Re: Getting -annoyed-. Help me, please!
From: cquirke (MVP Win9x) (cquirkenews_at_nospam.mvps.org)
Date: 02/09/04
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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 20:30:45 +0200
On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:27:51 -0800, "Travis English"
>This computer is only three weeks old, so I can vouch for
>the integrity of its hardware.
;-)
Three weeks is long enough to leave the manufactured-defect side of
the wished-for "bathtub curve" of solid-state failures over time.
OTOH if you told me the PC had always been a PITA, I'd have been
quicker to suggest doing the prelim (MemTest86 etc.)
> I am running Windows XP on
>an Athlon AMD 2.4gig with 256 megs of RAM.
That you tell us the processor and not the mobo chipset suggests you
haven't been knocked into cynicism yet <g>
>Recently, after I dealt with a Trojan, my computer has
>begun acting erratically. My CPU usage is spiking up and
>down from the usual 2-10% at idle up to as high as 40%
>and back again several times a second. The result is a
>lot of skipping and stuttering from the mouse, video,
>audio, games, in ANYTHING I'm using at the time.
Does this go away when you are offline?
Else if HD LD is always on, with either no HD sound or a cyclical
clicking, I'd want to chck the HD for physical errors. HD access
retries can act as you describe; sticky mouse is charactaristic.
What does a formal malware scan show? What trojan was it, and was it
a RAT? As RATs allow humans to get involved (by pulling the RAT's
tail), behaviour could be unbounded by the description of the malware
itself. Th human could upload either off-the-peg viruses that drill
within files (needing av to detect) or less-detectable tools that have
to more crudely integrated if they are to auto-run - so check the
usual suspects; startup axis, file associations, shell= etc.
>The following link is to an image of my CPU Usage "EKG"
>http://kks.ayenee.org/images/ecg
>1. Sophos and Spybot confirm that I have no more viruses,
>Trojans, or spy/adware on my computer.
Sophos do Windows-based plus DOS-based scanners, the latter of which
would be capable of formal scanning if NTFS is avoided.
Which did you use?
>I also know through RAM Booster that I am not low on memory.
Oh for heaven's sake, get rid of that (i.e. disable at least) as your
*first* troubleshooting step!
>Device Manager does not find any hardware or IRQ conflicts.
OK
>2. Heat may be an issue.
Yes, in two ways. Firstly, a hot processor may retreat into thermal
protection mode, which may be a smooth slowdown or a total halt for a
second or few to cool off. Secondly, HDs dont like being too hot, and
may start failing and thus requiring multiple retries.
>When I shut down the computer for some time (about an
>hour or so), the machine will boot and behave normally for
>a while. This can not be confirmed, though.
Could be heat, could be the delay until your RAT-grabbing human
realizes you are back online and comes to play (assuming bband). If
b(road)band, does mileage improve when offline?
>3. Uninstalling unused programs, removing large and
>useless files, and defragmenting my hard drive do not
>have any positive effect. In fact, the skipping even
>occurs in Safe Mode.
OK. Safe Mode suppresses the startup axis and fancy drivers, but
doesn't suppress several other malware integration opportunities, and
while it may run a bit cooler, you could still overheat.
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