Clients computer slow as fuck, routine scans didn't help

[CjienX]

Got a call from a woman I built a computer for saying that it was slow etc, and the front usb ports don't work.

I opened it up and it turns out a wire melted causing the front usb ports to stop working, but I had a spare 4 port usb hub that I never used so she decided to just do that because she doesn't like wires in the front anyway, so I went and started doing scans with AVG\Defraggler\Malwarebytes\CCleaner\and some new thing AVG made that they have a free 24 hour trial for just for the hell of it (I uninstalled it afterwards).

Because the client is also my moms friend I decided that once it was down to the last scan I'd set it to shut down when it's done and tell her to call me when that happens and to turn it back on just to tell me how long the startup time was and if she saw improvement so I could leave early and she wouldn't have to pay for any extra time, and when she called back about 2 hours later she said that it was still pretty slow (~4 minutes for startup from 10 minutes when I had first gotten there), so I told her that I'll start looking online for something else I can try, but my next step after that would be to backup her files and just do a clean install of windows.

You guys have any suggestions?

[ze beaver]

A cable [b]melted[/b] in a computer and you didn't check the temperatures or if the fans were even working?

:byodood:

[CjienX]

I did, it was one cable in a tie of 4, I honestly have no clue what could have caused it. Ended up just telling her it was probably from literally never turning the computer off in months because. The temps were all normal and the fan worked fine

Just the plastic bit was actually melted, I couldn't really tell if the physical wire inside was damaged at all

[ze beaver]

Oh ok.

Did you check the startup programs? Stuff like CCC and Java updater only make your boot time longer.

[editline]21st February 2011[/editline]

Oh and the obvious : Defrag.

[CjienX]

Yeah, only programs that she actually uses were set to run on startup

[Danneh]

You checked for anything running in the background thats using lots of CPU or memory?

[CjienX]

system.exe on user system was taking up around 90-99% of the cpu

[ze beaver]

[QUOTE=CjienX;28221604]system.exe on user system was taking up around 90-99% of the cpu[/QUOTE]

From what I've gathered, "system.exe" should be [url]http://www.realvnc.com/[/url]

What the fuck is it doing there.

[editline]22nd February 2011[/editline]

May I suggest scanning with the Nod32 trial?

[CjienX]

Well, I'm probably just gonna do a fresh install of xp, and it sounds like she's gonna get rid of this and get a mac because all her friends have macs from the 90s and act like they're the best fucking things in the world (they actually say that their computer that they've had since the late 90s can outperform a custom built computer on a $1000 budget :downs:)

Anyway, is there any software I should look into putting on once I do the resinstall? Obviously AVG and malwarebytes wasn't enough

[CjienX]

So I installed windows again, currently installing her software, but it's still slow as shit.

[CjienX]

A reboot seemed to fix the speed problem, but now I got a call from her as I'm getting home and she says her speaker icon is just plain gone and her computer has no audio :geno:

[Thor667]

What are the specs of this system and how old is it?

[RixxzIV]

[QUOTE=CjienX;28243890]A reboot seemed to fix the speed problem, but now I got a call from her as I'm getting home and she says her speaker icon is just plain gone and her computer has no audio :geno:[/QUOTE]

Probably due to the audio driver fucking up for some reason.

[Zolofto]

[QUOTE=RixxzIV;28252416]Probably due to the audio driver fucking up for some reason.[/QUOTE]
This.

Also check if "Windows Audio" service is running (run: services.msc)
If nothing turns up there, or refuses to turn on, or sound doesn't restore after a (re)start of the service, proceed to check the device (run: devmgmt.msc). See if the device is there, if not, go to Actions, Scan for new hardware. If nothing turns up, and its an integrated soundchip, check BIOS. If its a dedicated, install their drivers/reseat the device.

For the slowness, if its on XP, look for BootVis. It helps me a lot.

[CjienX]

I just put the motherboard cd in, went to the device manager, and removed\reinstalled the audio driver, worked perfectly.

I'm probably gonna just change from AVG to Avast so she doesn't complain that I put in the same antivirus that let the "virus" (I decided to just not argue with her and let her just listen to her friends and believe a virus was the problem) in last time.

So Avast, Malwarebytes, and the basics like WinRar and VLC, and I'll give BootVis a try, is there anything else I should look into?