Another computer problem thread...

FlaMtnBkr

FlaMtnBkr

Joined
Oct 20, 2004
Messages
4,704
Hopefully someone out there will be able to help me out with this one. My girlfriends computer is acting strange. It was quite infected with spyware when I first messed with it a few months ago. I downloaded Adaware and that got rid of a lot of it, and I also ran the Trend micro online scan. After doing this it ran much better up until recently.

Lately it kind of 'locks up.' You will be doing something and everything freezes. By that I mean the mouse does not move, if your typing it stops appearing on the screen, etc. It might only be for a second or it might be 2 mins. It will then start working as normal. Sometimes it will go 10 mins without anything happening, sometimes it freezes every 5 seconds.

Also the clock time changes. Sometimes it be 3-4 hours slow and other times, maybe after a reboot (?), it will be within a few minutes of real time.

Also, sometimes while typing, its like the insert button is hit and the cursor will move to the middle of the word you're typing and will start typing there.

I have run Adaware, the Trend micro housecall online site, norton, and I just tried spybot S&D (although I question the validity of this one because the scan finishes in about 15 seconds) and they all do not find any spyware/malware or viruses. I dont know if the computer has some hardware that is on the way out or what.

The computer is older, it has 383 MB ram, 27 gig hard drive, not sure what processor, and is running windows 98. It is also always connected the the internet via DSL. If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ryan
 
With a rig this old, you could start by running all the typical maintenance tools; defrag, disc cleanup, disc error checking, and so forth.
You might also consider trying one of the registry cleanup utilities; there's got to be a lot of old registry entries floating around.

More likely, a reformat of the HD would seem to be in order. This means backing up everything you want to keep, of course, and re-installing the operating system.
 
I had an old computer very similar to your situation and behavior, it was throwing memory faults. Good luck! (We ended up replacing it)

( Oh also, purge all the temp directories)
 
Thanks for the replies. With all the headaches I have had with spyware/malware the last year I guess I was just assuming this was the cause. I will try the recommended and see if anything changes. (If I remember correctly I tried to defrag it the first time I messed with it and the defrag utility never got anywhere/ locked up). I dont have a problem wiping it clean and putting on a newer operating system except it isnt mine and is loaded with stuff and it just seems like its going to be a nightmare to back up. Thanks,

Ryan
 
Close out all other programs when you run defrag with win98 or it may continually restart the defrag job and never get too far.;)
 
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