Video Card?? SLOW! HELP!

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I have a real crappy eMachines that I use for work, just basic Windows Office apps mostly. It's worked fine for everthything until last week. All of the sudden it is chugging slowly. It takes a while to switch between applications and render web pages. For instance, when I click my 'Favorites' button, it opens up the panel and the list of favorites takes about 2 seconds to appear, and they appear in chunks from top to bottom.

I wonder if it's that the video card has gone bad. I know it's no virus or spyware because I'm very careful with what I download and I've scanned it 8 different ways.

Suggestions please!!

Thanks!
Adam
 
That problem that you are stating has nothing to do with a video card.

First question is, do you have video card or onboard graphics ( I am assuming you have onboard since you state that its a crappy computer)?

If it were the video processor that was going bad, you would not be able to see anything.

That sounds more like a virus/spyware screwing things up.

Download CCleaner (deletes temporary files - Cookies etc) to remove that build up. Then defrag your HDD (Go to my computer, right click on "Local Disk C", click properties, click on hardware tab, then click the "Degfragment Now", then run the process)

This problem could be a number of things, could be a bad ram stick, virus, HDD problems. Start out with those directions, and post back if any of that helped.
 
Hes right, possibly something in background taking up CPU process ,,

Go to task manager and see wat your system idle is ,, should be 99 percent free, when not doing anything!
 
Thanks for your replies. I suspected virus/spyware too and I did a virus scan (my company uses CA eVirus or something), did an AdAware scan and a spyware scan using Webroot Spy Sweeper. I emptied all my cookies and temporary files. I defragged my drive. I had my network person reboot the server. None of it helped.

It does seem like it's something dragging down the system in the background because when idle the task manager keeps showing random spikes up to 100%. I usually can figure these things out but this one has got me stumped, which is why I suspected some sort of hardware issue - because I know enough about software/virus/spyware things to stay out of trouble but know barely anything about hardware (hence thinking it might be a videocard problem!).

It could be bad RAM I guess. Any other suggestions? Should I remove one RAM card and test and then swap it with the other and test.... to see if one of them is bad? I'm close to scrapping it completely but would like to make sure it's serious before I go and spend the money on a new computer.

Again, thanks!
-adam
 
Try going into Control Pannel and go into the Add or remove programs area.

Check there for any suspicious programs that may have installed themselves. Most spyware/virus sweepers do not pick up on these deep problems.

If you find any programs that you do not know what they are, make sure they are not essential files but are unwanted programs.
 
I've done that as well. All seems to be ok. I feel like it's a hardware issue now. I've scanned, purged, cleaned everything..... at my wits end!
 
The "System Idle Process" is typically registering around 40-50 under "CPU" in my task manager, while in idle. Also, something related to SonicWall firewall (CDPAgentService.exe) is spiking a lot, as well as PPMCActiveDetection, which is a spyware thing part of CA eTrust antivirus that my company uses.
 
Some firewalls and AV programs are real resource hoggers, especially the infamous Norton series, which, I'm relieved to know, you don't have. But that doesn't mean the existing AV and firewall aren't equally demanding. I think that's where your problem is.
 
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