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Slow performance after reinstall

post #1 of 18
12/31/05 at 2:21pm
Thread Starter 
Well, here's the story... (This ia about a HP zx5000 series laptop.. 3.2GHz, 1GB Ram, 80GB HD..)

My system had gotten a dose of SpySherriff and a few other nasties. Deciding it was time for a reload anyway, I reformatted the hard drive and reloaded Windows XP Pro SP2.

Now here is the problem. The system was dragging in performance after I was infected. Since formatting blanks the drive (especially when you tell it to do a full format of the drive.) After the reinstall, loading all the drivers, and applying my normal tweaks (NTFS last access dating, removing unneeded services, etc) the system is as slow as it was before I started. Yes, I did reinstall Spybot s&d and didnt have any infections. Norton Antivirus backs this up, along with Microsoft AntiSpy


Normally this laptop is fairly fast, but after that infection, it has been slow.

Is there a possibility something got to my harddrive? It seems that is the root of the problem. I did a full Spinrite scan, and found no errors on the drive.

Now I am lost. I dont want to install too much stuff on here in case I have to re-reinstalll XP again.....

Any help appriecated...
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post #2 of 18
12/31/05 at 8:24pm
the more stuff you have on your drive, the longer your seek times will be. If you reinstalled all your software and filled up a lot of the drive, that might be the cause. See how fast it runs with only a few applications installed compared to everything installed and see if that makes up for the speed difference.
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post #3 of 18
1/1/06 at 2:15am
Thread Starter 
Now, before, I had a LOT of stuff on my drive.... Office, Systemworks, audio programs, MAME, PinMAME, etc etc, and it still hauled balls.....

Now, with just my basic stuff on here, it's slow..

Like I said, everything went downhill after my spysherriff infection.....
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post #4 of 18
1/2/06 at 10:00am
Have you tried to defrag it? Try a disk clean up first then defrag it.
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post #5 of 18
1/3/06 at 12:29am
Thread Starter 
Yes... did not help....

I think the issue has something to do with the slipstreaming of SP2 onto my Win XP cd... I am going to try to reinstall XP with my original disc.... will let yall know what happens...
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post #6 of 18
1/3/06 at 4:15pm
Do a disk diagnostic.....

Check the event log.....

Are you sure that the sequence doesn't imply the spyware/virus was the culprit? For example - could it be that something affected your broadband OR you installed a new program/utility around the same time you caught the spyware/virus?
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post #7 of 18
1/3/06 at 5:33pm
Did you install the Intel chipset for your OS? It makes a big difference sometimes.
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post #8 of 18
1/3/06 at 7:48pm
Thread Starter 
I ran a disk defrag. No help. Ran a disk diagnostic (through the BIOS and through Spinrite). No errors or potential errors.

As for the spyware... I was majorly infected with spysherriff. I had went to a questionable site, and got hit big time.

I wanted to reformat anyway... As for the broadband issue.. why would that cause my system to take forever to boot and to load programs? Even with the wifi off, it still takes forever.

As for the Intel chipset.. I think this laptop has an ATI chipset on it.. This exceprt is from SiSoft Sandra

Chipset 1
Model : ATI Technologies Inc Radeon IGP9100 Host Bridge
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI IMB CardBus USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 200MHz (800MHz data rate)
Maximum FSB Speed / Max Memory Speed : 4x 200MHz / 2x 200MHz
Width : 64-bit
SMP - MP Capability : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : Yes
IO Queue Depth : 12 request(s)

So I don't believe this thing has an Intel chipset.... I have loaded all the appropriate drivers and still no help..
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post #9 of 18
1/3/06 at 8:10pm
If all you worry is the bootup, inspect your startup by running msconfig. Uncheck the stuff that you dont need. To troubleshoot the problem, you can uncheck all the startup utilities and see if it boots up faster.

How you check your pagefile settings? You temp folder location? How about system restore? Some say turning that off speed things up, I did on my.
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post #10 of 18
1/4/06 at 3:01am
Thread Starter 
It's not just booting that is slow. Overall performance is lacking. Before, it would load Internet Explorer real quick. Now takes a lot longer and a lot of drive thrashing to open IE.
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post #11 of 18
1/4/06 at 2:50pm
I mention broadband as a potential reason for the slowdown because software that automatically updates itself can act like spyware when the PC is on the way up and if the broadband is slow it can also cause you to slow down even more while it does the auto update or even the check for it. Pretty much what NDE is suggesting (MSCONFIG) would tell the story. Another method for locating unecessary start ups and the like is to use SPYBOT in Advanced Mode - then go to tools - it will show you what's in the startup routine along with comments as to whether they are needed, good or bad. There are some other tools in SPYBOT as well that might prove useful.

Have you reviewed the event log? How about reviewing task manager on the way up for processes sucking up the CPU?
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post #12 of 18
1/5/06 at 1:39pm
You might also want to try the mother of all cleanups found at this thread but since you've done a reinstall it might not be as useful as it normally is:

http://overclockers.com/tips1166/

In any case let us know how things work out...
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post #13 of 18
1/5/06 at 3:52pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenBrower
I mention broadband as a potential reason for the slowdown because software that automatically updates itself can act like spyware when the PC is on the way up and if the broadband is slow it can also cause you to slow down even more while it does the auto update or even the check for it. Pretty much what NDE is suggesting (MSCONFIG) would tell the story. Another method for locating unecessary start ups and the like is to use SPYBOT in Advanced Mode - then go to tools - it will show you what's in the startup routine along with comments as to whether they are needed, good or bad. There are some other tools in SPYBOT as well that might prove useful.

Have you reviewed the event log? How about reviewing task manager on the way up for processes sucking up the CPU?

I have done that. The only thing sucking up CPU power is the System Idle Process.

Boot up is not as critical as overall system performance. I just used booting up as an example to show how my system has slowed after I did the reinstall.
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post #14 of 18
1/7/06 at 9:56am
Does it start slowing down from a cold start? Or does it slow down with time you have it on. Could it be a heat isssue you might try speed fan. Have you done a memory check? When you did the full install you repartitioned the hard drive right? I would do a full repartition then install. Are you installing the OS and drivers from the install discs try just installing the drivers no software. If its fast then go back install every app one at a time. Keep checking your system performance on every app install to see if its software related.
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post #15 of 18
1/12/06 at 9:20pm
Thread Starter 
I did a complete reformat of the harddrive when I reinstalled. The system is slow even from a cold boot, so I dont think it is heat related.

Even from right after installation, it was slow.

Bad thing is now it is getting worse... I have no way to check the memory. I dont get any memory errors during POST. This all started after that spyware attack, so I am wondering if maybe something got imbedded into the drive MBR or worse...
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post #16 of 18
1/13/06 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
Okay. I am re-running Spinrite at level 4. 3% into the drive and it has already found errors on the disk. Great...just what I need.

Would spyware cause disk errors? I have not heard of it. Viruses yes.... spyware.....

So now what? Is there a low level format utility for Toshiba drives?
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post #17 of 18
1/13/06 at 10:56pm
Thread Starter 
I let Spinrite run its full course. It found a few errors on the drive, one unrecoverable. This is not good.

I was using my system a few minutes ago, and my system was running real slow. I put my ear up to the harddrive, and head it doing the normal click click click "i cant find the data" noise.

A new harddrive seems to be in order... or a good low level format..
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post #18 of 18
1/29/06 at 7:09am
Run the HDD-Self Test from the BIOS. If successful then most likely your HW is ok.

Access Windows in safe mode and check how it runs, if it runs faster then there is something wrong with your software. Format and install Windows and the drivers only. If it works fine then only install the applications that you really need, one by one, until you find the one causing the problem.
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