System is really slow; tried Ad-aware, Avast, Counterspy...

[BBCMember]

The system that I am working on is really slow, slow to boot up, slow to run, typical symptoms of spyware/malware/viruses. I have tried scanning with AVAST (latest updates) and it found nothing, Counterspy found 44 files that were remnants of weather bug, but that was it (removed them). Ad-aware found a dialer, which was removed. The system still running very slow.

Ran a scan of the hard drive with Seatools and it passed.

What do you guys suggest? The person does not want to do a format and reinstall of the OS, as he has programs on there that he lost the disks to.

System restore?

Running XP, btw.
512MB RAM
100GB HD
3200+ AMD Sempron
HP machine

 

[bendixG15]

Check that your drives have not reverted to PIO mode.
Make sure that they are in DMA mode...

If in PIO, read this fix ..... http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/...e/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

 

[Bulldog13]

Did you remove any HP crapware ?

 

[BBCMember]

No. But just so you know, here are the current startup items:

no name
HPBootOp
Isburnwatcher
HPwuSchd2
AirGCFG
WZCSLDR2
realsched
qttask
Acrotray
noname
pptd40nt
IndexSearch
INSTAN~1
REGIST~1
jusched
ashDisp
SBCSTray
ISUSPM
Google ToolbarNotifier
ctfmon
Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher
Adobe Reader Speed Launch
Compaq Connections

All of them are checked? Do any of them raise any red flags or can I do without any of them? Please only mention the ones you are sure of.

 

[tungtung]

First thing that raised alarm is that "noname" thingy (right after Acrotray)
Also if you're not scanning stuff often I think you can turn off "IndexSearch" and "pptd40nt" which I believe are part of Scansoft software tools.

 

[BBCMember]

Thanks. That's what I suggested to my client, but he wanted me to try to save it, as there are software programs on there that he does not have the disks to.

 

[tungtung]

Yea I just saw that part about not having to format ... was editing my post removing that sentence before realizing you have replied

Another option ... defrag ... sometimes old computers the files are so messed up and fragmented that it slows everything down to a crawl

Edit: What programs does he lost the disk? If they are ancient programs, you might be able to copy the whole folder without using any install program and sometimes those old programs do work like that - of course try do the copy thingy to a different computer first ... 🙂

 

[BBCMember]

I just analyzed the hard drive to see if it needed to be defragged, and it does not ("No need to defrag this volume").

The programs that he wants are the full version of Adobe Acrobat and MS Office 2003, so can't really just copy the folders. Wish it were a Mac. 😉