.

Remember I asked what day this was starting? Here you can pin point the problems and see if there's a starting point - you see a bunch of Exclamation Points!!!!! ZOMG and they all started on March 1 2007....what happened on March 1 2007....ahhhhh someone installed a piece of wonky hardware...

Do the same thing for the Applications... open the log, sort by type, and look at the dates on the page, can you see a pattern?

So far your hard drive looks fine, and the RAM usage looks normal.

I think what we need to do is recreate the issue. doodle around, do your own thing, work on the PC. When issue starts back up -when you notice it, Write the date/ time and what you're doing. Also check the temp in the room, just to be safe. We can't help unless we can isolate the problem a bit better.

Cute

oh btw did you find out how much ram the machine has?

[draggar]

Ok, I misunderstood. I thought that is what was meant by "usage"

I looked at processes and because of the long list, I did screen shots of the top and bottom halves and pieced them together in a bitmap:
anything look unusual?

Rundll32 - sometimes that's legit, a lot of times it is not. go to http://housecall.antivirus.com and let them scan your system.

On a side note, any reason why you're running a MySQL database?

Also, click on Start - Run and type in MSCONFIG

Go to the startup tab and uncheck everything then reboot and see if it continues. If it stops, then something that you've installed (or elected to load) is causing it, if not, then there's another issue.

[sms001]

However, you might wanna edit that screencap.

Have to second this! If you can't edit to replace, have Raps etc. do it.

Thanks for the sticker info. I think I know the kind of material your talking about and it's quite cool. Twenty bucks may be a bit much to spend on myself, but I know a fan or two, so I'll keep it mind for the holidays. Thanks for the info.

[FuzzyKitten99]

Hey, FK, just to toss in my two cents worth: Nothing there jumps out as being out of whack, not to me, anyway. However, you might wanna edit that screencap. Your real name is included in it. Repeatedly.

I am not worried about it...

[FuzzyKitten99]

The DSAgent.exe is a Dell Support agent...

Do you have some icon of Dell's in your system tray (by the clock) ? Are you actually using it on a regular basis? Or is it just included in the startup?

May want to not have it start with the computer. Personally, I don't need support agent thingys, I use the internet. And all the tubes in it. (joke for geeks here)

Otherwise, it looks ok.

What I'm talking about up there ^^ is fine-tuning. Which would be done after we've pinpointed the real root issue.

FK, can you get to Event Viewer?
Right click My Computer
Manage
opens a window.
Find on left pane Event Viewer.
Go click on the + next to Event Viewer.
Opens a list of logs.

Take a look in the System one ( do the same sort thing you did with the RAM! you did great on that!!) and sort by type, Error/ Caution / Generic.

I just did this, and there is a HUGE list of stuff. Probably a few hundred. I don't know if I could captire all of them in screen caps and not take up lots of space.

I called Dell support and the tech accessed my computer remotely and tried everything he could. Some of the stuff he did do, helped a bit, and the problem isn't as bad as it was, but it is still an issue.

He said that unfortunately the only way he believes he can fix this problem 100% is to do a PC restore or OS reinstall. Unfortunately, I have some things on my hard drive that I will lose and will be difficult to get back. I can back all my stuff up, but there are a couple things I can't and I have to reinstall and start over...

I might just have a guy I know look at it, and see if there was something that the Dell guy missed, but that will run me $100 at least for a diagnostic.

The problem is more annoying than anything, but I really want to have it fixed too.

[digilight]

You know, I just looked at my mother in laws computer last night. Hers is doing the exact same thing including having the system idle process throttling the whole thing (Identical scenario). It lags when you type on both web sites as well as anything else. Programs lag, etc. I'm going to be going into it in depth tonight and I will let you know once I get to the bottom of her problem. She also has a Dell (she bought it around a year to a year and a half ago). And the problem has been going on now since prior to July of this year. I had no idea about it until this week and took a quick last night.

I am pretty certain that she picked up a virius of some sort.

My question to you would be. Who is your Internet service provider, I am asking to see if there may be some correlation possibly to the ISP files or something. but here is what I know for sure about her system

It is a Dell (I don't remember the exact model, but I will right it down tonight).

She has a Canon Pixima 830 printer. Apparently the computer problems where happening before this was installed but I didn't know about it, hell I installed the printer and couldn't tell at the time.

She has AT&T for her ISP (Would also fall under Pacbell, SBC, etc) and is DSL.


I am thinking Virus or Mallware. I will run different scanners and see what I come up with.

[FuzzyKitten99]

My question to you would be. Who is your Internet service provider, I am asking to see if there may be some correlation possibly to the ISP files or something. but here is what I know for sure about her system

It is a Dell (I don't remember the exact model, but I will right it down tonight).

She has a Canon Pixima 830 printer. Apparently the computer problems where happening before this was installed but I didn't know about it, hell I installed the printer and couldn't tell at the time.

She has AT&T for her ISP (Would also fall under Pacbell, SBC, etc) and is DSL.


I am thinking Virus or Mallware. I will run different scanners and see what I come up with.

I have Comcast cable for my ISP, and a Dell 942 AllInOne printer, though it isn't permanently attached or hooked up to a computer all the time.

The problem only started sometime in the last 3-4 months. Even then, I really didn't take much notice until I realized that it wasn't going away, no matter what I did.

[FuzzyKitten99]

oh, and someone told me that AdAware and anti-virus software aren't supposed to be on the system together because the anti-virus will already have the spyware/adware removal program. Is this true? Because I do have AVG for antivirus and AdAware SE personal (the free version). Should I remove AdAware?

[Shabo]

No, you don't have to. Two anti-virus programs will interfere with each other, but you can and should have multiple anti-spyware programs. Each anti-spyware program is different and each has different definition files, meaning each will catch different things. Another good program that I like to use is Spybot S & D, which is also free. There's another really good one that I can't remember the name of off the top of my head... but I think it starts with a P. I'm going to go snooping...

Didn't find the anti-spyware program... but here's an interesting read from our beloved wikipedia

[Seshat]

I just thought of another possibility - this is actually unlikely, given the symptoms you described, but it's possible and it's very, very easy to check.

Your CPU fan might have broken bearings, and your CPU might be getting hot. If it's that, and you have a special circuit in your CPU/motherboard that slows down the CPU when it's hot, your CPU might be running slow. Which could cause the CPU usage to be up around 100%, thus slowing everything down.

The check is easy: is your computer making a horrible grinding noise? If so, then the fan is trying to work and the bearings are busted.
(Okay - one of the fans. The grinding noise can come from any of the fans, or the hard disk. Different grinding noises for each, but it's really hard to describe the difference in text.)

If you open the case, then turn the computer on and look at the CPU fan, does it turn so rapidly it's a blur? If not, it's busted.

The good thing is that if this is the problem, it's an easy and cheap fix for a techie. Probably doable for a non-techie with careful instruction.

[digilight]

OK I think I fixed my MIL's computer and her's was slow as hell at typing in certain programs.

I downloaded and ran AVAST and came up with 3 different viruses. 1 was the Blink Virus (I'm not sure what the other 2 were but I know 1 was a backdoor trojan and I think the other was a worm).

So Far it seems to be doing much better.

I would say to download different Anti Virus Programs and run deep scans using each (I know that certain Anti Virus programs may not catch things that others will).

I know that AVAST is good, So is AVG. I'm sure that you can get some good advice from others on good scanners as well.