Is Security Killing my PC?

Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional (5.0, Build 2195) Service Pack 3
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MATSONIC
System Model: MS8157E
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) , MMX, 3DNow, ~1.2GHz
Memory: 1024MB PC 2100 DDR RAM
Page File: 160MB used, 1102MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINNT
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0 (4.09.0000.0900)
DX Setup Parameters: /WindowsUpdate
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0000.0900 32bit Unicode


There is a little info on my system. Ive ran Ad Aware 6, Nortons Security, norton antivirus, norton systemworks, and all 2003. I seem to be coming up with a system lag CPU is hitting 100% indicating that the system is taking up all the resorces. I have ran everything you could think of to find the problem and I have come up with is nothing except blue screen of death a few times. I did some research and found that many others like myself have simular problems with windows 2000 pro. Of course they didnt specify there exact problem. My problem starts mostly in IE. Pages where comeing up slower than slugs. then I noticed programs not locking up but just pushin 100% killing the CPU. Now the CPU does have A heatsink fan so I know it cant be overheating and Ive never tried to overclocked my system. If any of you have an Idea as to what this problem could be let meknow ok. I am thinking it could be a new worm that hasnt been detected yet. who knows... Not me....

Set the system works on Idle mode (only optimises pc when idle.

Run adaware only once a week. (all thats required)

Tweak the norton firewall so and run a complete scan from beggining to end.
If you don't run a complete scan once the program keeps trying to do it behind the scenes.

Think about where the threat you are trying to avoid is coming from and set up the FW software with appropriate avoidance. e.g its pretty pointless continually scanning your ports, harddisk etc.

SO you think my systemworks is killing me in my sleep? yeah I only run ad aware when I find my system to be slowing. I have norton Ativirus set too run every mon, wen, fri at 2 am fire wall is set to barely let me on the internet na just kidding its set at a good not so parinoid setting. I got the tool Startup Control Panel 2.8 by Mike Lin, it help remove programs from the startup and didnt seem to help any. I am planning on updating my CPU to a 2.4 ghz but that wont be for a nother month or so and I dont know if this problem is going to pass over to the next chip. Who Knows?....

Try this tool

Sometimes the programs that are suposed to help you impeade you..
I am not a fan of System works, it may help but I haven't seen any positives..yet,,
And your problem will certainly go across to the new chip.. if you have malware, or a buggy installation the problem will continue..
I have a friend who was using XP-pro with 1Gb of ram and complained of similar problems.. we found a problem in his MOBO.. this is not to say that this is your problem..
Are you running any system "enhancement" Programs? Memory boosters/defragmenters?
Veryfew of these are worth the time wasted installing them.. Had ppl swaer by them but there system performance seemed no better than any other with the same spec's and the benchmarks were worse..

sry about that I had started to try to help.. all I did was bag some software..

advice.. stop Norton Systemworks completly, stick Norton Security in the bin, you can find a number of better progs .. The AV I still hold a bit of respect.. just..just..
Hardware wise - You may have a memory problem.. especialy if it is made up of more than a single stick.. (most likely with 1024MB) if it is three sticks the likelyhood is greater still.. unless you purchased quality sticks and they were matched (by electrical specification)..

I could post more .. this should be a start

Cheers

try de-fragmenting the drive then run a full scan

One thing I've noticed over the years is the large number of annoying problems caused by a corrupt winsock... You'd be amazed what simply doing a repair of internet explorer will do for you. Of course that's only available if the version of IE that comes with the pc has been upgraded.

One symptom of this problem is if you click on something like the controll panel and it seems to hang, then all of a sudden like a waterfall everything you clicked on happens. This is allmost allways "fixed" by doing a repair of IE.

Yeah I see what you are saying machinehead but I dont come up with any errors when I run a full system check. Its the system process that is taking all the CPU resources and ive killed the Iexplore.exe from the processes page.

TMaster101 Ive done all that thats why im here posting my question now. I always run the basics first before moving on to the alternate path if you know what I mean.

Thanks mark I ran the tool cant tell if it has worked yet for the fact that the system only screws up part of the time.

Go to Start, Run, and type in services.msc ....right click and stop all of the Symantec/Norton related services that are running. This will help you isolate the problem. You can also kill or set to manual any services that you do not need or use frequently, this will speed up the system big time. Just do not disable anything that the system requires to boot or run properly...Good Luck.

When I have problems that I can't trace down... the first places I start is the event log.

Look up errors. Many errors are related to each other.

Since you have already run utilities... next thing I'd want to do is monitor what is going on in the background. I want to know where and why a program is hanging....

For that, I use filemon and regmon from sysinternals.com

These will help isolate the problem too.

You'd be surprised all the action that goes on in the background...
I was, the first time I saw these utilities.