Hiya folks,

Well I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year...

Mine was OK at the rellies in Belfast until I came home and switched the desktop PC back on to find it incredibly slow to boot up or do anything. It fires up (slowly) and seems to work fine but is just deadly slow with the HDD light on pretty much constantly.

I suspected viruses or malware but it was fully updated XP SP3 with AVG 2011 and Spybot installed and up-to-date.

I managed to do a full AVG scan, a full Spybot scan and both came back clean. I've since (over the course of a couple of days...) taken both those off and installed Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes, both of which have done full scans and come back clean (I've also done a SASSER check just in case as LSASS.EXE seemed to be accessing the HDD a lot).

I've also run a few of the Microsoft Troubleshooters (Windows Update and common performance problem fix-its) and have also re-set IE8 and turned Windows Update off as a trial.

In addition I've switched SMART on (comes back OK) and done a CHKDSK /R this morning which found a couple of bad sectors and repaired / recovered what it could.

However, according to my better half all of the above has been to no avail in terms of speed of response. It does eventually get there (I've managed to back-up all my important files onto a second HDD) but it takes an absolute age.

So... before I go too far is my guess of a bad HDD probably right (it's only 3.5yrs old) and before I look at replacing the HDD and going through the rigmarole of re-installing everything and, having done the CHKDSK /R is there anyway of getting Windows to check for corrupt files and repair itself? (I am suffering from first day back at work brain death this morning so can't remember... but have all the original install disks etc.).

Machine spec is as follows:

CPU: Intel® Core 2 Duo E4500

Motherboard: Asrock Conroe1333-D667

Memory: 2.0GB Kingston DDR2 667mhz (2x 1GB)

Hard Drive 1: 250GB S-ATA2 3.0Gb/s

Hard Drive 2: 12GB IDE (very old but still going strong)

Optical Drive 1: 20x DVD±RW DL S-ATA

Optical Drive 2: 52x Lit-On CD Writer

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows XP Home SP3 fully updated

PSU: 400W

Case: EZCool K110

Main Software Used: Office 2003 Pro, Outlook Express, Various Photo Stuff.

I would sack off XP to be fair and put Windows 7 on it. It will run fine. If CHKDSK /r which checks the files and replaces them (I presume that you are doing this from booting from XP CD and pressing 'r' to repair?).

You can also run a scan disk from the properties of the C: drive which will check for and ignore or attempt to repair bad sectors.

Another thing to try is to take the HDD out and run a test on it through a dock (ie can you access files quicker then without the OS running?).

Also if you have a SMART drive try defraggler as the latest versions give you disk health etc...but it is probably the same as you have already seen...

I suspect that XP has corrupted itself beyond repair (if you have had the same XP install for 3.5years) and is due a rebuild.

If the smart says it's ok, then I'd look elsewhere.

It tends to be fairly accurate these days.

Maybe now is the ideal time to buy a small SSD for the OS and install win 7?

I dont trust AVG at all, having seen 2 family member with it get viruses on their computers which took me an age to remove. I took AVG off and they now use Microsoft Security Essentials instead and have had no problems since.

Try an online scan using another scan engine and see if anything crops up. I have had great success with Trend Micro Housecall in the past.

Thanks for the pointers guys...

AVG, Spybot, Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes have all come back clean so I'm pretty sure it's a corrupt OS or a dodgy HDD now but I'll maybe give the Trend Housecall thing a whirl as well.

If SMART is reliable and is coming back OK and I've run CHKDSK /R then it sounds like that should have sorted the bad sectors out but I'll do a scan from the C: properties as well just in case.

One thing that has just occurred to me though is that I ran CHKDSK /R from a CMD window without the XP CD so I guess it's tried to recover using cached files and if they themselves are corrupt then it won't have fixed it so I'll try using the OE disk to repair it as suggested.

If that doesn't work I'll try borrowing an external caddy to check the disk out outside the machine.

Cheers!

Hi Skomaz, in view of the checks you have already carried out, and the results you have obtained, I'd say it's worth checking your memory. It may be a long shot, but XP on 1gb of memory runs ok but is slower than you can achieve on 2gb and that may be the difference you are seeing. The HDD light will also be on much more too due to caching. Maybe check they are both still connecting/seating ok. I have known people to go away on holiday, mostly in winter when the house is not ventilated so much with open windows etc, closing up the house and coming back to find the machine going slowly. On inspection you usually can't find anything but unseating each memory stick then replugging it back in cures the problem. This sometimes is due to a slightly damp atmosphere in the house causing some connection problems on the board. Many people have their offices opposite the bathroom which doesn't help. Dunno if any of this applies to you but might just be worth doing. Come back here if you still don't have success.

Edit: it may also be worth checking for an MBR rootkit which can be difficult to detect. Certainly AVG won't normally detect one. Kasperky is good at detecting rootkits on Windows machines. There have been some instances of XP becoming infected over Xmas with rootkits. This will probably make it boot and run more slowly, most do.

Edited 3 January, 201214 yr by Estate Man

As above the HDD light would be very active if the disc was dying also you should be able to hear it 'hunting' as it tried to read the next sector.

I would rip off the case and clean out the inlets/outlets, fans and everything else to ensure that you have no airflow problems.

Assuming you are booting from disc 1 then download CCleaner and run it to remove all the carp you will have accumulated over then years and then do a complete defrag.

Is the hard disc over 90% full ?

Does Task Manager show just System Idle Process taking the 90%+ CPU time ? No other tasks logging the CPU ?

Is Safe Mode fast, if so what are you loading on startup ? Check with msconfig.

This will check the disc for you, I've had good results and it has saved me a lot of time http://www.hdtune.com/

I recently had a very similar problem.

The computer also kept freezing with the HDD light flashing once a second.

I ran a few HDD health programs that reported some communication error or something which suggested a damaged cable could be the cause. Replaced the SATA cable and it seems fine now.

Although this doesn't sound the same as your problem it does highlight the usefulness of these programs.

It sound more to me like XP and gone belly up as it often does after a very long time. I'm still trying to convince my dad that he needs to reformat and have a fresh start on his 5 year old PC running XP.

Phil

Open task manager, look at the number in bottom lh corner , should be hi 30s to low 40s (thats how many jobs your machine is doing at that time), check the number in bottom rh side should be asking for under 350meg on xp . If the numbers are greater than stated your machine is frittering away its resources on background programs , thin them out using msconfig .

If your HD is showing bad sectors then its failing , the magnetic coating is falling off the disc and will only get worse.

Do you just have the OK/Fail or the actual numbers for the SMART.

If you have the numbers post them up here and I'll see if there are any obvious trends.

Ok guys here's the latest update as best I can (from info relayed to me by my better half at home (so bear with me until I get a proper look myself...)

After the CHKDSK /R yesterday morning it did run quicker in the afternoon according to SWMBO and it was definitely better in the evening when I got home (PC is in my 4 year old's room so didn't have much time to ry it out before she went to bed...)

This morning I left it running an SFC /Scannow with the XP SP2 CD in it and SWMBO says that has finished and again it is improved but still a bit slow. I've told her how to switch Auto Updates back on so we'll see how that goes.

This morning the HDD did still seem slow but wasn't obviusly hunting per-se and was significantly better than earlier this week - it certainly wasn't 'rattling' but was doing something still that was taking time (it's a quiet disk anyway so hard to tell...).

On the memory front I'll have a look tonight and re-seat it.

The last time I had it open everything was pretty clean inside. The vents certainly aren't blocked and the fans are all working OK - temperatures shown in the BIOS after running for a while also seemed to be nothing too alarming (40 degrees or so from memory?).

The Hard Disk itself is nowhere near full - it's 250 GB and there is maybe 8Gb of photos plus a few other documents, OS, Office 2003 Pro, Anti-Virus and the like so I'd guess at no more than 30Gb on it. I do try and keep it relatvely 'clean' and do have CCleaner installed so I'll fire that up but I have run Windows Disk Clean Up in the last few days. I haven't defragged recently though and that would have been impossible over tha last couple of days.

Task Manager shows mid 40's processes running with maybe 1% - 3% CPU usage as a maximum at idle. Not sure what the commit charge was but it certainly wasn't a million miles away from the 350meg suggested at idle 450-ish maybe IIRC) and MSConfig didn't seem to indicate anything untoward or unusual other than regular LSASS.EXE disk access which is normal.

I'll have a look at the HDTune thing and see what it says and will also check the cables are tight when I reseat the memory tonight.

I don't have the actual SMART numbers, just an OK at this stage but will try and get them if I can work out how...

So, once again thanks everybody for the tips/advice and pointers - it's all very much appreciated!

speedfan will give you the numbers.

Also have a look in task manager to see how much swap you're using.

OK another update - much better last night after an SFC /SCANNOW and partial Windows Update (ran out of time to do the lot) with less hanging when I got home but still not 100% - so were getting there.

This morning before work I took the case off, reseated the memory and HDD cables and also took off and cleaned up the PCU heatsink as that was completely blocked. Unfortunately I then switched the machine back on without plugging the PCU fan back in... :S . Doesn't seemed to have caused any damage though and with the fan now running the temps were no more than 36 degrees.

Anyhow I've now left it doing full updates etc. and when I get home I'll try and do the HDTune, check the SMART numbers, do a Registry clean etc. and see if any of the other software appears to be corrupt (One of the photo packages had an issue this morning).

PS - Any suggestions for rootkit scanners?... Sophos?

Edited 5 January, 201214 yr by skomaz

If the CPU fan and HS was chocked full of dust, then you might well find the CPU was throttling itself down a fair bit.

Malwarebytes and Hijackthis are pretty good at picking up rootkits, but run them in safe mode as this gives them a better chance of picking anything up.

Once bad sectors are picked up, it is time to buy a new drive, the debris from the damaged areas will get into currently good areas and start damaging them. Bad sectors are often caused by the read/write heads "crashing"; this can be caused by knocking the PC, or general disturbance while it is operating, or by dropping it more than a few feet when switched off.

If the PC is on a suspended wooden floor that moves when people walk across it, it might be worth moving it to more solid ground, or arranging something underneath to cushion it.

XP has a feature where it will downgrade the read/write speeds if it picks up lots of crc errors, so it could be it detected lots, and cut the speed down; sadly it doesnt seem to allow the speeds to go back up AFTER the problem has been resolved, you have to dig around and manually alter the settings. I have done this in the past, but cannot currently remember how, or where I went to find out!!

Malwarebytes and Hijackthis are pretty good at picking up rootkits, but run them in safe mode as this gives them a better chance of picking anything up.

Once bad sectors are picked up, it is time to buy a new drive, the debris from the damaged areas will get into currently good areas and start damaging them. Bad sectors are often caused by the read/write heads "crashing"; this can be caused by knocking the PC, or general disturbance while it is operating, or by dropping it more than a few feet when switched off.

If the PC is on a suspended wooden floor that moves when people walk across it, it might be worth moving it to more solid ground, or arranging something underneath to cushion it.

A sprung floor can actually help as the vibrations hitting the drive are lower than in a solid floor. It's swings and roundabouts, with the best depending on how it's mounted in the chassis.

Also, bad sectors are not debris from the drive and the platter surface isn't solid as such, so I don't think that bad sectors = dead drive.

A drive has plenty of spare space left, precisely for mapping out bad sectors.

Bad sectors definitely doesn't mean a dead drive.....Just have to make sure they are mapped out....Iirc SMART drives do this anyway but Windows will detect them no bother anyway.

Might be worth looking on Seagate/Maxtor site for Powermax - it's a disc test facility .Run it and see what it says - Times it 'll fix problems ,other times it'll tell yu not to trust that disc .

You've done quite a lot of scans there and they are all clean. I do trust Malwarebytes and have used it many times. I don't trust AVG and have heard some horror stories about it letting viruses in then reporting them when they try and phone home, and then it can't remove them!! I use Linux these days to protect myself from all of this but I do have a hdd with Xp on for a few programs that will only run on Windows and I use Antivir. It's always been excellent.

However! One thing no one appears to have picked up on. You only have a 400W psu. I now run a 750W after once welding a processor to a motherboard because the 400W psu I was using failed! Maplin have some at very reasonable prices. Might be worth checking. The more components you have, the more power you need.

sectors fail for a reason, usually something loose inside the hdd casing; these problems tend to spread sooner or later. I have had hdds last for several years with bad sectors, equally i have had hdds fail within weeks of the first bad sector appearing. With hdd prices a fraction of what they were when I first started playing with pcs (£500 for 20MB), it is far better to buy a new drive early, than lose 500GB of films, music, photos and games

Hi Skomaz, Hope your HD is working ok. But if there is any doubt, chuck it out! I agree with GentleGiant, Don't risk losing your data especially as drives are pretty cheap now and of course very easy to replace. Let us all know how you are getting on.

However! One thing no one appears to have picked up on. You only have a 400W psu. I now run a 750W after once welding a processor to a motherboard because the 400W psu I was using failed! Maplin have some at very reasonable prices. Might be worth checking. The more components you have, the more power you need.

And at moment Maplin are doing a 680W PSU for £29.99 ,as against the earlier price of £49.99 . Code N33HC - on offer till 24/01/2012 - see http://www.maplin.co.uk/680w-g7-power-extreme-atx-psu-345571.I got one as my 550 W onw was causinf probles with the fan failing and unit getting warm - this one's running COOL .

But as for HDD problems ,my professional training tells me not to guess ,but to diagnose logically . You suspect HDD problems - get a HDD test program ( Powermax would be my choice) and run it . It'll either tell you that you've got problems ,and may allow you to correct them via it's diagnostics ,or suggest you back up regularly ,in which case you need new HDD . I take the data off the old ones ,format them ,and put it back on . Then consign old disk to place under table . i find that the old ones retin the data when doing nothing and are a cheap way of eeping a backup .

Edited 8 January, 201214 yr by VWD

OK guys - another update...

I didn’t get much time to do anything more on it this weekend as I was making a Roman Shield for most of it with my 7 year old (school homework... ).

I therefore didn’t manage to check the SMART numbers per se or use HDTune but, having tried repairing windows the machine was better again once it had been through the update process. However, I did notice that an Office update wasn't able to install and that Internet Explorer seemed to be having issues as well .

So I thought I'd have a go at repairing Office and re-installing a fresh download of IE8. Initially the IE 8 install didn’t go well and it seemed to revert to IE7 and have problems but had another go and all is now hunky dory.

I also set about doing an Office repair from CD but the result was still no joy with the Office update. I therefore decided to remove it altogether and had a massive improvement in performance and response times . I can therefore only assume that Office (and potentially some of the other software used over the last couple of weeks may have become corrupt.

The PC is now at least more than usable which is good but I still need to do some more checks and get Office back on.

However, one thing that stuck in my mind was something Gentle Giant said - in that Windows may reduce access speeds if it flags errors. I've therefore had a look using Device Manager and certainly the Primary and Secondary IDE drivers are showing current mode is PIO but I'm unsure if that would affect my Maxtor SATA2 drive which is the main drive containing XP etc? (which is running off a SATA controlloer on the motherboard).

I have found some instructions in how to re-set the drivers (basically remove them and restart so it re-installs but am unsure whether this is possible with the main Windows drive or whether it needs a registry hack???

Any ideas?

Forgot to say - I've now got my files backed up in another internal drive, and external drive and my work laptop...

Edited 9 January, 201214 yr by skomaz