OS & PC Grinding to a halt, which corrective software

[Deleted member 173019]

Hi Guys, my HTPC uses Vista Ultimate, anyway about a week ago something changed, all of a sudden what was a fairly speedy PC is now dying, the HDD is always busy even when nothing is happening on screen and when a icon is clicked it takes an age to get going, everything is slow. Guessing it's a virus or adware of some sort. I have run Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D and both are coming up protty clean, have also tried to go back a few weeks on my PC Restore point, but to no avail.

BTW The HDD has been defragged also (both Windows version and some other software, neither has fixed the problem".

Can anyone suggest some corrective software that I should try?, I don't want to re-format till I have tried something, anything......HELP!!!!......lol

Cheers,

RIch

 

[mdbarber]

your post makes it sound as though you have no anti-virus software on there already?, if you have and was just a vague post try malwarebytes to remove any spyware.
could be your hdd dying though and a reformat will be quickest way to find out.

 

[Deleted member 173019]

your post makes it sound as though you have no anti-virus software on there already?, if you have and was just a vague post try malwarebytes to remove any spyware.
could be your hdd dying though and a reformat will be quickest way to find out.

Hi Mate, sorry about that, I have AVG FRee installed and checked with nothing showing.......

 

[EndlessWaves]

If there was a 'fix this' piece of software it'd be installed on every PC and run at startup, you need to try and locate the problem if you want to attempt to fix it.

Does task manager show unusual CPU or memory use? If you enable the column for disk usage then are any processes going up very fast?

 

[mrbobc]

could be a sector on your HDD gone bad.

 

[rooney]

download and install crystal disc checker this program acceses the smart data of your hard drive and will give u a good indication if the drive is ok or not

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

 

[Stiggy]

I'd backup your data now, just in case the disk is failing.

After that, a format and reinstall will get your Vista working as it did when new.

 

[Deleted member 173019]

Burger, the disk SHOULD be fine as it's only new, but I think I will back everything up tonight, just in case. I ran all the checks last night and everything came back clean. Tried adding the I/O Reads and writes to my task manager and there was nothing too bad showing, so looks like a check of the drive might be the best option at the moment (while I can still send it back, not sure on Samsung's Spinpoint warranty).

I will run some checks tonight and see what that brings to light, thinking at this stage that a format might be the best option......which I dread.

Thanks for the replies so far fellas, roll on Windows 7......

 

[rooney]

use crystal disc checker it will tell you if your hard drive is good (blue)-caution rating(yellow) or imminant failure (red)

if your drive is failing there is no point in reformating and starting again as u will just get the same problems again.

if caution scan it with es tools direct from samsung website
SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities

if the drive is failing and in waranty they should replace it for you


but as above please back up your data first of all
good litle program GoodSync : File Synchronization, File Backup Software, File Sync Software

 

[Deleted member 173019]

Well Guys, just a quick update, I ran the disk cheker and happily it reported no problems at all (did it several times to be sure). I have then removed AVG Free Anti Virus which didn't seem to help at all. I am now trying ESET Smart Security 4 (it's been run and nothing showed up as a concern) and I am happy to report that the PC seems to be picking up again, for no real reason.

My wife turned it on yesterday and straight away assumed I had "fixed something" cause it was much faster, but not quite 100% there. SO I am going to run the system for another week as is (after everything is backed up, in case), if it stays as is, then great, if not then I think a format and start from scratch might be the best idea.

Thanks again all for the help and advice, much appreciated,

Rich