Sudden change in performance of my PC

[Minime88]

Hi. Every graphical aspect of Windows, from browsing on menus to playing 3D PC games, there is a bad performance. Basically put, my computer has gone slow, it's response time between actions is unusual. It has been like this for atleast 2 days now and started suddenly after I updated my video drivers (Radeon X850 drivers) to Catalyst 7.3 (the latest driver). I also updated .NET Framework to 3.0.

I've run virus check and spyware check loads of times. No viruses found. A few spyware issues found but now taken care of. I have reinstalled Radeon Drivers and .Net Framework in hope of solving this but no luck. I have even reversed back to Catalyst 7.2 but the poor performance is still there.

My basic specs are:

Intel Pent IV 3.0ghz
1.00GB of RAM
Radeon x850 AGP pro
disk size 186GB, free space 72GB


My computer feels really sluggish and old.. it should be lighting fast.

Thank you.

 

[caravel]

Go to add/remove programs first and remove the all of the ATI driver and the control panel.

Go to Omegadrive and download the latest Omega drivers (based on Catalyst 7.1) from here:

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati/win2k_xp.php

Then go here and download driver cleaner. Run it and remove everything ATI related and reboot.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Driver-Cleaner-Professional.shtml

When you reboot you'll probably have a nasty resolution such as 800*600, don't worry about this. New hardware found pop ups will appear, cancel both.

Install the Omega Driver and reboot.

Go into the advanced display properties to set your graphics options.

If you don't need the .net framework for anything else uninstall it from add/remove programs. If you use it only occasionally for other programs, go to start -> run, enter "services.msc" scroll until you find the asp .net framework service. Set it to "manual" click "stop", close the services console, otherwise if you do use it for another program leave it on automatic, and just stop it for now.

If you're not sure of what you're doing, don't do anything - ask first.

See how you go.

 

[IBN]

It wont be a bad idea to post a HJT log in the Security and Web forum for Howard to have a look at.

Disable all unnecessary programs at startup.
Uninstall software that you dont need anymore.
Download CCleaner from HERE and run that on your system.
Finally run a disk defragment that should help increase performance.

What AV and firewall are you using?

PS

Over time piling on software on your computer will slow it down.Thats the reason why computers slow down over time. One idea would be to have say 3 partitions made of your hard drive. One for surfing the net and office apps another for just games and one more for storage: downloads images audio/video etc. However this suggestion of mine will involve reinstalling Windows.

 

[Minime88]

Good news people. I did an online malware scan and it picked up 5 trojans. My installed spyware software (Spybot Seach and Destroy and Adaware) didn't pick these trojans up.. quite weird.

I think the lesson of today is not to rely on your downloaded and installed software to pick everything up, always double check with online scans. Here's the link to the scan I used it's very good www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan

Thanks for your suggestion anyway guys!