Col Deadmarsh Posted May 6, 2002 Share Posted May 6, 2002 I had XP running beautifully until the other day when I downloaded some XP Window updates from their site. Since then, my computer will start fine and run fine until it all of a sudden slows down to a crawl. Applications go so slow and sometimes freeze. The internet also slows down and all of a sudden, I can't access web pages like I could 5 minutes before. I tried doing a system restore to before I updated XP but that didn't help. I'm totally confused about what's doing this. I ran a virus scan on my computer and it turned up nothing. What could be causing this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 6, 2002 Share Posted May 6, 2002 Do you know what the XP updates covered ? Were they just Internet Explorer Security patches or something else ? Though it most likely won't do anything for you, you may want to defrag your drive to see if this helps. Run scandisk/chkdsk and do a 'clean up' of the drive too before performing the defrag. Do you have any utilities like anti-virus programs or something else loading up automatically ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted May 6, 2002 Author Share Posted May 6, 2002 Here's what I downloaded. If I did a system restore, would these still be causing a problem afterwards? Lemme know what my next step is. Updates were: Q311967: Security Update Download size: 247 KB, < 1 minute This update resolves the "Unchecked buffer in the Multiple UNC Provider" security vulnerability in Windows XP, and is discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-017. Download now to prevent a malicious user from exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability to either cause your computer to restart or to run unauthorized programs on your computer. Windows XP Application Compatibility Update, April 2002 Download size: 898 KB, < 1 minute The Windows XP Application Compatibility Update is a package of software updates that help Windows XP users to expand their application compatibility support - or avoid common issues - with certain applications. Microsoft recommends that you download this compatibility update if you are having problems with any of the programs this update is designed to support. Read more... Q318966: Recommended Update Download size: 1.8 MB, < 1 minute This update addresses several graphics rendering issues with GDI+ in Windows XP, and is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base KB Article Q318966. Download now to resolve some rendering issues. Read more... Q320174: Recommended Update Download size: 305 KB, < 1 minute This update addresses several CD Burning issues in Windows XP, and is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base KB Article Q320174. Download now to prevent problems with burning CDs. Read more... Q310510: Recommended Update Download size: 220 KB, < 1 minute This update resolves the "Playback and Copy-Protection Issues When You Try to Play the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs DVD Movie" issue in Windows XP and is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base KB Article Q310510. Download now to be able to play Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" Platinum Collection DVD. Read more Microsoft .NET Framework Download size: 20.8 MB, 9 minutes The .NET Framework is a new feature of Windows. Applications built using the .NET Framework are more reliable and secure. You need to install the .NET Framework only if you have software that requires it. Read more... Creative Labs Media Driver Version 5.1.2602.0 Download size: 2.1 MB, < 1 minute 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 6, 2002 Share Posted May 6, 2002 You would assume that a 'system restore' would remove these programs and bring you back to the state you were at before, but I'm not sure exactly what gets changed and what may remain the same with these 'restore' schemes. The GDI+ update seems to be possibly related to video (the gdiplus.dll file), but almost any of these could have patched/replaced a file that may be slowing down your system. It's also possible that one of these updates has turned on some settings in your system that rob performance. It's also possible that these updates aren't compatible with a piece of software that you may be automatically loading. Something may have grabbed more than its share of CPU cycles (CPU hog) and it may be slowing everything else down. Do you have any USB devices hooked up ? Have you performed a 'clean up' of your drives ? You'll want to empty out your temporary internet files and run scandisk/chkdsk on your hard drives to check for any problems. There is a mention of 'clear text' and 'translucent selection rectangle' causing some performance problems. You may want to check the following: To resolve this problem, disable the Show translucent selection rectangle option: </font>Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. </font>On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings. </font>On the Visual Effects tab, clear the Show translucent selection rectangle option. </font>Click OK twice.</font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted May 7, 2002 Author Share Posted May 7, 2002 To answer your questions: Yes, I have a scanner hooked up to a USB port. I Defragged last night and ran a Check Disk and that came up empty. What baffles me is how I can connect to the Internet fine and then 10 minutes later, it slows to a crawl without me doing anything. That seems strange to me. By the way, I can't shut down or restart the computer using the buttons. When I do so, it freezes and all my toolbars disappear leaving a blank screen. Any ideas on what to do now or am I gonna have to take it into the shop? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted May 7, 2002 Share Posted May 7, 2002 If it truly bothers you, then I'd suggest wiping out your boot drive and reinstalling XP from scratch. This is obviously a hassle, but since this is most likely a software problem there may be little else to do at this point. You'll of course want to write down any pertinent info, like your ISP-provided Internet connection info (IP address, DNS, whatever) and backing up your data to either CD-R or another drive/device. I don't think that a shop would necessarily find the problem for you, but instead they would perform what I suggested and charge you for it. Disconnect your USB scanner and see if it makes a difference. Possibly the USB polling to it may be causing problems on your system. Do you have some Internet firewall software like ZoneAlarm ? If you do a reinstall you'll need to be more selective about the updates that you install (making particular note of the last set that seems to be involved with your problem). [ May 07, 2002, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PondScum Posted May 8, 2002 Share Posted May 8, 2002 Colonel_Deadmarsh, to answer your questions: If you used system restore to go back to a checkpoint before you downloaded those hotfixes, they should have disappeared - you were literally turning the clock back on the contents of your disk. If you want to try this again, bear in mind that you'll lose any files that you modified or added after the checkpoint! You can use the date option in the search tool to find all the files that have changed, and then decide which ones to back up to e.g. floppy, so that you can put them back after the system restore. It's a pain, but not as bad as a complete OS reinstall. A quick thing to try is to go to control panel->add/remove programs, and see if the hotfixes are still there. They'll be listed towards the bottom, as "Windows XP Hotfix" followed by their number. You can try removing them sequentially till things improve. I can't think how any of the updates would cause applications to freeze or slow down after several minutes of use, though. Are you sure you haven't picked up some spyware or malware from a web site? You could try running Ad-aware from http://www.lavasoft.nu/, which checks for most known spyware. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PondScum Posted May 8, 2002 Share Posted May 8, 2002 Clarification: system restore will update system files. It will ignore the contents of your user profile (e.g. everything under My Documents), even though sometimes that would be a nice option to have 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted May 11, 2002 Author Share Posted May 11, 2002 I beleive the problem is solved. It was indeed Zone Alarm that was causing the problems. I reinstalled it and now it's running good. I'm gonna update 1 by 1 next time and make sure that each one is okay before going on to the next. Thanks for your help. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.