Tag Archives: slow pc

very slow PC due to spoolsv.exe using 100% CPU

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer has a PC that seems almost stopped.

The mouse pointer moves without a problem, but actions like clicking on the start button take over 1 minute to complete…

I try safe mode, and the PC operates normally.

Maybe its an infection… but there are none of the obvious signs (popups and strange startup programs).

I restart in normal mode, and start the task manager as quickly as possible. Hopefully I’ll get a look at whats causing the problem before task manager becomes unusable.

And it works. I see spoolsv.exe sitting at 100% cpu usage.

Hold on. spoolsv is the printer spool service… why would a print spooler go haywire?

Anyway, I kill the process, and everything returns to normal… for about 1 minute.

Then everything starts slowing down again.

A look at task manager shows that spoolsv.exe has been restarted…

Hmmm, I guess I’ll just lower the priority of the spooler… but permission is denied. In that case, I stop the spooler service (control panel -> administrative tools -> services)

Now I can use the system, and look for a solution.

It seems that a few different places on the net agree that the best way to resolve this to delete the files in the c:windowssystem32spoolprinters

I’m a bit more cautious, so I start in safe mode, make sure the spooler service is stopped (and spoolsv.exe is not running). Then I move the 2 files (*.spl & *.shd) to a temporary folder.

I restart the PC, and the problem is finally fixed.

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Badly installed Norton Internet Security and GoBack (very slow PC)

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer calls saying since renewing NIS, her PC is running unbearably slow.

Looking at the PC, I notice a few strange things:

  • NIS is installed (but causing PC to run very slow)
  • An older version of NAV is also running
  • It looks like the older NAV is part of Norton Systemworks
  • During a reboot, it also looks like Norton GoBack is also running…

The user says that she just wanted NIS, but since she didn’t understand most “prompts”, she just said OK to all of them (that explains GoBack).

The first thing I try is uninstalling NAV and NIS in the official way (add-remove programs)… but it fails (after 20 minutes of waiting)… OK, time to get ruthless.

I disable all symantec tasks in the startup folder, registry, and services

I then reboot and I’m pleased to see the PC is now much faster.

I try to remove GoBack, but it also fails. So I lookup how to manually remove it (from the net)… It involves a few reboots, but I manage to disable it completely.

As an aside: why would I want to disable GoBack? Under some circumstances, it can cause a HUGE slowdown in your system performance. All it takes is something (that GoBack doesn’t recognise) to write to the disk quite intensely (eg a disk defrag program not recognised by goback).

I once had a problem with a huge slowdown a few weeks after installing GoBack… I didn’t know why… its just so easy to forget about GoBack once it is installed. Once I figured out what was going on, I removed GoBack and vowed never to use it again. If you like the idea of GoBack, then do a daily backup to a second physical disk instead… it works much better.

Anyway, I now manually remove NIS, Systemworks, and any other Symantec application. Everything seems to work well, but I’ve run out of time (customer doesn’t want to spend more than 2 hours worth).

Since she seems to have lost the NIS install file that she downloaded from the internet, I tell her she should download the file again, then try installing it again (and if she has any problems, to give me a call). This way I won’t spend up to 1 hour waiting for a download to complete, and another 30 Minutes installing and configuring NIS.

Slow video and dvd playback

Computer Aid Posted on by

A past customer calls and says that he thinks the video card is about to breakdown.

I arrive (at the time, only his wife is there, & she cannot help much). I run lots of tests, to see If there is a hardware problem. I check voltages, I run stress tests on the CPU, memory, video cards (2D & 3D tests), and nothing unusual is found. Eventually, I notice a big slowdown in response, if I run 3D graphics tests & also a 3D screensaver. But I can’t tell if it’s just the vid card being overworked.

The hubby comes home & say it only seems to happen during DVD & AVI playbacks. Sure enough, its so slow, that the mouse cursor only updates every 10 seconds!

Having seen this before, I know it’s probably a problem with a video codec, or a system DLL. But it could also be a registry issue. Since I cannot be sure an in-place reinstall of XP will fix the problem, I recommend a full windows reinstall.

In over 14 months of operation, this is probably the second time I’ve recommended a full reinstall in order to fix a problem… but given the severe slowdown & it’s next to impossible to track down the source of the problem, there is no other choice.

They agree to backup everything & I return in 1 week & do the reinstall.

Then I hit another snag: XP couldn’t find drivers for many motherboard devices. Including the ethernet adapter (but the usb drivers are fine). Ok, I look around the computer room, looking for a CD with the motherboard drivers (they must have it, as I sold them a new hard drive 6 months ago, so they must have used the driver disk at that stage).

I can only find a video driver CD (I install it, since I’ll have to do it eventually).

They have a cable modem with a USB port, so even the ISP installation CD would work, (anything to get me onto the internet & download the latest mobo drivers). Given that the CDs cannot be found, I take the PC to the office, download the latest mobo drivers, burn them to CD, install them to the PC, and I can finally get it working on my internet connection.

I take the PC back, but for some reason, the ethernet connector won’t get an IP address from the modem… I know it was working at my office, so I try some ipconfig commands, but no luck. I power-cycle the modem, and bingo! we now have an internet connection.

Another long, drawn-out problem, is finally resolved!

If anyone has a simple way to ‘refesh’ all the video-related files (codecs, dlls etc), I’d be very interested to hear about it!