1/14/15 9:20 PM

not really. I expected the first of next week I would receive a refurb to replace my dead one. They quoted next Tuesday.

1/14/15 9:32 PM

Well if you have isolated it to Windows 7, seems reasonable, them I would roll back to a previous restore point, in lieu of doing a full reinstall action. The later is easier and much faster. A full reinstall should be unnecessary, really.

Even before doing that, I would recommend following up on SteveB Andy's suggestion - to look at programs that startup. Use MSConfig.exe to do so. You do not need to mess with the registry directly. Instead I would follow this link's easy steps:
http://www.howtogeek.com/74523/how-to-disable-startup-programs-in-windows/

1/14/15 10:04 PM

If you've been backing up your personal files as you're told to do, you don't have much risk. It's just a bit of a hassle. Assuming you have a Windows installation disk, that is.

Try the restore first. Much less painful and quicker. You can even keep on going backward till you got tired of it and go for the re-install.

1/15/15 6:25 AM

...try another browser before you reinstall Windows. If that helps, uninstall and reinstall IE.

The Windows CD should provide the option of doing a "repair install" or something to that effect. It refreshes all of the core files without having to go through the hassle of a complete reinstall.

1/15/15 8:16 PM

Tried a restore point (had one from middle of last year) but it apparently was just a label because I got a "could not find" error. Not sure what happened there but the only other restore point was from last week, which would do me no good.

I looked at the list of programs that start up when the computer does and none were unfamiliar or unused. It's a very short list, so that is not it.

I tried Chrome and it did not help in any way.

I tried to do the "repair install" but it kicked out with an error message.

I'm in the process of doing a deep virus scan (takes 7 hours, which is another suggestion that the computer is constipated), then I will do a full backup (tomorrow AM) and then a wipe and fresh install of Win 7 from the disc that came with the computer. I see no other path forward.

I turned on the Resource Monitor while the virus scan was running and the CPU usage due to Security Essentials was over 50%.

1/15/15 8:30 PM

I suspect a deeply rooted malware file. CC cleaner was what I used to use and it did okay for finding stuff that would cause problems.

1/15/15 8:37 PM

You can adjust the CPU usage for the windows security software. I have mine set to use no more than 10% and it works fine. However, it took my computer 19 hours to complete a full scan of a half million files. Its No bother when most of the time it was running overnight. A full scan is not really necessary when the quick scan runs often and it's quick, too. I do the full scan more out of curiosity.

At this point you might as well try reinstalling windows 7. You've done practically everything else at this point. Honestly though I am unsure how that will correct the problem. It may very well do so. If not, I would suspect it is a bad piece of hardware like the network/wifi interface card. Good luck.

1/15/15 8:47 PM

Thing is, it's *possible* to get computer cooties, but it all depends on where you hang out. My boss, who is wont to go clicking on email links at random, once had his machine held hostage ("You've been viewing CHILD PORNOGRAPHY and a US GOVERNMENT fine has been assessed. Go and purchase a [such & such card] so you can pay the $250 fine now."). Took me about 25 minutes to clean that one up, and it's one of the few nasties I've seen in the wild.

But that doesn't mean you don't have any--as I said, it depends where you hang out on the web (and there are lots of places that can plant things, not just in the low-repute neighborhoods). And there's plenty of "legitimate" software that can slow a system down, be it Skype running in the background or the (infamous) "Ask" toolbar.

Good luck--my best advice would be to find a local friend who knows their way around systems and buy them some good beer and maybe a pizza.

1/17/15 7:48 PM

I reinstalled Win 7 and am nearly done with the job. It didn't go too badly though it taught me some lessons about how I should do a better job of what I have backed up.

In response to the recent questions: I ran Ccleaner to no effect, likewise a full virus scan, and repeated Malwarebytes scans. Virus scans and Malwarebytes were running regularly already.

And after the Windows reinstall my download speed was 40% higher than the highest I had seen (60 Mbps vs. 40) and it stayed high over many hours. That problem is fixed. Whatever it was I couldn't get rid of it with any "consumer" tools.

As far as CPU usage, it most often is tied to IE - right now I have 5 tabs open and they're consuming about 30% of the CPU. It's this tab plus 3 Road Bike Review tabs.

And just after I wrote this, the Road Bike Review tabs started taking 15-20% of CPU EACH. So I closed two of the tabs and the remaining tab went up to 35% of CPU usage while every other service running went up as well taking the CPU usage right up to 100%. I can barely type this because things are running so slow!

1/18/15 10:22 AM

Is this just a clean version of Windows (with updates) or have you installed other software, too? Have you tried another browser to see if the problem is unique to IE?

1/18/15 11:49 AM

Turn off activeX. RBR uses it a lot IIRC. You can also try the M$ vs of Safari and see if that is any better, it can be set to be pretty resource stingy as a way of saving battery power on laptops. That translates to lighter CPU usage.

1/18/15 12:03 PM

Ghostery and ADblock ??

1/18/15 2:44 PM

I have installed Adobe reader and Flash Player, Malwarebyetes, Dropbox, Chrome, and NetGeat Genie.

Do some web sites require activeX to operate properly? At one point I put RBR on a "more risky" status and that made it load and operate a lot better though I couldn't see imbedded videos.

Sparky are you suggesting both Ghostery and ADblock?

I'm going to try to run some experiments - like going to RBR and watching CPU demand. What seems to happen is that something adds to the CPU load and that then ramps up the demand from all the running processes. When the load is low, the background processes run at 0.5% CPU and lower, but as the total demand rises, everything seems to start fighting for CPU time and so something that was running at 0.5% ramps up to 3% and that just ripples across everything.

The CPU to 100% went off this morning while I was doing the first backup of my restored computer and things like the Resource Monitor (currently running at 1.4% of CPU) ramped up to 15%. So it seems like RM was a part of the problem but when you look down the list of processes, everything was consuming more CPU time. It's like something triggers high demand and then every process on the computer joins in. I was doing other things (web searches, WORD and Excel, mail) while the backup was running so it might be unrelated. I shut everything off to let the backup finish and when I came back to the computer a couple of hours later it had shut itself off (though the backup did finish).

I'm pretty baffled.

1/18/15 4:33 PM

Sounds like your computer OS is killing itself by requiring all that other stuff.

That is typical of M$ OS though and totally the reason we have chased faster computers just for simple browsing.

1/18/15 5:21 PM

quote:

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Sounds like your computer OS is killing itself by requiring all that other stuff.

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1/19/15 4:11 AM

often because the software is written to support new faster computers which forces the purchase of new machines. Planned obsolescence.

1/19/15 10:01 AM

You should be able to configure the router through a browser, using its onboard interface. Routers are typically at 192.168.1.1, but you can check the manual for the default address and password.

Do you have any antivirus other than Malwarebytes installed?

1/19/15 11:06 AM

"often because the software is written to support new faster computers which forces the purchase of new machines. Planned obsolescence."


Phoey. ;) There are just more and more services running. The main thing I noticed as the M$-OS's matured.


Not seen the mention of stopping non mandatory services in this thread yet.

The java and adobe update services are non OS related, there are 5-10 system services that can be stopped and not 'needed'

1/19/15 8:13 PM

quote:

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Not seen the mention of stopping non mandatory services in this thread yet.

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1/20/15 6:41 AM

...instead of MS Security essentials. Either one is a quick install and you can switch back to your original configuration quickly, too. Perhaps it's just me, but I really don't trust anything from Microsoft, particularly if is has "security" in the name. ;-)

1/20/15 12:21 PM

+1 for AVG.

1/20/15 8:13 PM

Sparky, I asked you before about Ghostery and AdBlock: install both or just one?

1/20/15 8:52 PM

"Ghostery and AdBlock"


Sorry, I run both...

This is ultra clean here on the TTF. But with the roadbikereview for example, I get 9 ghostery blocks usually per page. AdBlock not as busy over there, but could be if I wanted to filter diddle a bunch...

1/21/15 8:04 PM

Thanks for the clarification.