Shoutbox

Today, I switched on my computer to find that it was really slow at loading. It finally loaded. Then I started to use it and it was going slow. I noticed the other day, Powerpoint opened for no reason.

So, the best thing to do is to scan for viruses/spyware.

I first used Spybot S&D. Just a few tracking cookies and some recently opened file lists. Then I tried Ad-Aware SE. Nothing bad detected. Then I even tried Microsoft Antispy. Still nothing. I still had Norton left, but that takes a while, so did a few other simple things before.

I cleared my cache, backed up and my cookies and deleted them. Then ran disc clean-up to get rid of other files. Then I did disc-check and then defragmented. Still, the speed of XP was slow. Then I decided to use Norton AntiVirus 2004. (All these had up to date definitions loaded). I ran Norton, locked my computer and went away. Came back and to my horror, for some strange reason, there was the welcome to Windows screen, please press CTRL+ALT+DEL to login ... blah blah...

So, I decided to go back in and scan some common virus/spyware places like C:\WINDOWS, C:\WINDOWS\System32, and C:\Documents and Settings.

I then sat there with it, moving the mouse so the screen saver didn't come on etc., then, it did it again, I realized what had happened before, the computer had restarted for no reason...

It had managed to scan most of the files and those results showed no viruses/spyware...

I went to the Startup and Recovery options in the My Computer Properties and had unchecked Automatically restart ages ago.

I haven't done anything like any tweaking recently (I did ages ago and the computer has been fine up until now...), nor have I done any installations...

I do have a firewall as well, and haven't accepted any of those msn viruses which I have noticed that some of my contacts have, as it has been trying to send itself to me, but it wasn't detected so it doesn't seem that I have it.

So, the reason I have explained this is to get an answer to this thread title...

I am currently using Windows XP SP2.

It would be appreciated if someone could help me.

You should stay at your computer. A message box will probably come up and say that you have X amount of time before your computer shuts off. Just type Start->Run->shutdown /a. Then PWN TEH VIRUS!!!!!11 \o/

lol

It's not that kind of restart, my computer just goes off, does the POST test beep then I see the boot logo and the WinXP boot screen, this is why I think this is reallly dodgy...

Maybe a brownout or whatever it's called, does your computer have enough power?

Well, my computer has always had the same psu, always been connected to the same socket, nothing else in the house swtiched off either and my computer switched off only when performing a virus scan ... . Everything hardware-wise seems to be working and looks ok, i checked inside...

Well, the restarting seems to have layed off, but I haven't performed anymore virus scans. I have no idea why virus scanning could cause a weird restart but, hey!

The slowness is still there though

Does it also restart while doing anything else that uses a lot of cpu time?

Nope, well, this is the first time it has done this and I have had everything else that has been running today, running for a long time before all this happened. (Norton scans etc.)

I'm in the dark just as you are, hope someone else has a better way of solving this than using system repair or installing windows again.

Thanks for your help anyway, Ezra.

Re-installing windows isn't too much of a task..., but I wanted to find a solution to the problem rather than doing that. (One reason being, that this is the longest I have had XP installed until re-installing and wanted to keep it that way ) but anyway,...

I'll wait for a few more posts of suggestions that some other people might have, then consider re-installing.

quote:

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Originally posted by jren207
Well, the restarting seems to have layed off, but I haven't performed anymore virus scans. I have no idea why virus scanning could cause a weird restart but, hey!

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try trendmicro housecall online scan... i had that happen to me before too.

... and anytime i ran anti-virus directly from my computer like (mcafee or norton) my comp kept on restarting or freezing up. when i did the online scan it found some infection, i'm sorry cuz i dunno what the hell the thing it found was called.. but either way, i ended up having to remove it manually and everything was aight after that... (although to be safe i reinstalled the system anyway... )

- if u find the virus (cuz i kinda think u have one.. at least i know i had one when those were my computer's symptoms) its a good idea to overwrite the hard drive prior to reinstallation...

Edit: my bad... i removed a part of it manually, re-run the anti-virus scan and it cleaned out the rest

hope that helps, here's the link to trendmicro http://housecall.trendmicro.com/