PC running slowly - virus?

Thanks for the extremely fast reply!

I'm downloading sandra, we only have dial-up so theres an hour left to go. Its an old enough computer, maybe 2002, and considering my parents bought it I'd say the spec is probably pretty low. Although all thats really running on it is Microsoft Office, Norton and a Kodak photo viewer.

I'll run sandra and post the results as soon as I can.
Thanks for all your help, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and start reading up on this stuff.
PS - To where to I send the cheque for services rendered?! ;-)
 
I would say the problem is that it's an old PC and you are running Norton!!!

Norton is an absolute hog on resources but and the ccapp process in particular is the cause of a lot of problems re performance.

I'm afraid you may have to save your shekels for a new PC but in the meantime you may consider replacing Norton with a more lightweight anti-virus product.

Regards,
Gearoid
 
Darn! We were using an older Norton but certain persons who shall remain nameless never downloaded updates. A years worth of updates would be more than our phone line could handle so we bought a brand-spanking new Norton which would solve all our worries. Or so we thought!

Is it possible to turn off ccapp -ie-does it related to Live Update so I could just do that manually? Or would you recommend just using something like AVG on its own? (obviously with spybot, adaware etc)
 
From an external website:

ccapp.exe is is responsible for the auto-protect and email checking facilities, both of which will not function correctly if this service is stopped. This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated.
Click to expand...

You could possibly uninstall Norton and replace with AVG or other products such as a freeware antivirus checker, a firewall etc. I'd google to see if other people hit the same scenario. This would remove ccapp.

The issue is that you would need to download the freeware, disconnect from the web, then uninstall Norton and replace it with one or more of the other products which would hopefully be less resource intensive. The issue will be configuring the new software to deal with any pre-existing software as you need to learn how the new software works and do things such as protect or unprotect specific ports used by current programmes on your system.

I wouldn't do it lightly and it mightn't resolve all your problems.

It would seem Norton is the "smoking gun" in terms of performance. I've had serious problems with this process myself, but would have a much higher spec PC than I suspect you have. ccapp performs all the monitoring of external threats while you are online either browsing or receiving mail, or indeed running programmes so it uses a lot of resources and it is intrinsic to the proper running of Norton. On an already slow system it can slow things to an absolute crawl.
 
Hi

I have all of the above problems also. I removed Norton Anti Virus completely a few months back and the PC seemed to pick up a bit but it's back to where it was again now.

I ran several spy bots and installed AVG and cleaned up the system a bit after they found several problems. Took forever to run all these though and when they were finished and system had rebooted, the PC almost came to a complete halt, it was so slow. Took an absolute lifetime to do even the simplest thing, such as open notepad!! I removed AVG again as I suspected that this might be using up system resources and it has improved slightly but is still incredibly slow and annoying.

Ran chkdsk and it found some issues and said to run chkdsk /f. See pic.
chkdsk1.jpg


I tried running that and all I got was the attached pic. I also tried chkdsk /r and got the same error. I did as the error stated and restarted the PC but it had finished the chkdsk /r in less than 5 seconds. Surely this can't right?
How can I get it to run it without shutting down the PC?
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j177/lynchefa/Wendy House/Chkdsk.jpg

I've also attached two pics of the task manager, one of the CPU time and the other of the memory usage, in descending order. I also keep getting the Virtual memory is low error.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j177/lynchefa/Wendy House/Memory.jpg
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j177/lynchefa/Wendy House/CPU.jpg

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

BTW, I'm running Windows XP PS2. The PC is approximately 4 years old. Pentium 4, 2.4GHz and in My Computer it says 192MB of RAM. This doesn't sound right though (128 or 256MB etc???)but maybe it is.
 
You cannot chkdsk the boot volume without scheduling it to happen at next reboot.

I would take that drive out of the PC, install it in another one and rescan it there for viruses/malware/etc. and chkdsk/defrag it. If it is already infected then scanning it in-situ in the machine that boots off it may not clean it thoroughly since some viruses/malware could be masking their presence. I would also do a scan for rootkits.

192MB of RAM (e.g. 128MB + 64MB or 3 x 64MB) is not unusual. A bit low though.
 
Clubman, There is the possibility of running chkdsk off a BartPE disk that is emulating XP. I think this might obviate the need for removing the hard drive.


On another point. Removing anti-virus software is a false economy. If the PC is running slowly upgrade RAM or failing that buy a new PC. Or switch to Linux :).
 
How much RAM should I need, obviously I understand that this is similar to how long is a piece of string but the I only use the PC for Internet surfing, Torrent downloading, Poker and some Microsoft Office packages. As can be seen from the Task Manager pics there doesn't seem to be much running in the background so I don't know what is slowing it down.

How much does it cost!!

Is it easy to install, as in is it just plug and play?
 
gearoid said:
Clubman, There is the possibility of running chkdsk off a BartPE disk that is emulating XP. I think this might obviate the need for removing the hard drive.
Click to expand...
Yes - good point. The UBCD (or UBCD for Windows) might also help as it allows various diagnostics/scans to be run.
On another point. Removing anti-virus software is a false economy. If the PC is running slowly upgrade RAM or failing that buy a new PC. Or switch to Linux :).
Click to expand...
I agree. As mentioned elsewhere I upgraded my mother's ancient Dell Optiplex GX1 PIII 350MHz with some additional RAM and an old 40GB hard disk and then stuck Xubuntu on it and it's more than sufficient for her basic needs and means no longer running an unsupported version of W9x with higher resource requirements. *Ubuntu 7.04 is out tomorrow so it'll be interesting to try it out.
 
Ballyman said:
How much RAM should I need
Click to expand...
You need to sort out the existing problems first especially if they only cropped up recently and the PC worked OK before this.

It's hard to say how much RAM is necessary but I would be looking at at least 256MB and possibly up to 512MB for basic use with Windows these days.
How much does it cost!!

Is it easy to install, as in is it just plug and play?
Click to expand...
Hard to say as it depends on what sort of memory you need and depending on your current configuration you might need to ditch/sell your existing memory to install more. You also need to make sure to buy 100% compatible memory. See this thread:

200pin or 144 pin laptop memory module?
 
Google "Installing RAM". It should be easy and cheap. There are Irish firms on the web that sell RAM via an Post.

See the likes of
[broken link removed]

On the face of it you aren't running much, but a full inspection of your system is outside the scope of this thread. Bear in mind that you're running all the Operating System processes. Apparently XP can run on 64MB RAM but needs in practice 128mb. This leaves little room for anything else. Get at least 512MB RAM likely for far less than 100 euros and install it using instructions from the web.

The issue is that installing proper antivirus software at the moment is difficult as you don't have enough RAM but not having anti-virus software means you are open to all sorts of viruses, bots and malware that will also slow your system. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. You said it yourself. You got a quick hit from removing Norton, but then things slowed down possibly/probably due to malware. Bear in mind downloading from torrents comes with a health warning...
 
It's a desktop so installing RAM shouldn't be that difficult.

I'll give that a go and see what happens. At least that should speed up things so I can get AVG and Spybots working properly and I can start again then.

Thanks
 
As I said above upgrading the RAM is unlikely to solve any problems with performance that arose unexpectedly at some point in the (recent?) past. You need to sort these out first before worrying about RAM upgrades. If/when you decide to to a RAM upgrade make sure to buy only 100% compatible memory and take the usual basic precautions when installing it.
 
OK. I see what you're saying ClubMan. I'd like to increase the memory anyway so that when I do get it sorted, I'll be able to run AVG and spybots without any bother as there wil be plenty of memory there for them. Am I thinking right in doing this?

I went onto Komplett.ie and put in my system details and it threw up [broken link removed] upgrade for me but when I went to the Packard Bell website they threw up [broken link removed] one for me.

Whats the difference?? There is a big price difference. Would the Komplett one do the job for me? My system is Packard Bell iMedia 5064.

I'm presuming it's like going into a main dealer for a service with a car. The local lad will do the same service for half the cost albeit with inferior, but working parts????
 
Ballyman said:
OK. I see what you're saying ClubMan. I'd like to increase the memory anyway so that when I do get it sorted, I'll be able to run AVG and spybots without any bother as there wil be plenty of memory there for them. Am I thinking right in doing this?
Click to expand...
If (and we don't know that this is the case) the machine is still affected by viruses/malware then throwing memory at the problem will probably not help. Better to clean the drive up first assuming that some sort of infection is the root of the problem.
I went onto Komplett.ie and put in my system details and it threw up [broken link removed] upgrade for me but when I went to the Packard Bell website they threw up [broken link removed] one for me.

Whats the difference?? There is a big price difference. Would the Komplett one do the job for me? My system is Packard Bell iMedia 5064.
Click to expand...
See the other thread that I linked to and only buy from a vendor who offers a money back guarantee if the parts recommended do not work or are not compatible. Also check what memory is actually installed right now, in what slots and how many slots you have to know what the optimal arrangement would be. As I mentioned before you could have to ditch some of the existing memory to make way for higher capacity parts.
 
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