So this is what's been happening starting yesterday. I left my computer on with Gmail on firefox and went downstairs to clean transformers. When I came up about 2 hours later, I noticed that my computer was significantly slower. The mouse response, minimizing windows, opening start ups, etc. It slowed to the point of a crawl.

Then I noticed that my internet connection is constantly sending and receiving- way more bandwidth then it should be on gmail. I closed firefox, and it is still sending a ton of packings and receiving as well.

So I restarted the computer and ran Malware antivirus, couldn't find anything. I ran spybot, and it stopped in the middle because whatever is clogging my computer is killing the resource and spybot couldn't finish the full scan before freezing or slowing to a crawl.

I restarted the computer again, and this time unplugged my internet cable from the computer (I downloaded the latest update for spybot before then) and ran spybot. It came out with a few things like palevo, and supposely they are fixed.

I plug back in the internet cable, and for a few minutes it seems fine. When I don't have browser opened, there is minimum packets sending back and forth. When I open browser, ofcourse there are packets. I think I browsed TFW2005 for a little bit as well as gmail before it started to act up again.

If I restart the computer, I can get it to run normally for a short period of time, and then it does a drastic slow down, and shows my internet connection sending WAYYYY too much packets back and forth from web browsing.

The virus scans don't find anything, and spybot found some and removed already. What else can be done? Is there any program to catch this? This happened yesterday, and I am sure it is not the hardware of my computer.

Let me know what you think and what can be helped. Right now I am at work so work comp is obviously fine.

 

Have you checked Task Manager? What version of Windows are you running? Do you use an anti-virus?

I would recommend using a live cd to scan for viruses, like Hiren's 14.0 or UBCD4Win.

 

Try using System Restore and go back to the day before yesterday.

Then update your antivirus first thing after that.

 

Admittedly, I know little about how internet traffic might be affecting your computer. However, I would check your Task Manager to see which, if any, processes are eating up most of your CPU usage. That's usually the best way to identify the culprit, after which it should be easy to clear up.

If mbam and a system restore don't do it, there's a tiny chance you might have a rootkit. This is an excellent little piece of software that might help: RootRepeal – Repair Tool of the Week | Technibble

 

My antivirus programs (I have 2, malware and McA.) are updated, they just can't seem to find anything. I checked task manager, but "systems" is the one taking the memory. I am running on XP. I gotta check if I can do system restore. That's one thing I considered but did not do yet due to time constraints yesterday night.

Yoda, what do you mean live CD?

 

LiveCDs are, in essence, standalone OS, typically, a Linux or Windows PE, that has tools built into them for repairs, troubleshooting, or, sometimes just to test new software out. Hiren's is one that is updates fairly often, and includes multiple spyware/AV software included, and all definitions are updated when a new version is released.

You download the .iso file, burn it to a CD/DVD and just boot to it instead of your hard drive. Run whatever scans/repairs you want, and then restart, going back to your normal drive/OS. They're a big help in cleaning infections, because you can clean a lot of troublesome ones up that get their hooks into system files and processes, because, since you're booting from a CD, not the hard disk, those systems and processes never fire off, so the viruses are "dormant" and not running. If you need more help or directions, shoot me a PM or email. I work in IT and do PC cleaning on the side, Live CDs are 99% of the time my first go-to.

System Restore is also a good idea, if it can't be cleaned.

 

Run in safe mode with your internet off and do your spybot scan again. If it crashes again see if you can tellwhat it was checking for before it crashed. The lower left of the program usually tells you what virus its scanning for.

What are you anti virus programs?

 

McAfree, and Malware, both should be free. I might have AVG I forget. I only get the free ones... hm, I think I should run once more spybot on safe mode, and I will run the two antivirus on that too. If that does not, I will look into options of system restore? Or should I try the LiveCD things first?

 

you can also check msconfig by going to Start>Run>msconfig and go to the "services" and "startup" tabs and see if there is anything you don't really recognize or looks out of place and uncheck the box next to it. this way that particular process will not start automatically when you reboot your PC. you can always go back and recheck something if you unselect the wrong thing by mistake.

Viruses and other malware often times put a file/program here so it will start everytime you turn your PC on.

 

And just FYI, running multiple AV products at once can cause issues too. They frequently conflict with each other and will treat each other hostilely...

 

Increased internet traffic shouldn't affect your mouse speed. There are a lot of reasons where the problem could be, but most non-technical websites (such as TFW) users are known to post fixes before determining what the problem is. So let's start with basic stuff here.

1. How much RAM do you have?
2. Do you have XP Pro or Home?
3. How much free HDD space is there?