Need Help on Fixing Windows

[Mortgage Paul]

I have this HP Laptop with a Turion 64 2 Gig processor(ML-37) and a gig of ram running Windows Media Center.

I had McAfee and when they recently upgraded their Security Center/Virus scan, I was one of hundreds with a system brought to a crawl

I have uninstalled all McAfee, ran their removal tools and everything shows gone. Ive switched to Avast Free for now.

When I had he Mcafee, I figured the slowness was a virus/some other problem.

Nothing shows up, not in Adaware/Spybot, Housecall/ other online scanners etc.

I even updated and ran Mcafees before uninstalling and nothing shows.
CW shredder is clean, and not sure about HiJack this, but I didnt notice anything that would worry me.

Anyway, ever since the Mcafee deal, it takes 10-15 minutes to full boot(3 mins XP scroll screen, 2 minutes pure black screen, then the Windows log on screen.........then another 2-3 to load programs /icons)

This all used to take 2 mins tops.

Also, when playing videos/mp3 etc, the audio snaps crackles and stutters like there is 20 programs running..

My CPU usage is only 10-13% except when it does the stutter thing, but nothing is taking much CPU use.

Ram is using 200-400 MB of a gig.

MCafee said there was some conflicts with Free zone alarm and their product.

I did notice that the last program to load now is Zone Alarm but noticed that because I get this "Zone Alarm is Initializing, click here to shut down zone Alarm window"

I never got that prior becasue everything loaded so fast.

Would Uninstalling ZOne Alarm and reinstalling help? It just seems like theres something bogging the system.

Kinda like a bike with a fiddle string tight chains, wheel doesnt roll good. Loosen the chain and all is well.

Has anyone ever done the windows reinstall without losing everything, programs/setttings etc like it shows on Langa.com??

I need help becasue my 7 year old P3 500 MHz with 128 MB of Ram kills this thing. Its only 3 months old also.

Is there any preferred disk/CPU/Motherboard testers to see if thatts the problem?

Also, I ran RegSupremePro and cleaned out all kinds of dead entries etc.

Did nothing to help.

Any suggestions on what to do? Everything works fine, its just incredibly slow.

Thanks

 

[Taffy Apple]

What happens if you boot to safe mode?

First thing, win+r and type msconfig go to the startup tab and remove any startup items there that refer to mcafee.

You can try disabling the zlclient too to see if that speeds up your boot time. If it does you want to check in the zone alarm console that you haven't blocked anything like the generic win32 process.

 

[Mortgage Paul]

havent tried booting to safe made.

When I do that, what would I look for?

there is nothing left of MCafee and nothing in the start up menu that is checked.

I will uncheck the Zone Alarm Client and try rebooting and see what Happens.

I take it, if zone alarm is conflicting with something, that will disable its starting correct?

I guess thats a easier check than uninstalling and trying it.

In the Zone Alarm program list "Generic Host for Win32 Services is checked Green for access to trusted and Internet Zones, and has a Question mark for the Server Side trusted zone and a red X for the Server Internet Zones.

I would imagine at one point it asked to act as a server and I said no.

I will change it to "ask" and see what happens also.

thanks.

 

[Mortgage Paul]

Nothing helped. Other than waiting for Zone Alarm to start its the same.

It takes 45-60 seconds for firefox to open. used to be instant.

With Zone Alarm off I tried listening to an MP3. same stuttering, cracking and popping and spikes of CPU usage from WMP.

Sometimes I noticed it would happen if Avast virus scan kicked in to scan the file upon opening. So I turned that off, same thing.

Could a bad sound card or board be causing this?

I went to HPs online PC checker deal and it says disc etc are all good.

Is there any preferred disc/CPU/motherboard testers available?