WinXP Explorer/IE Interface Lagging Terribly - Please Help?

[bigsilly]

Hi, thanks for reading!

First of all, let me make it clear that I don't mean that my internet connection is lagging. The only issue with my system is the Explorer/IE interface, which lags for a few dozen seconds at least when switching between windows, folders, and tabs, and when opening up a new website.

The interface itself locks - I can't do anything other than move my mouse, but clicking has no function and the cursor will not change when positioned over a button/menu that ought to change it (to a hand or whatever). It simply remains whatever it was when I clicked whatever it was that started the lagging. Nothing else changes on the page/interface/window, either. It simply hangs for between 12-60 seconds, until finally coming through. The annoyance involved in using my computer for web browsing or for browsing my drives for files is frustrating to the point of making my computer near-useless for either of those activities.

I didn't have this problem until I completely filled up my main HDD with projects, media and games. Noticing the problem was crippling my ability to use my computer productively, I burnt off and cleaned-up, got it back to 25 GB free, then flushed my paging file by zeroing it out on my main HDD, rebooting, setting it to a specific (excessively large) size on one of my secondary hard drives (I have two others installed at the moment) rebooting again, then zeroing it out on that other drive while simultaneously rebuilding it to its original state on my main HDD, and then again rebooting. This led to no change in the problem; no improvement.

I do not believe that the problem would be resolved with defragmenting, because the problem occurs even while I am browsing files with Explorer on my secondary drives, which have not changed in some time (and one of them is solid state anyway.) Also, 3D games run as fast as ever with no stuttering, media programs save and open files as fast as ever, and encrypting/decrypting software (like WinZip or WinRAR) do their jobs just as fast as ever. If the trouble were with reading/writing to the HDD, then I don't think any of the conditions mentioned in this paragraph would be present at this point. I know I could use a defrag - but that isn't causing this particular problem to be as bad as it is at the moment.

I have "filled up" my main HDD before and never encountered this problem in any other instance of it happening.

I don't know what else to try to do. I've already checked my system startup and my running tasks, and nothing in either of them has changed for months. I've also run spyware and anti-virus programs, and neither have found anything.

I would really prefer not to go the "fix-all" route and format my drive and reinstall, as I've tons of programs installed, lots of website cookies setup, etc., etc. Starting over from square one would be more of a task than my schedule can handle right now.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much for reading, bye!

 

[hoom]

I'm not clear if its IE on the internet or Windows Explorer navigating your HDDs that is slow?

If its internets, use Firefox instead?

Could be you have folders with too many files in them?
NTFS seems to clog up & go slow above a certain number of files in a folder.

 

[Davros]

how big is your temporary internet files folder ?

 

[chavvdarrr]

disable AV and see if it helps

 

[bigsilly]

Hi,

It is both IE and Explorer. I wrote both.
Folders with even one file will take at least ten seconds to open.

My temp internet files folder has been flushed with no change in the problem.

I have disabled AV and this has made no change either.


I have a 2.4ghz 2-core Intel CPU, and 2 GB of RAM.

Thanks, bye.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

What's your cpu utilization via task manager?

 

[bigsilly]

When idle, between 1 and 4 percent.
When switching windows/tabs, or resizing a window, it jumps to 49%-52%.

I'm not doing any overclocking, haven't changed a thing in the BIOS since I setup the computer a year ago... But that is quite a lot for simple a task, definitely. Maybe we're onto something here? My computer is set to auto shutoff if the CPU should enter even the shallow end of the "danger zone," so I don't think that there can have been any heat damage...

I think the most likely possibility is that the CPU is fine, but something has changed about the way the interface is running that causes it to take up way too many cycles.

I've used TaskMGR to close all non-essential processes, with no improvement in this problem.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Ok, definitely not normal behavior there... I see 0-1% usage @ idle and only up to 5% on task switching, with 2-3% being the norm.

Have you tried a repair install of the OS yet? That would be my next step (short of nuking and paving).

 

[I.S.T.]

Stupid question, but have you tried defragmenting/spyware scanning?

 

[bigsilly]

Once again, thank you all very much for your suggestions.

I've never tried a repair install before - ever. What settings will that wipe, and how is it likely to help my problem? I mean, what does it refresh or replace or delete? Will it keep my program's registry settings?

I don't have enough free space to defrag, but I will give it a try once I've cleaned up a bit more. I still don't think it's likely to be fragmenting though, because game's run flawlessly, and ALL my hard-drives exhibit this problem, even my solid state drive, and even when I've switched my pagefile to run from other drives that aren't possibly fragmented to any appreciable degree.

I ran the latest updated SpyBot, and it found not a single instance of any spyware/malware. I've also run AVGFree, and it found no real threats, though it did misidentify a few things as potential minor risks -- but it's always done that.

 

[Neb]

Some AV's like Norton that has a 'scam check' can lag the page switch/browsing. McAfee siteadvisor installed? then this might also do it. Check what plugins are running for IE.

 

[Arwin]

Is your computer a laptop you use in different networks? Especially if you work with a laptop and you sign onto for instance a company network, then close the laptop (standby) and continue at home in your own network, or vice versa, then sometimes authentication will be attempted and timeout each time you try to access a folder, etc. This was an issue I personally had - once I realised I did, I started logging off before going home, etc.

 

[Malo]

Will AVG or Spybot find Virtumonde? That can be a big culprit in what you are describing and is sometimes very difficult to detect let alone remove. Try PCTools Spyware Doctor which is free to just scan your computer.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Once again, thank you all very much for your suggestions.

I've never tried a repair install before - ever. What settings will that wipe, and how is it likely to help my problem? I mean, what does it refresh or replace or delete? Will it keep my program's registry settings?

Instructions on how to perform a repair install of Windows XP

A repair install only touches OS files. User files are left in-place (including applications and their registry keys). You will, of course, have to perform some Windows Updates after the repair install, unless you create a new install disk with all the latest updates "slipstreamed" into it already.

 

[bigsilly]

Hello,

This is a normal desktop computer. It is not networked to anything. AVG and Spybot find nothing. My only anti-malware programs are AVG and SpyBot, and as I said when I close everything in the taskmanager and clear everything non-essential out of system startup queue, I still have the problem.

I have defragged my harddrive now, with no improvement.

I have installed FireFox and when browsing the internet it does not lag AT ALL. The problem is obvious now: for some reason, Explorer/IE are taking up huge amounts of CPU cycles.

 

[bigsilly]

Hello again, sorry to double-post.

I also wanted to add that I have tried various settings for explorer.exe in Taskmanager, in terms of CPU affinity and process priority, and no settings make any difference in either CPU utilization or the length of the delay itself.

 

[Bludd]

You should fire up Process Monitor and have it log what IE/Explorer does when they are hogging the CPU.

Go to sysinternals.com and get it, it's free.

 

[bigsilly]

Thanks Bludd,

Process Monitor shows explorer opening TONS of "RegQueryKey" "RegOpenKey" and "RegCloseKey" functions. Like, hundreds, all simultaneous.

What should I do now?

 

[Davros]

try a system restore to a time before this problem happened

can you download hijackthis create a log file and post it here

if you have java unistall + re install it
same with dot net

 

[bigsilly]

java and dotcom uninstalls did not help, thanks though.

in process monitor, the vast majority of the functions being called are "LocalServer32" and "inprocserver32". but i also get a huge number of entries that say, "INVALID NAME, INVALID HANDLE"