Windows XP freeze at welcome screen and slow performance

Tony Lillie

Posts: 30   +0
I read the introductory thread and followed those instructions. My RAM and hard drive are good. I am convinced this is not a virus/malware issue because it's a fresh install on a fully erased (zero written) hard drive. It has not been exposed to any internet to be able to contract a virus, and the XP install disc is trusted.

Here's the issue: I can't get XP to load fully unless I boot in safe mode or with nearly all the services disabled. However, even when I get booted in this manner it still runs very sluggishly with "process explorer" indicating that explorer.exe and a couple of svchost.exe services are hogging cpu resources.

I have done my best to update all of the drivers, and can find no apparent conflicts. I've toyed with all of the services and been unable to identify the issue. I've searched google for hours, but always find people with similar issues indicating it's a virus/malware issue. Again, I'm convinced this is NOT a virus/malware thing.

So, where do I start? Will the "minidump" I read about help with this issue?
 
Installing the essential SP3 upgrade to XP and then the subsequent security updates takes forever. If all that's done, and it really needs doing, I'd look at your security software. I've had one or two programs that have slowed my computer to a crawl. See if running without any AV software speeds things up - obviously don't connect to the internet while checking this out. Microsoft Security Essentials and Avira are good freeware programs and don't appear to slow things down. At least that's somewhere to start. Best of luck.
 
Thank you for your response. I should have been more detailed and indicated that this is Windows XP SP3. Though I do not currently have any anti-virus or spyware software installed, so that cannot be the source of the slow performance. Just to be clear, this is a fresh install of XP SP3 to a freshly wiped (zero written) drive with no exposure to the internet yet. This is why I am certain it is not a virus/malware issue. According to Process Explorer, the explorer.exe and one svchost.exe service are hogging the CPU.
 
Do you have all the motherboard drivers installed from the motherboards/computer's support website? Are there any yellow exclamation points in the device manager?
 
SOLVED: I guess I should have tried this before posting to the forum, so I apologize for that. I cleared the CMOS and that resolved everything. Thank you to those of you who tried to help.
 
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