I've got a strage intermittent problem - Win XP

About once every week or two, when I boot up my computer in the morning,
it will run excruciatingly slow. If I open a program, it might take 30
seconds to load (normally instantaneously). The clock on the desktop
updates every three seconds or so (to the correct time). If I select
"shutdown", that process seems to take 30 seconds for each step until it
finally shuts down. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't show any particular program
hogging up the cpu. Nothing funny in the start menu. No excessive hard
drive activity.

When I reboot the computer it is its normal peppy 3.8 gh self. Might
not recur for a couple of weeks.

OS is a fresh load (last September) of WIN XP Pro onto a brand new
motherboard, processor & memory. The problem appeared in the first boot
after installation and didn't recur for a couple of months.

Any suggestions for a troubleshooting process I could follow? Any
particular logs that I could trace to the date and time of occurrence?

Rich

Rich Hare wrote on 2016/01/28:

About once every week or two, when I boot up my computer in the morning,
it will run excruciatingly slow. If I open a program, it might take 30
seconds to load (normally instantaneously). The clock on the desktop
updates every three seconds or so (to the correct time). If I select
"shutdown", that process seems to take 30 seconds for each step until it
finally shuts down. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't show any particular program
hogging up the cpu. Nothing funny in the start menu. No excessive hard
drive activity.

When I reboot the computer it is its normal peppy 3.8 gh self. Might
not recur for a couple of weeks.

OS is a fresh load (last September) of WIN XP Pro onto a brand new
motherboard, processor & memory. The problem appeared in the first boot
after installation and didn't recur for a couple of months.

Any suggestions for a troubleshooting process I could follow? Any
particular logs that I could trace to the date and time of occurrence?

Rich

How is Windows Update configured?
How are applications configured for automatic update?
Is your antivirus scheduled to run scans?
Do you run backup jobs? Do they run while you are use the computer?

Rich Hare wrote on 1/28/2016 8:13 AM:
About once every week or two, when I boot up my computer in the morning,
it will run excruciatingly slow. If I open a program, it might take 30
seconds to load (normally instantaneously). The clock on the desktop
updates every three seconds or so (to the correct time). If I select
"shutdown", that process seems to take 30 seconds for each step until it
finally shuts down. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't show any particular program
hogging up the cpu. Nothing funny in the start menu. No excessive hard
drive activity.

When I reboot the computer it is its normal peppy 3.8 gh self. Might
not recur for a couple of weeks.

OS is a fresh load (last September) of WIN XP Pro onto a brand new
motherboard, processor & memory. The problem appeared in the first boot
after installation and didn't recur for a couple of months.

Any suggestions for a troubleshooting process I could follow? Any
particular logs that I could trace to the date and time of occurrence?

I'll make an uniformed guess: Your OS and applications periodically call
"home" to see if updates are available. If your computer is sleeping or
off when several calls are scheduled, they will all attempt to run when
the computer is woke/booted. It might seem random when this happens but
different software uses different periods between home calls so you'd
have to do a fairly extensive model to predict when the business would
occur. Of course there are naughty programs that call home periodically
for reasons other than update checking. Next time this happens pop up
the Task Manager and look at network activity for a few minutes. Compare
what you see when you bring your computer up and don't have the problem.
Don't forget that there is major resource usage when Microsoft operating
systems check on updates.
--
Jeff Barnett

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 14:20:17 -0700, Jeff Barnett wrote:
Next time this happens pop up
the Task Manager and look at network activity for a few minutes.

Also get these two tools:

- Microsoft Process Explorer. To see which process is hoging the CPU
processing time. If the process is one of the service processes such as
SVCHOST.EXE and SERVICES.EXE, this tool can show what services are hosted in
that process. i.e. a list of services which are possible culprit.

- A CPU speed and CPU fan speed monitoring tool. In case this is not a
software issue, the tool can show you if the CPU or the CPU fan is not
running at full speed or if the CPU is overheated (which could cause the CPU
to slow itself down automatically).