Two XP boxes but one is sick

[Matt_T_hat]

I have two XP boxes. There are identical (or where when I purchased them). Theya re both HP Pavillions (and yes I have learned not to do that again).

The one that lives int he front romm has been inspected by me personally for virus or malware. As I charge people money to clean thier PCs of that junk I feel sure that I would need to quit my line of work should I have missed anything.

This PC has two issues.

1 - it is much slower than the other (it also takes an age to shutdown)
2 - it has networking issues.

I'm guessing the two are related.

When I attempt to inspect "MyNetwork" to commune with the pile-o-crap [TM] Win98 games PC (or any linux box I might be failing to understand) I find that the network adapter is not listed.

The normal uninstall drivers and reboot has failed to work.

I want more speed (Greed) but something is gobbling up all the power (glutton) I don't realy want to have run HP recovery tools (pride) and don't fancy running setup (sloth) and wish it would run nice and fast like the other box (envy). It's not used to look at porn (lust, phew escaped that one) but it is making me (and any one else that uses it) very angry (wrath)

I feel like I have paid my time in hell and now want to progress towards the delight of a PC that does not boot up "in a day and a half".

Any ideas.

[chris1990]

Compare the process's see if pc2 has more, if it does get rid of them.

Also try disk defragmenter.

[mendhak]

So they were identical when you purchased them, but they surely must have different processes running in the background and different startup items configured in msconfig. Checked that?

[Matt_T_hat]

There is no significant difference with the process it/they is running.

[chris1990]

may not be a significant difference in process but see if pc2 has a process that uses more memory usage.

[rory]

Since you charge people to clean their PCs, I take it you have tried the following, and I wont go into much detail.

Deleted all temp files, caches, etc (use Windows Cleanup by Steven Gould)
Removed All Startup Items (put back ones you use when done)
Gone through the Services List and disabled any not used
Defragmented all Hard Drives
Scanned for Registry Issues with CCleaner
Checked the Page File Setting, set to Windows Managed incase
Scanned the Hard Drive for errors (use manufacturers software also)

What have you used to scan for malware and viruses so far?
Can you list your start up items here.
Does this PC have any hardware attached that the other one does not?

[Matt_T_hat]

Since you charge people to clean their PCs, I take it you have tried the following, and I wont go into much detail.

Deleted all temp files, caches, etc (use Windows Cleanup by Steven Gould)
Removed All Startup Items (put back ones you use when done)
Gone through the Services List and disabled any not used
Defragmented all Hard Drives
Scanned for Registry Issues with CCleaner
Checked the Page File Setting, set to Windows Managed incase
Scanned the Hard Drive for errors (use manufacturers software also)

What have you used to scan for malware and viruses so far?
Can you list your start up items here.
Does this PC have any hardware attached that the other one does not?

I'd stripped the themes off and taken the services to bare minimum to try to get some speed out of the system. I do something simlar when I want to pla Sims2 on the "good" PC except then I terminate everything so that it runs like greased... well you get the picture.

So - yep I have done *most* of the above. For scanning I have used AVG and am going to be pulling it off in favour of ClamWin (I've become a convert to the church of open source software). I have used Hijackthis to inspect then Adaware to scan (a few cookies but nothing bad). When I am paranoid I often use Spybot too.

The irony is I tell people exactaly how to clean their own PC over the phone or in person and thier eyes slowly glaze over untill I say a price and then they smile and sit there and let the software sort itself out. With the exception of one guy who managed to get CWS and a rootkit teamed up I have never needed to do it again. However, my own PC...

Interestingly the "good" computer has developed an interesting "feature" whereby all notepad2 files (when opened by file) attempt to recycle the most recently used instence rather than open a new one. I've been back and forth in the registry and can not figure it out. Nowdays I tend to use the Vista laptop (don't get vista if you can help it) to write code because I can sit with my kids when they are home.

I'm thinking linux would less hassle for these boxes.

Anyway back to the story. The slower box had been gathering dust for a while but when I gave the TV away the kids wanted to watch DVDs so I set it up as a DVD media centre. I also removed a backup of another PC from the shared documents area and got me half a gig back. The next shut doen was fast nad the boot up after that was fast but then it went back to form of boot up shut down and log in taking forever. Even stripped down to VLC, Tuxpaint, Tux Type 2 and Firefox with a lockout on it it's only just usable.

I'm so irritated I've even considered the unthinkable of dropping zonealarm for windows firewall and letting the point of presence firewall (in the router) protect the computer.

Any ideas?

[03myersd]

For the slow shutdown it could be defragmenting the boot sector? Hows the startup times?

[rory]

I'd stripped the themes off and taken the services to bare minimum to try to get some speed out of the system. I do something simlar when I want to pla Sims2 on the "good" PC except then I terminate everything so that it runs like greased... well you get the picture.

So - yep I have done *most* of the above. For scanning I have used AVG and am going to be pulling it off in favour of ClamWin (I've become a convert to the church of open source software). I have used Hijackthis to inspect then Adaware to scan (a few cookies but nothing bad). When I am paranoid I often use Spybot too.

The irony is I tell people exactaly how to clean their own PC over the phone or in person and thier eyes slowly glaze over untill I say a price and then they smile and sit there and let the software sort itself out. With the exception of one guy who managed to get CWS and a rootkit teamed up I have never needed to do it again. However, my own PC...

Interestingly the "good" computer has developed an interesting "feature" whereby all notepad2 files (when opened by file) attempt to recycle the most recently used instence rather than open a new one. I've been back and forth in the registry and can not figure it out. Nowdays I tend to use the Vista laptop (don't get vista if you can help it) to write code because I can sit with my kids when they are home.

I'm thinking linux would less hassle for these boxes.

Anyway back to the story. The slower box had been gathering dust for a while but when I gave the TV away the kids wanted to watch DVDs so I set it up as a DVD media centre. I also removed a backup of another PC from the shared documents area and got me half a gig back. The next shut doen was fast nad the boot up after that was fast but then it went back to form of boot up shut down and log in taking forever. Even stripped down to VLC, Tuxpaint, Tux Type 2 and Firefox with a lockout on it it's only just usable.

I'm so irritated I've even considered the unthinkable of dropping zonealarm for windows firewall and letting the point of presence firewall (in the router) protect the computer.

Any ideas?

At this point, you may want to consider backing up any important data and doing a full format and a fresh installation of Windows. If it is still slow then, I would lean towards a bad hard drive. If you dont want to back up you could also just take out the existing hard drive and put a new one in to test first - then add the existing one as a secondary one just until you get all the data off it.

BTW, UltraVNC also causes slow shutdowns, and networking issues can cause slow start ups and shutdowns.

You could also try disconnecting/removing low priority hardware like the CD/DVD, Network Cards, any additional PCI/e cards, etc, and test it. Remove any software you have the setup for, and back up data first ofcourse, get it as clean as possible, with nothing on startup at all - or do like mentioned above, a fresh install of Windows.

Rory

[Lord Orwell]

it is almost guaranteed to be a network problem. If the system has little/no network connectivity BUT THINKS IT SHOULD (a cable is plugged in to the network port) it spends forever trying to find the network before it will let you do ANYTHING else. It is an issue windows has had since windows 98 and xp still suffers from it. My wife's computer is exactly the same way. Our computers are networked together with a crossover cable so i can share internet, but if her computer boots up first, it is nearly locked up until i either reset it or unplug the network cable.