Symptoms like a Trojan slow freeze

[Tartan Giant]

Hi Guys,

My PC had the most perculiar symptoms today, as if a Trojan had gained entry and glued the thing good style........... the mouse slowed up, became erratic, and pointed 20 seconds behind the movement.

C+A+D would not obey. Programmes would not open up and the PC had to be given a "hard" shut down.

Started in Safe Mode hours later. Forced a run on my AV software (NOD32 - best there is in my opinion) and it found nothing. Shut down, restart - the PC behaved as if nothing had happened.

Did a "Housecall" AV + Trojan check - clean
Did a "Microsoft" check - clean

Have ZA latest (free) edition running. Likewise ADAWARE.

I can only assume the PC had been having a bad day due overheating of CPU - two days of 29 centigrade type heat-soak and I must admit the "box" is not exactly well ventillated and I run it for hours and hours............. can anybody offer another explantion please?

I know I will probably get blasted, but I am not too keen to download every MS Security patch they offer - can the experts tell me please what ones I really should have?


System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 7/12/2005, 22:46:45
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1024MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode
-------------------

Very many thanks

TG

[sky330]

Overeating may be the culprit but in that case quite often the PC frozen completly.

Could be a lot of other things, for instance, a memory leak.

Did the hard disk spins a lot during the event??

One program assigns memory and doesn't release it and slowly "eats up" all the memory until the level of swapping became intolerable.

It doesn't matters if you have a lot of memory, it just take longer that way..

It happens when one program is running (even in background, without your knowledge) for a long time. It is solves by a reboot that cleared the memory.

Other possibilities are drivers for hardware or network using all cpu power because the respawn themselves a zillion times.

If is occurs again, try to find some info about what the pc was doing (systematic problem with this program or after using my USB camera, or whatever I do after 25.5 hours), was cpu idle or at 100%, hard disk idle or turning like crazy....

It can take forever to find the real responsible, in the mean time, labelled it as glitch (=Gremlins Looking Into The Computer Housing) or cosmic rays interference, your choice :E

[Tartan Giant]

Your reply was much appreciated......... thanks.

The hard disk was VERY quite and no "chuntering" from inside the PC.

This is the first time it's ever happened, but perhaps it was the latest software I installed was the problem........... SKYPE, the free internet phone system.

I had it "off" when the problem started (the mouse slowing up) - or maybe it's not "off" when I thought it was!

The PC seems to be running fine now, but what a strange glitch.

Cheers

TG

[Ausatco]

It may have been Skype. I recall that on a couple of occasions when I started Skype or when I had it set to start on boot it took ages to settle down.

I get the same effect when I start Limewire (file sharing prog). It does A LOT of processor intensive network activity, maybe a solid 3 minutes or so, before it frees everything up and the system returns to normal.

Try starting and stopping Skype a few times and see if there's a pattern.

Cheers

AA

[Tartan Giant]

G'Day Ausatco,

Much obliged for the confirmatory post about SKYPE.

I have now diabled it on start-up, but I've got it available as a desk-top icon when I need to fire it up.

It's all working....... so no trying to fix it....... ha ha.


Cheers

TG

[Ausatco]

Glad I could help, TG.

My better half is Canadian. We use Skype from PC here to landline phone in Canada to talk to her folks. It's great. Unfortunately they're technical luddites over there (her family, that is, not all Canucks!) so we can't get the full cost benefit of PC to PC Skype, but it's still cheaper than our telcos can offer.

Have you seen the USB VoIP phone handsets that are available and will work with Skype (and I presume others)? They're not expensive. I've mislaid the URL or ad or whatever. If I can find it I'll post it here for you.

Cheers

AA