Computer Issue - Reward Offered

[InFlight]

Did you try creating a new user profile?
if not, create one and call it "Test" and leave password blank.
Delete this account when you finish testing.

Go into User accounts in control panel and turn on the welcome screen and fast user switching. Reboot and login with the Test account and see if the machine still runs like crap. If it runs fine then the standard profile they are using is corrupt. Time to create a new one.

If that machine has been running the same profile for five years then I'm guessing that the profile is HUGE!

This is a common issue in my IT world. irate:

Good luck!

 

[shockwaveriderz]

I would first do the following:

Google for mike lin's startup and instal it; its like a super msconfig.

I would then boot up into safe mode.

Once in safe mode, from START/Run I would enter devmgmt.msc (if this is home, you will have to right click on My Computer on the desktop, Properties, clikc the Hardware tab and then clicl Device Manager

once you are in the device manager, click View, device by connection and also selct Show hidden devices.

You will see if you scrol down some, a long list of box shaped icons on their edge, you may find a Norton low level device driver that was not removed, you can right clikc on it and perform a unistall of this low level device driver, the system will ask you to reboot, do so.


Before doing all of the above or afterwards, boot back up into safe mode;

Start/Run and then enter Regedit, navigate to:

Hkey Local Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and lok for ANY Norton/Symantec named services; if you find any right click on it and select DELETE; do this for as many Norton service items you might find

Then navigate to Hkey Local Machine\SOFTWARE\ and scroll through last deleting anything that says NORTON/ SYMANTEC and again DELETE them all

regedit also has a Search function that would allow you to find every Norton/Symantec entry in the registry. Delete anything you find.

Click on My Computer to highlight it, click Edit on the Menu and then Find or Find Next

By the way, when you do an inplace-reinstall it doesn't overwrite the registry files at all.

Another thing you can check is :

START/Run type: services.msc IF you any Symantec/Norton services running, 1st STOP them, and then Properties, and then change the StartUp type to Disabled

I will also assume you have installed some form of Malware detection and Cleaner like Windows Defender,etc.

One thing you can do with IE is once it is opened, click on Tools. Manage Add-Ons, Enable or Disable Addons: you will notice a great deal of Browser Extensions and Browser Helper objects; You can deselct running alot of these and that might help.

I'm one of those people that used to charge $60 to do home pc work; until I got stiffed a couple times, so I bascially closed up shop.

good luck

terry dean
nar 16158

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

2 brief questions:

1. Can you ping 127.0.0.1?
2. Does it run better in safe mode?

Here is a just short of hydrogen bomb approach...

1. Boot into BIOS, and disable the NIC.
2. Then reboot into the OS and remove the entire networking stack
3. See if performance improves. No you won't have the internet, but you will have ruled out any portion of the internet security that you can.

Then do something really fun. remove every hotfix on the machine back to the core OS. (If it work, you will need to very patiently reinstall all gazillion of them)

Then re-enable the NIC and reinstall the network stack. See if you can hit anything now.

 

[sunward]

It sounds as if you have more than one problem.

As for Norton, they have an unistall utility. I was able to download this after I couldn't install Norton Ghost. I no longer have the utility but I sure Norton can get it for you.

Just be careful before you use it. It will unistall EVERYTHING connected to Norton, even old programs not supported. So make sure you have backups and the original program to reuse.

As for memory usage, it is hard to determine if over 400 meg is high. It does depend on what is running. Do a control-alt-delete and look at the programs running. On View-Select colums, check Virtual Memery Size. This will indicate what programs are using what. (different than memory size). This will indicate if you have a virus or such. As always, Internet Explorer can use over 100mb just running a few days. A reboot will solve this problem.

As for IE not surfing, this sounds as if it is a index.dat problem. Over time, it get so bloated, IE doesn't work. I had this problem but forgot how I fixed it. This may be fixed in newer versions of XP, so you will need to do some digging. The file could also be hidden.

 

[roktdad]

If you have not yet re-installed here's two paths to try:

1)assuming hardware and basic install is ok:

download and install Ccleaner. Home page is https://www.ccleaner.com/. also download WinsockXPfix (you can google this)

first run ccleaner and select the cleaner option. you can choose analyze or just select run cleaner. Then select the registry option, select scan for issues and then fix issues. repeat this until there are no issues found. finally select tools, then start up and take a look at what is automatically loading when windows begins. you may see something you want to disable. This should clean up all the cruft in windows

Once this is done reboot and then run winsockxpfix. this will reset the networking settings and reboot. Now try connecting to the internet.

2)not assuming hardware and basic install is ok

download and burn the Ubuntu linux ISO - (no i'm not gonna be a wise guy and say use it to reformat the drive).

Boot it up , do not choose install. if it boots, that's a good indication the hardware is ok. If it does not boot, there is a memory test you can try.
If it does come up, select firefox and browse the net. If that works, it's a good indication that the machine itself is fine, and may be the confrimation you need to decide to reinstall windows

 

[11bravo]

Knee jerk reaction was to fire up regedit but I see you've done that.
So...
My two cents in 4 steps:
1. Have them get a stick of RAM.
2. Have them get a new HDD.
3. Install new RAM stick.
4. Install new HDD as primary master and old one as P slave or on secondary channel.
5. After all important files are off old HDD, low level format it.
Nice new worky machine.
As cool as it is to figure out why, I'd say this one is a bust and go for the easy answer.
I always suggest that people have two physical drives.
That way when things get too far gone, move all "nice to keep around" files onto one, LLF the other one, and start over.
Remember, regedit and low level formatting are our friends.
Used to be HDD manufacturer's sites had LLF utilities on them.
The may not now, I haven't looked for a long time.

 

[roadkill]

1) Gently percussion with a Louisville Slugger,
10 lb sledge or a compatible yard tool.

2) Place an order for replacement
at Tigerdirect or another online discount vendor

Never fails....

 

[Tom Swift]

I too recommend the uninstaller utility from Symantec. They have several; for Norton Antivirus it used to be called NoNAV. The uninstallers are not always available for download since malware writers could use them too. You might need to contact Symantec directly via phone.

Another awesome free tool that should be in your arsenal is ProcessExplorer by Sysinternals (The company was bought by Microsoft a while back but amazingly many of its tools are still free. Check out ALL the utilities from Sysinternals.). The program just runs - no need for an install. It will show you EVERYTHING that is running.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Mouse over a running process and you see its basic info and the path to the executable file. Click it and you get more info. Right-click and choose properties to get even more info.

Hopefully this will help you find the resource hogs that are killing performance.

 

[Reinhard]

I'll second the recommendation of the tools from Sysinternals, especially Process Monitor, Process Explorer and Autoruns (way more powerful than msconfig.exe). They are great.

As with every other mighty tool, you need some knowledge to unleash their full potential. Just have a look into the site blog and see how Mark Russinovich (the author) tracks down issues with them and you get the idea.

Reinhard

 

[Peartree]

1) Gently percussion with a Louisville Slugger,
10 lb sledge or a compatible yard tool.

When I was in the military I recall hearing a similar sentiment expressed this way...

There is no problem so severe that it cannot be solved by the suitable application of high explosives.






Sorry, I know that didn't help solve your problem.

 

[melvyn]

I kind of skimmed through this, so I appologise in advance if this has already been tried and failed.

As the system seems to work better in safe mode, and the Norton Internet Security didn't uninstall cleanly, that seems to be causing the problems. Norton Internet Security hooks into all sorts of subsystems, basically intercepting everything that is sent in or out of the computer. It works in safe mode because Norton doesn't load in safe mode.

Go to the Symantec website and look for Norton uninstallers. The have programs that are updated frequently and will remove every trace of the Norton product you want to get rid of. Get the latest uninstaller and run it, then see how the system works onlne.

512MB memory is fairly tight these days; 1GB is really the minimum to make XP happy these days, and 2GB will really make it fly. However, depending on the type of memory in the system, it may be expensive to upgrade memory.

 

[eugenefl]

Did you try creating a new user profile?
if not, create one and call it "Test" and leave password blank.
Delete this account when you finish testing.

Go into User accounts in control panel and turn on the welcome screen and fast user switching. Reboot and login with the Test account and see if the machine still runs like crap. If it runs fine then the standard profile they are using is corrupt. Time to create a new one.

If that machine has been running the same profile for five years then I'm guessing that the profile is HUGE!

This is a common issue in my IT world. irate:

Good luck!

Yep - addressed this in my initial troubleshooting in my documentation. Thank you for your input though. Every little bit helps.

 

[eugenefl]

I kind of skimmed through this, so I appologise in advance if this has already been tried and failed.

As the system seems to work better in safe mode, and the Norton Internet Security didn't uninstall cleanly, that seems to be causing the problems. Norton Internet Security hooks into all sorts of subsystems, basically intercepting everything that is sent in or out of the computer. It works in safe mode because Norton doesn't load in safe mode.

Go to the Symantec website and look for Norton uninstallers. The have programs that are updated frequently and will remove every trace of the Norton product you want to get rid of. Get the latest uninstaller and run it, then see how the system works onlne.

512MB memory is fairly tight these days; 1GB is really the minimum to make XP happy these days, and 2GB will really make it fly. However, depending on the type of memory in the system, it may be expensive to upgrade memory.

Yep - machine has 1.5GB now and runs A LOT faster despite the Internet Explorer issue.

Thank you to the contributors of knowledge with ideas for troubleshooting. There are some great ideas out there. I'll more than likely make another visit tomorrow to continue troubleshooting. I'll follow some of the suggestions posted and reply with my results.


So far here's a list of items to try and more than likely the order of operations I'll take towards troubleshooting:

- troj's recommendation to run some cleanup/uninstall utilities from Norton, install/run AdAware/Spybot
- shockwaveriderz's detailed instructions on showing hidden devices to look for Norton items, registry cleanup (already performed, but will look again), check for lingering Norton services (already looked, but will double-check)
- hospital rocket's advice on disabling NIC, removing network stack...this may lend itself to a NIC reinstall and possible correction of issues.
- sunward's reference to the index.dat corruption in IE (of course, FireFox was installed and didn't work either, but I'll give anything a try.)
- Tom Swift's SYSINTERNALS suggestion (Although once I get IE working, I'm bailing...now that there's 1.5GB of RAM the PC is working just fine)

For the other's not included above, I've either already attempted your suggested fix or your suggestion may be redundant to what other's have offered.

Thank you all again. I'll mess with the computer tomorrow and follow up with my results.

 

[Stymye]

I can reinstall my os and all necesary apps and be up and running in about 2-3 hrs..(did this a few weeks ago)with all the latest updates, nice and clean.no headaches.
than I did the wifes in about the same amount of time, her computer was completey near dead(aol, tons of bad dowloads ect..) they both run like new.

it sure beats digging needles out of a haystack !

.........now about that reward.

 

[jcsalem]

Hi Eugene,

I think you've got a great plan of attack in a good order. I've run into the same problem before after uninstalling Norton. It's definitely hard to completely remove it.

From your description, something is broken in the network stack. Norton (and other third party utilities) can inject their own drivers into the middle of the stack and completely break your internet connection. This diagnosis is compatible with your finding that it works in safe mode.

One more idea: Is ZoneAlarm installed? That's a popular firewall software and I've seen no end of internet connection trouble caused by it. It can also be very hard to disable. At first, just try disabling. If that doesn't work, remove it entirely and reboot.

Finally, if you go through troj's, shockwaveriderz's and hospital rocket's suggestions without success, I'd recommend disabling individual drivers until you narrow down the problem. The XP recovery console will let you do this. Boot up in the mode that creates a boot log and print this out for reference. Next time boot into the recovery console. Using the listsvc, disable, and enable commands, keep disabling drivers until you get to a working configuration. You should then be able to identify the problem driver and prevent it from ever starting up. Note that the listsvc command lists both standard services (the things you can manage with service.msc) as well as the more hidden drivers which don't show up as separate processes.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Jim

 

[eastvolt]

Hmmm. . . 2003 computer = OLD

1. Unplug computer
2. Grasp firmly
3. Toss out nearest window
4. Take my reward money and put it towards the new computer.

For the price of computers nowadays, these things are practically throw-away. Tell your boss to buy a new one. It'll probably be cheaper for him anyways. If its his office computer, then he can write it off as a loss.

This saves YOU time, saves your BOSS time, and ultimately saves both of you MONEY!

 

[JDcluster]

I had a very close situation with my computer not too long ago.
What I did was ( If I remember correctly) Boot in safe mode ( forget the restore points they're already FUBARed) Do a repair of windows... there was a critical file that was most likely deleted by some hacker nerd that gained access to the computer through a good old Trojan virus program. When I got mine up & running it had 13 of them ( that's what you get for not running any anti-virus software.... The other thing it might be is a registry root virus which are very hard to get rid of.....




JD

 

[bobkrech]

Just caught this one today.

It sounds like this is a machine that grew, and got real fat. I'm guessing that the machine tries to open way too many windows and is trying to do all kinds of scans, system checks, and updates when it boots up, and that the owner never defragmented the hard drive.

I'd max out the memory which you did, and check what the boot file is doing. Many AV programs try to run on bootup and it really slows down the system, and norton is really a memory pig.

Is the hard drive original and is the computer left on 24/7? If so replace the hard drive, as it's ready to go, and this might be an indication of it.

If it's like most computers today without an operating system CD, it probably has a D:\ partition with the original operating system. If the DVD burner works, you can make a copy of the D:\ and perform either a restore or a clean reinstall with all the update headaches it entails.

The real problem with this however is that you can get a better box for ~$500 that will have 2 GB, a 200 GB+ HDD, and a top notch DVD R/W. The curse is that it comes with VISTA which is a POS. I'll take XP PRO any day over VISTA.

Bob

 

[Donaldsrockets]

Eugene

Did you get a chance to try one of the Norton Removal Tools.

I've heard that they do a much better job at removing the program than using Add/Remove programs as that tends to leave lots of junk behind that can cause issues.

I myself have NIS 2006, came installed on my machine. I would eventually like to get rid of it and try Kaspersky IS, seems to be a highly rated program compared to other alternatives like Norton/Symantec, McAffee, etc.

Also, like Bob said, brand new decent machines can be had in the price range of about $350-$600.

I paid about $450 for my computer last year. It came with an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ X2, 2.0 Ghz CPU, a 250 GB HDD, 1 GB of RAM, plan to upgrade to 2 very soon, and most important, Windows XP.

I'm sure you'll get the bugs worked out eventually. Hang in there.

 

[JDcluster]

You don't need to defrag your HDD!
I hardly ever do it & I have about 16% of available space left on a 500 GB HDD. When you run allot of large apps with video & pictures along with editing software you use up allot of space. Like I said in my previous post; some little hacker deleted a crucial file that Windows needs in order to boot properly.

Did you play around with the registry at all, that could also cause the computer not to boot.

Have you tried booting up the computer with the internet disconnected?
If it is a virus, whoever is hijacking it can't use it to do their hacking when it's off of the net.....



JD

 

[ounderfla69]

Did the check disk find any problems? IF it did have you run any HDD diagnostics like Western digital or any other. I have seen many a hard drive start slowing down without errors before it died. If you have a spare drive use a cloning program like Acronis Echo for workstation to clone the drive and see if thats an improvement. Download the Norton removal tool to get rid of the leftovers.

Mark

 

[eugenefl]

...and the winner is: troj for his recommendation to download and run the Norton Uninstall Utility, or something to that effect. (post #28) His suggestion of searching Norton/Symantec's site for a removal tool set me in the right direction to finding the solution.

I went to my ex-bosses today. The first thing I did was Google "Norton Uninstall Utility" and came up with this as a link: <a href="https://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039">Norton Removal Tool</a>. I ran the tool in Safe Mode, restarted the machine, and BAM! Low and behold, Internet Explorer was restored and everything was working as it should.

This was certainly a difficult issue for me. I am fairly certain I have seen or heard of this in the past, but being that it's been ages I had forgotten the symptoms causing this issue. Today I spent no more than 35-45 minutes troubleshooting before resolving this issue all thanks to the idea that led me to the solution.

I want to personally thank everyone who chimed in with their ideas. Whether or not they were inspired by my desperate attempts to pay for a solution, I sincerely appreciate your responses. For those of you that were mostly interested in a payday, head over to FlisKits and download a free cardstock model or sumtin'.

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

Now set a hash rule in the GPO to prevent it from being reinstalled

 

[eugenefl]

Now set a hash rule in the GPO to prevent it from being reinstalled

Thankfully, he doesn't have the original media to reinstall. If so, they would have to pay for the annual subscription again. I am doubtful Norton will find its way to the computer again.

 

[Stymye]

........Norton is the devil.

 

[eugenefl]

........Norton is the devil.

...as are computers for that matter. Oddly enough, you never really hear those types of comments from Linux/Mac users. Hmm....

 

[davel]

...as are computers for that matter. Oddly enough, you never really hear those types of comments from Linux/Mac users. Hmm....

There are too few of them, and when they do have problems, they are embarassed to advertise the fact.

 

[cjl]

Actually, the most vehement computer hater I know is a mac user. He has had more computer problems than almost anyone I know of.

 

[JDcluster]

I will Never ever use Norton's on any computer I own!
I had a 6 month trial with my Dell Desktop & when it came time to upgrade/renew it was a nightmare! It was basically incompatible with the computer.




JD

 

[troj]

........Norton is the devil.

I know folks who hate, loathe, and despise it, but I can honestly say that I'm running it on 6 computers here at home, and the worst effect it has is that my laptop keeps complaining about an expired subscription.

My parents have had problems with it, but I suspect my dad is to blame for the issues there.

-Kevin