Slow Computer - Common Bug Occuring in Windows XP

[BajaGringo]

I know that this is not a "cooking/recipe" topic but as we all use our computers to access the site, I thought this might be of interest to you. Working in front, on top and inside of these things all day for almost 30 years, I am usually the one that friends and family call when they have a problem. In fact they call any hour of day or night because THEY NEED THEIR COMPUTER BACK!!!

I received another such call this morning with a common problem of this last year - the svchost.exe bug that takes over your CPU. Symptoms include the PC seeming to be "almost" locked up, not able to open a program or it takes a very long time and your Hard Drive light flickering indicating its working without any obvious programs running. The most obvious sign and heart of the problem is a process called "svchost.exe". If you have this problem you will see svchost.exe running at 90%+ CPU usage when viewed under processes in Windows Task Manager, accessed via the Three Fingered Salute (control-alt-delete). If it happens to you, here is how to fix it step by step:

How to Fix Your Slow Computer

I decided that today is the last time I will have to spend an hour with somebody on the phone over this and just put the solution up online in case you or somebody you know runs into this problem.

 

[quicksilver]

Baja, I wish you were my neighbor.
Computers for 30 years! I am but an infant - 3 months and winging everything myself.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep my eye on theat ball.

 

[BajaGringo]

Yea, my first computer didn't even have a computer screen. I would typpe in commands and the response would come out on a teletype device. We've come a long ways...

The way you will notice that you have this bug is that your computer will suddenly seem to begin running very slow and even make it hard to open any programs. Sometimes it will last for a few minutes and then stop and others it just seems like it will never pick up. You will usually notice the problem after turning it back on or after a reboot from a Windows update. I have helped probably over a 100 friends with this in the last few months and just decided it would be easier and of greater benefit if it was posted online.

If you are running XP it is likely that at some point you will encounter this problem...

 

[love2"Q"]

thought most people knew this ...
nice link though ..

 

[BajaGringo]

I thought so too but I have had 3 "requests" for the same fix in the last couple of weeks. so I just decided to put it online finally. Should have done it a year ago and saved myself LOTS of time - ha!

 

[pacanis]

Hmmm, almost locking up????
I only run into that problem on this site. Lately I have found that clicking where I am trying to go a second time will get me there without a 'page cannot be displayed' message.
Even when clicking on reply or submit. If it looks like it is hanging up and going to lose my reply, I click on the link again and BAM, I'm there.

I guess this is a different problem though....

 

[suziquzie]

I have the same issue Pacanis.
I was thinking maybe it was just operator error.......

 

[BajaGringo]

What browser and version are you using?

 

[pacanis]

I'm using IE7, but it may have done it with 6, also.
I just blamed it on the activity on this site. Maybe two people posting at the same time and the site is juggling the posts trying to sort them in order, so one gets dropped.
But clicking again when it looks like it's about to hang seems to be a fix for me.

 

[Corey123]

I believe that I had that problem with my Dell laptop pc.

The thing began to get slower and slower and slower until one day, it just stopped working altogether and just wouldn't boot up! It would come up, but that was it.

It had pretty much crashed! It's STILL out for repairs thus far.

 

[BajaGringo]

The problem is still going around. I can't believe that Microsoft didn't just put out a fix for it and include it in an update...