Member in trouble

Computer gone on a go slow

Saturday, September 19, 2009 by Gammeldansk | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

First of all I dont know if I should be posting this on WC, its not a WC issue. But I dont know who else to turn to - if the mods think it's out of place and end the thread, I will not be upset.

Our laptop, a Dell Inspiron has run normally for 18 months, but developed a problem yesterday. We run Vista SP2 32 bit with two user accounts, mine and my wife's, both as admin. Since yesterday, logging on using my account results in a drastic reduction in run speed. Previously the used RAM/free RAM was approx 1GB/1GB. Now it's 1.5GB used and 500Mb free. Time between icon clicking and response is in the order of several minutes. Also the spinning circle busy symbol is permanently running. But everything is running normally when I log on using my wife's account. Could this be a virus? Can a virus infect one account while ignoring another. Nothing has been downloaded, and a system restore to two days previous has no effect. CCleaner didnt help this issue either. Anyone got any ideas before we resort to the dreaded factory image reset. WE never do backups!!!

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amitsaran
Reply #1 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:33 PM

Simply run an anti-virus program if you feel its a virus, or if you have System Restore on, then try restoring to a date when your system worked perfect, may be older than 2 days, also remember that System Restore does'nt affect any of your downloaded stuff.

If you have partitioned your hard disk, then you can easily format the System drive [usually C:] and you will just have to run the updates once for Windows as well the programs installed.

Bichur
Reply #2 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:33 PM

to check for nasties:

try installing this: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

once installed, let it update then run it

 

Can a virus infect one account while ignoring another. Nothing has been downloaded, and a system restore to two days previous has no effect.

 

maybe you got a mailer doing mass spams from your side?

 

anything on your side not running on the other?

do you use anything like Process Explorer?  You'll see more stuff running in it than in task manager.

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

 

 

 

 

Gammeldansk
Reply #3 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:48 PM

Thanks Amitsaran and Bichur for your interest and suggestions. I'll try these out before resorting to anything else. By the way would deleting my account and then creating a new one (different user name) be worth a try?

Bichur
Reply #4 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:54 PM

create the new one first

see how it runs

move your docs and stuff to that if it's okay - I'd scan them first to be safe

then delete your old account

then rename your new account

ShelbyGT_The_Car
Reply #5 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:56 PM

Go to the working account and create a new acct then copy the docs from the acct not working to the new one. After that try the new acct and if everything is ok delete the non working acct completely even the files via user accts and remove.

good luck

Philly0381
Reply #6 Saturday, September 19, 2009 6:58 PM

That is an option, but before doing that I think I would try the restore function and go back to a date that you feel the computer was running okay.  Running anti-virus and anti-maleware and spyware programs is not a bad thing to do at anytime you think the computer is acting strange.

Gammeldansk
Reply #7 Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:23 PM

Thank you all so much. I think I'll persevere with trying to find out what's wrong with the "damaged" account before trying something else. McAfee and Defender found nothing amiss. The only differences between the two accounts at startup is that I run Nuonsoft's Wallpaper Cycler and Fences (both running ok for ages). 

Bichur
Reply #8 Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:39 PM

McAfee and Defender found nothing amiss.

 

i got that little red shield in tray with popups telling me I was infected and needed their software to fix it

 

Trendmicro found nothing

 

malwarebytes found all the files and cleaned them out

DrJBHL
Reply #9 Saturday, September 19, 2009 9:08 PM

Gammeldansk...listen to bichur. I've done malwarebytes and was NEVER sorry.

Do it before anything else.

Then take 2 aspirins and call me in the morning.  Keep smiling bud!

RedneckDude
Reply #10 Saturday, September 19, 2009 9:14 PM

Malwarebytes is what I would suggest also, and it is free. I ran it today on my sister's rig, found 1,417 infected files.

CarGuy1
Reply #11 Saturday, September 19, 2009 9:20 PM

Right click on your taskbar and pull up task manager, click on processes, sort by memory and find out what's eating up your memory.

Once you find out what it is, right click on it and kill the program. After that, figure out why / how it's loading and stop it from doing it.

If you cant figure it out, post a screen shot of the your running processes and we will be happy to try and assist.

Gammeldansk
Reply #12 Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:12 AM

Ran Malwarebytes and it came up clean. Tried the Task Manager and after 30 mins (yes I'm crawling along) it shows over 300 instances of a process called dsc.exe with the description SupportS... running. The other processes all seem to be ok, being related to Microsoft, McAfee, desktop etc. CPU usage is at 100%. Due to everything so slow its virtually impossible for me to do a screen capture. Using my wife's account, Task Manager processes do not show this dsc.exe file, and CPU usage is 5%. Looks like this dsc.exe may be the culprit.

CarGuy1
Reply #13 Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:30 AM

In your case I believe DSC.exe would be Dell Support Center.

Have you tried restoring your computer with system restore, to an earlier time before this started?

Gammeldansk
Reply #14 Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:50 AM

Yes CarGuy, I did a system restore yesterday. It is Dell. The SupportS... is SupportSoft which relates to Dell.

CarGuy1
Reply #15 Sunday, September 20, 2009 12:33 PM

Boot to safe mode and uninstall the dell support center. Then load your profile and see if the problem is gone.

Use a few of the malware removers mentioned above to make sure your system is clean and if you want, you can reinstall the latest version of the Dell Support Center from Dell.

Gammeldansk
Reply #16 Sunday, September 20, 2009 12:44 PM

Thanks CarGuy. I'll try that now.

Gammeldansk
Reply #17 Sunday, September 20, 2009 2:00 PM

Uninstalling the Dell software did the trick, all is running normally now. Think I'll leave it at that for a few days before reinstalling the Dell Support Centre. Many thanks CarGuy and everyone who took an interest and helped sort me out.

CarGuy1
Reply #18 Sunday, September 20, 2009 2:20 PM

Glad to see you've got it resolved.  

Gammeldansk
Reply #19 Sunday, September 20, 2009 2:28 PM

Not without you guys. You guys are tops.

Bichur
Reply #20 Sunday, September 20, 2009 6:27 PM

CarGuy1
Glad to see you've got it resolved.  

 

 

agreed

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