PC Slowdown

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
1

I've been using PCs for about 10 years and have never had a problem like this. Any clues on where to look would be greatly appreciated.

 

For the past 2 days, my PC has been freezing on a regular basis. Each time, after waiting for 5 or 6 minutes, I usually just do a hard boot. Things are OK for a while, then it starts all over again. Email and browsing becomes impossible until I reboot.

 

I have read that this may indicate an infection of some kind. Or a heat problem. Or a power problem.

 

My heat monitor reports that temperature is OK. I installed a new power pack and new video card about 18 months ago. That leaves an infection as a possible reality. 

 

I am really on the verge of reinstalling Windows, but am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to fix this, before taking that step.

 

I had used another security suite for years and have just recently switched to NIS 2010, about 3 months ago. No problems until yesterday.

 

I'm running Windows 7 HP 64-bit and NIS 2010. Ran a complete NIS scan this morning and it detected nothing.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

 

 

2

I've been using PCs for about 10 years and have never had a problem like this. Any clues on where to look would be greatly appreciated.

 

For the past 2 days, my PC has been freezing on a regular basis. Each time, after waiting for 5 or 6 minutes, I usually just do a hard boot. Things are OK for a while, then it starts all over again. Email and browsing becomes impossible until I reboot.

 

I have read that this may indicate an infection of some kind. Or a heat problem. Or a power problem.

 

My heat monitor reports that temperature is OK. I installed a new power pack and new video card about 18 months ago. That leaves an infection as a possible reality. 

 

I am really on the verge of reinstalling Windows, but am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to fix this, before taking that step.

 

I had used another security suite for years and have just recently switched to NIS 2010, about 3 months ago. No problems until yesterday.

 

I'm running Windows 7 HP 64-bit and NIS 2010. Ran a complete NIS scan this morning and it detected nothing.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

 

 

3

It was Kaspersky (KIS).

 

BUT..  

 

I reinstalled Windows 7 before switching to NIS. So it was a clean start.

4

Hi Spotteddog

 

Since your NIS scans are coming up clean try a scan with malwabytes to see if it throws up anything. However, given your lack of other symptoms other than the PC feezing, my gut feel is that you have a hardware issue.

 

www.malwarebytes.com

 

Download, install, update and run a fullscan.

5

I'll run Malwarebites ASAP.

 

I, too, was afraid that it might be a hardware problem, but I thought I'd ask here before I start ripping things apart.

 

Thanks for all the help. 

6
Spotteddog wrote:

I'll run Malwarebites ASAP.

 

I, too, was afraid that it might be a hardware problem, but I thought I'd ask here before I start ripping things apart.

 

Thanks for all the help. 

Hi Spotteddog

 

If malwarebytes runs clean and you have no other strange symptoms (browser redirects etc) then I would start to suspect hardware and I guess the favorite to check first would be your hard disk.

 

After your malwarebytes scan has run, if it runs clean, open up a command prompt and run chkdsk /r to see what issues there are, if any, on your HDD.

7

Malwarebites was clean. On to the check disk.

 

Thanks

8

Any clues in Event Viewer?

 

Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management > Event Viewer (+) and explore the categories.

 

Or in that nice user friendly WIndows 7 just open START and type Event Viewer in the search box and the link to it is at the top.

9

HI Spotteddog,

 

In your first post you said:

For the past 2 days, my PC has been freezing on a regular basis. Each time, after waiting for 5 or 6 minutes, I usually just do a hard boot. Things are OK for a while, then it starts all over again. Email and browsing becomes impossible until I reboot.

What about the PC in general? Is the problem specific to browsing and email, and other activities which require going online? Does your computer work fine otherwise for bringing up other applications, mouse movement, keyboard use, etc?

 

If the problem is specific to going online then my first suspicion would be possible problems with your network card.

 

Hopefully the event viewer will yield some clues as well.

 

Best wishes.

Allen

10

I have run chkdsk on 2 of my 3 HDD and am in the process of checking the 3rd HDD. So far no errors.

 

The event viewer shows nothing unusual. Basically just some "backup" errors, which ca be resolved.

 

I appreciate all the help. Especially since this is a NIS forum and PC problems, other than security problems, is beyond the scope of this forum.

 

I plan to give my PC a good cleaning today and to look for any obvious problems with any of the hardware, such as all thight connections and any corroded components.

 

Thanks again.

11

Hi Spotteddog

 

Thanks for the update. We do have a forum for issues that are not Norton/Symantec product related and that is Tech Outpost. I will ask a moderator to move this thread to that forum.