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Having computer issues
johnmatthais
Member CommonPosts: 2,663
Okay, so I'm experiencing major computer slowdown. Things are taking 5x as long to load, especially games and games themselves are running at about half the speed they used to just yesterday.
I haven't downloaded anything new over the time, but some time during the day, I had an issue where the computer went to shut off the monitor, but screwed up and the monitor came back on, all of my desktop icons disappeared and some "presentation settings" were activated. Since then, I've been noticing the slowdown, but I checked presentation settings and they're off, my desktop icons have since been restored and for some reason, now the presentation mode icon shows up in the taskbar and disappears each startup.
I have Trend Micro Antivirus and I've already done a quick scan, which only turned up with cookies needing deleted.
I also defragmented my hard drive, deleted all temporary files, cleared my internet cache, made sure my graphics card driver was up to date, updated Windows, installed Vista Service Pack 2 and even tried turning off both Xfire and my antivirus software during games.
So far, the only consistent problem I've noticed is that no matter the game, when I launch it, my CPU ends up maxed at 100% and the game lags. However, when outside of games, it maxes at about 9% and most things work fine with some load times having been increased. RAM stays consistent with where it should be.
Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, here are my system specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit
2.13 GHz Dual Core Processor
nVidia GeForce 9800M GS
4 GB RAM
and WolfTeam lags! WOLFTEAM!!! Clocked at 100% CPU usage!
I'll try doing a full scan with the antivirus software tonight. I don't know if it'll turn anything up though.
Comments
Right click on the Task bar and start Task Manager. Go to the Processes tab. and see what processes other than System Idle Process show up in the CPU column with a number greater than zero. List them here. Or take a screen shot and black out any User Name other than Local Service, System and Network Service if you want.
I'm working on screenshots. Just got 3/4 of the way through the list and accidentally clicked out of the page. give me a sec.
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Here:
i10.photobucket.com/albums/a101/Blorx/tm1.jpg
i10.photobucket.com/albums/a101/Blorx/tm2.jpg
i10.photobucket.com/albums/a101/Blorx/tm3.jpg
EDIT: It's worth noting that the whole time I was typing, CPU usage would skip around between 10, 20, 50, and a few times even 70%.
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Bump, would love some help while I'm still determined to fix it and not just ask the Geek Squad. =P
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A full system scan detected a backdoor Trojan which was then deleted. Any advice on how to figure out what it changed and how to set it back is appreciated. I think this was probably what was causing my issues.
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goto start. in the search box type Artemis or after that search type trj and search. See if anything comes up. Also could you link in your task manager what applications you are running.
It may also help to clear your browser history including downloads, cookies.
It might be a recent Windows update that is the culprit behind the slowdown. For a few days I have also noted an extreme slow down in my machine, and its atleast double yours in specs.
Is it to the point you can't really play games without them lagging like all hell? That's the most noticeable problem I have.
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Nothing called artemis and nothing with trj. I think I took care of the trojan. I just need help fixing what it did lol.
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Well # 1 you have A LOT OF SHIT running that you probably don't need. As an example here is my task manager.
First of you don't need the updaters for your video card drivers, javascript, adobe, apple, and all the other crap that want their auto-update software running on YOUR system constantly. Shut down any and all updater services.The only ones you /might/ need running are your antivirus and Microsoft OS updaters.
EDIT. A quick look through the list doesn't show me any updater processes that I am familiar with are running but my advice still stands.
Your task manager list is at the minimum twice as long as it needs to be. Start > Run > msconfig > Start tab and start figuring out what you NEED running and what you dont want running. You don't need to trim the list as much as I have though and with your system being a laptop it won't happen either.
I'd go through the task manager list and enter the file names into Google to determine what they do and if they are providing a service I need or whether they are just unnecessary fluff. If they are the latter, I'd find out what is causing them to run and shut that auto-run part of the program down.
As an example and more specifically, things like Station Launcher should be shut down except when you want to run an SOE game.
My CPU usage reads constantly 44% because of the distributed computing program Folding @ Home but that will stop it's CPU usage at first signal that something else need CPU time. Otherwise my CPU usage would be reading 0 or 1% if I have nothing running. You can order the processes by their CPU usage by clicking on the column header CPU. Two clicks will list them from most usage to least usage. That way you can monitor what is using CPU time and research those processes.
Yeah, it generally is. The problem I'm having seems to be mostly online game related. Hellgate: London's singleplayer mode has some lag but mostly runs fluidly.
However, even things like Star Wars Galaxies and (I tested it out of curiousity) Earth Eternal are lagging very, very noticeably and it's annoying.
In any case, I'll try cutting down the process list. Currently, I've got regular CPU usage down dramatically using a list someone on another forum recommended to me, but load times are still horrible and games are still lagging.
I'll post results once I've cut down the processes list.
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I looked into it a bit more (C&P from another forum. Some stuff may be redundant):
I went down some of a 99 ways list and still, no fixing it.
If I'm idling, it stays around 10% CPU usage and even Chrome will sometimes bring it up to 98% and everyone knows that's just damned stupid.
Needless to say...no online games are working correctly. The load times are especially bad. This rings true even for SWG and Earth Eternal.
Also, I looked into it a little more. During active gameplay, it stays around 100% CPU usage, but if I have the game in the background while checking the task manager, sometimes it will drop as low as 5% of the CPU, even for games like Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Also, I noticed Hellgate: London's offline component didn't bring this kind of lag. It lagged a little, but not as bad and not as noticeably. Still, the load times were pretty bad.
I'm wondering if it's internet related and I still have a backdoor Trojan somewhere.
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Backdoor trojans are hard to remove, it doesn't matter what anti virus software you use. You best look into a backup solution, save everything you have, and wipe the system clean and install fresh. It's the only way to make sure you don't have any hidden softwares/virus somewhere still accessible by the hackers.
Also are you running a server on that computer? Are you hosting a site? Or what are you running server-wise? When you host something that can be access via remote, you are more prone to hacks, exploits, and virus. If you don't need the computer to act like a server, then turn off the web services and setup your firewall rules to be more strict so your computer doesn't have lots of ports open.
My recommendation is to wipe the system clean and reinstall it. It's what I feel is the safest thing to do after having a backdoor trojan. Backdoor trojans do more to your computer than your average virus, which are usually stopped by your anti-virus programs before they get a chance to do anything in the first place.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Alright, thanks for the advice Mardy. There's nothing on here worth keeping, really. It's less than a month old and has pretty much just games and personal settings on it.
The only downside is I don't have a Vista installer disk. I might have to wait until I can invest in Win 7 to wipe it clean. =
No servers or websites running. Just a gaming computer. That's it.
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