I have a Dell Inspiron 1720 with Vista SP1. I got a virus about 2 weeks ago and re installed Vista. Everything worked fine for a week, then the computer became slow at some point. I use the computer for music production so I noticed everything slowed down because my projects were suddenly overloading the system.

Anyway, I have tried to work what is wrong. I have scanned with Kaperksy, Ad Aware, Spybot and not found anything. I have checked device manager and everything is working fine. There is plenty of space on the hard disk. I have checked programs running at startup and disabled any unnecessary. I have checked disks for errors. I have also had Combofix and Hijack this logs analysed on this website and nothing was found.

So what else could it be? And everything worked fine for a week after re installing the operating system, then everything seemed to suddenly slow down. I had been installing a lot of software, but only programs I had on before I re installed the operating system.

Any help appreciated

AW

Defrrag your hard drive one for thing. If you have been installing lots of programs it might be terribly fragmented. Also watch your RAM consumption with task manager (right click on the task bar and select task manager). Depending on upon what you do certain services in Vista can be turned off safely and depending upon what you have installed some programs like to run things all of the time. If you are running more processes than you have room for on your ram then some processes will have to be run from the hard drive which is terribly slow. Right click on computer (from the desktop or the start menu) and select properties. Look beside "Memory (RAM)" for your system's ram, and compare that to what it says under the performance tab. Tell me how much you have and how much memory it says that you are using when you are running nothing in you next post and if you want I can help you turn things off or you can follow this guide.

Hard drive is defragged. The system has 2 gb RAM and uses about 850MB with nothing running. Is that normal?

Thanks for the help

The system has 2 gb RAM and uses about 850MB with nothing running. Is that normal?

Yes. This is how Vista handles RAM. It caches as much RAM, as it can, no matter, running programs, or not.

Please, download DDS from one of the 2 mirrors and save it to your desktop.

Mirror 1
Mirror 2

* Disable any script blocking protection (if present)
* Double click the dds icon to run the tool.
* When done, DDS will open two logs:
1. DDS.txt
2. Attach.txt
* Save both reports to your desktop by clicking File>Save As in each log.

Include the contents of both logs in your new topic. The scan will instruct you to post Attach.txt as an attachment. No need for that though ..... just post it's contents as you would any other log.

Yep thats about right for Vista. After a fresh reboot my uses less but I have stuff that I don't need turned off.

You already looked at that DDS log for me Broni, shall I run it again?

Also, when I run my music programs Ive looked on the task manager performance section and the CPU is is maxing out, but the RAM is usage is ok.

I see. I found your other thread.

Let me look at your startups...

Download HijackThis:
TrendSecure | Download TrendMicro HijackThis
by clicking on Download HijackThis Installer
Install, and run it.
Post HijackTHis log.
Do NOT attempt to fix anything!

NOTE. If you're using Vista, right click on HijackThis, and click Run as Administrator

Here we go:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 11:28:45, on 21/08/2009
Platform: Windows Vista SP2 (WinNT 6.00.1906)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.6001.18813)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\Windows\system32\taskeng.exe
C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe
C:\Program Files\DellTPad\Apoint.exe
C:\Windows\OEM02Mon.exe
C:\Windows\System32\ico.exe
C:\Windows\System32\M-AudioTaskBarIcon.exe
C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe
C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe
C:\Windows\sttray.exe
C:\Program Files\DellSupport\DSAgnt.exe
C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe
C:\Program Files\SAGEM\SAGEM F@st 800-840\dslmon.exe
C:\Program Files\Dell\QuickSet\quickset.exe
C:\Program Files\DellTPad\ApMsgFwd.exe
C:\Program Files\DellTPad\HidFind.exe
C:\Program Files\DellTPad\Apntex.exe
C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = Dell EMEA
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = MSN.com
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = Bing
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = Bing
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = MSN.com
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName =
O1 - Hosts: ::1 localhost
O2 - BHO: Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: Spybot-S&D IE Protection - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O2 - BHO: IEVkbdBHO - {59273AB4-E7D3-40F9-A1A8-6FA9CCA1862C} - C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\ievkbd.dll
O2 - BHO: Groove GFS Browser Helper - {72853161-30C5-4D22-B7F9-0BBC1D38A37E} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\GRA8E1~1.DLL
O2 - BHO: SSVHelper Class - {761497BB-D6F0-462C-B6EB-D4DAF1D92D43} - c:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\bin\ssv.dll
O2 - BHO: link filter bho - {E33CF602-D945-461A-83F0-819F76A199F8} - C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\klwtbbho.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Windows Defender] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe -hide
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Apoint] C:\Program Files\DellTPad\Apoint.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [OEM02Mon.exe] C:\Windows\OEM02Mon.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PMX Daemon] ICO.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [DELL Webcam Manager] "C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell Webcam Manager\DellWMgr.exe" /s
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVP] "C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\avp.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [M-Audio Taskbar Icon] C:\Windows\System32\M-AudioTaskBarIcon.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\Windows\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\Windows\system32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NVHotkey] rundll32.exe C:\Windows\system32\nvHotkey.dll,Start
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SigmatelSysTrayApp] sttray.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [DellSupport] "C:\Program Files\DellSupport\DSAgnt.exe" /startup
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Skype] "C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" /nosplash /minimized
O4 - Global Startup: DSLMON.lnk = C:\Program Files\SAGEM\SAGEM F@st 800-840\dslmon.exe
O4 - Global Startup: QuickSet.lnk = ?
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\EXCEL.EXE/3000
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - c:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\bin\npjpi160.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - c:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\bin\npjpi160.dll
O9 - Extra button: Send to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\ONBttnIE.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: S&end to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\ONBttnIE.dll
O9 - Extra button: &Virtual keyboard - {4248FE82-7FCB-46AC-B270-339F08212110} - C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\klwtbbho.dll
O9 - Extra button: Research - {92780B25-18CC-41C8-B9BE-3C9C571A8263} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\REFIEBAR.DLL
O9 - Extra button: URLs c&heck - {CCF151D8-D089-449F-A5A4-D9909053F20F} - C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\klwtbbho.dll
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {DFB852A3-47F8-48C4-A200-58CAB36FD2A2} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Spybot - Search & Destroy Configuration - {DFB852A3-47F8-48C4-A200-58CAB36FD2A2} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll
O13 - Gopher Prefix:
O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{0BBFCCCF-B79E-4C90-8246-38798C641273}: NameServer = 212.139.132.37 212.139.132.36
O17 - HKLM\System\CS1\Services\Tcpip\..\{0BBFCCCF-B79E-4C90-8246-38798C641273}: NameServer = 212.139.132.37 212.139.132.36
O18 - Protocol: grooveLocalGWS - {88FED34C-F0CA-4636-A375-3CB6248B04CD} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~3\Office12\GR99D3~1.DLL
O18 - Protocol: skype4com - {FFC8B962-9B40-4DFF-9458-1830C7DD7F5D} - C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\Skype\SKYPE4~1.DLL
O20 - AppInit_DLLs: C:\PROGRA~1\KASPER~1\KASPER~1\mzvkbd.dll C:\PROGRA~1\KASPER~1\KASPER~1\mzvkbd3.dll
O23 - Service: Apple Mobile Device - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\bin\AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
O23 - Service: Kaspersky Anti-Virus (AVP) - Kaspersky Lab - C:\Program Files\Kaspersky Lab\Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010\avp.exe
O23 - Service: Bonjour Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe
O23 - Service: DSBrokerService - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files\DellSupport\brkrsvc.exe
O23 - Service: InstallDriver Table Manager (IDriverT) - Macrovision Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Driver\1050\Intel 32\IDriverT.exe
O23 - Service: iPod Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe
O23 - Service: Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service - Lavasoft - C:\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\AAWService.exe
O23 - Service: RoxMediaDB9 - Sonic Solutions - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio Shared\9.0\SharedCOM\RoxMediaDB9.exe
O23 - Service: Roxio Hard Drive Watcher 9 (RoxWatch9) - Sonic Solutions - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio Shared\9.0\SharedCOM\RoxWatch9.exe
O23 - Service: SBSD Security Center Service (SBSDWSCService) - Safer Networking Ltd. - C:\Program Files\Spybot - Search & Destroy\SDWinSec.exe
O23 - Service: SigmaTel Audio Service (STacSV) - SigmaTel, Inc. - C:\Windows\system32\STacSV.exe
O23 - Service: stllssvr - MicroVision Development, Inc. - C:\Program Files\Common Files\SureThing Shared\stllssvr.exe
O23 - Service: XAudioService - Conexant Systems, Inc. - C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\xaudio.exe

--
End of file - 7031 bytes

Couple of suggestion...

Uninstall Dell Support, which is known for causing problems.
Disable Skype as a startup.