Computer related question

i have an old PIII 500

it seems to be accessing the hard drive almost continuously. i have run spybot, i have run virus scans, nothing shows up. i press "ctrl,alt,del" and no tasks are running, but the CPU usage meter fluctuates between 5% and 80% constantly.

anyone have any clues why?

this issue, began 2 days ago, prior to that it was a normal acting comp.

How much memory has it got? Did you recently install any new programs that have a background agent of some kind? Do you run a P2P program that is calculating hashes for all your files? Did you somehow enable drive indexing service when it was previously turned off?

:smile:

/me is suspecting a troj/worm

i have 384 megs of ram, nothing new has been installed or activated by myself in the last couple days.

/me is attempting a windows update, but progress is halting due to cpu usages :sad:

/me will also run AVG again and see if anything arises.

/me ran regclean already

nothing is running in the background that i have set up or am aware of.

/me is suspecting a troj/worm
/me is suspecting a troj/worm
/me is suspecting a troj/worm

dammit.

thanx jeff.

after hours i am still no closer to a solution, but i am almost sure its not a virus or a trojan, but the killer is, even though i can get to microsoft, it refuses to connect to the download area.

i am on the point of breaking out the razor blades, 2 days is enough already.. yesterday with steam/HL2 and today with microsoft..

/me goes and gets some java.

can someone else go to windows update and see if they can download something? at least i will know if its down, or i am :/

I can connect to i fine, no issue with the website :sad:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting ReNo</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I can connect to i fine, no issue with the website :sad:
</DIV></DIV>
i can connect just fine, i cannot download any updates.. did you try to get one?

Downloads fine too, no problems.

scratches noggin

very strange :sad:

thanx duncan

OK people, how does one go about turning "auto update" back on??

perhaps it can do a better job than i.

i disabled it ages ago so i would control the bandwidth used..

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Orpheus</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>OK people, how does one go about turning "auto update" back on??

perhaps it can do a better job than i.

i disabled it ages ago so i would control the bandwidth used..

</DIV></DIV>

start menu/settings/control panel/system/automatic updates tab
in XP anyway....

sadly, win2000pro :sad:

i have looked in the help menu, but it only displays manual activation, not auto update.

thanx irish..

anyone else??

Are you saying when you look at the processes window it doesn't tell you what executable file is using what CPU percentage and Ram amount?

2000 doesn't have an autoupdate, only XP (as far as I can remember). You have to update manually through their little help thingie (I don't really remember how though, it's been several years)

You might want to see if you need to expand the VMM size. A memory free tool could be of some use.

i found it, under control panel , but its not working either :sad:

i reinstalled IE 6, to no avail..

i seem to have the random accessing of the hard drive under control.. i think perhaps AVG was on, in spite of the fact that i had it turned to manual, instead of auto :/

so, i can now use the PC, but i cannot update windows at all.

this is truly strange, i normally do not have so much trouble hence tis why i posted here..

/me is frustrated to no end.

plus, windows update will only work with IE5 or above, so firefox and netscape are no good :sad:

any other suggestions guys?

are you trying to get service pack 4 for win 2000?

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting IrishGuinea</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>are you trying to get service pack 4 for win 2000?</DIV></DIV>
dunno, didn't read it.. i just have 23 critical updates.. it seems that none are available to download, cause the progress indicator stays at zero for... looks at watch almost 2 hours now :sad:

Orpheus said:
i found it, under control panel , but its not working either :sad:

i reinstalled IE 6, to no avail..

i seem to have the random accessing of the hard drive under control.. i think perhaps AVG was on, in spite of the fact that i had it turned to manual, instead of auto :/

so, i can now use the PC, but i cannot update windows at all.

this is truly strange, i normally do not have so much trouble hence tis why i posted here..

/me is frustrated to no end.

plus, windows update will only work with IE5 or above, so firefox and netscape are no good :sad:

any other suggestions guys?

Just download the stuff you want manually from MS's site if you want to update Windows so bad. All you need in that situation is a browser.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Crono</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Just download the stuff you want manually from MS's site if you want to update Windows so bad. All you need in that situation is a browser. </DIV></DIV>

hmm, you can download without using update then?

its not as if i want, its more i need.

i almost exclusively prefer IE, and as you are so famous for saying, its flawed. i want the loopholes filled, to block out those troj/virus issues.
so, you are saying i can download without going through windows update?

i dl'd the express sevice pack 4 installer and put it on my ftp since you cant get win update page to work... you can try it this way...

http://www.rbr.com/MW/SP4Express_EN.exe

service pack 4 updates all versions... heres a link about it as well

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/sp4/readmesp.htm#2_0_installing_the_service_pack_gaam

Hope this works.... worth a shot.

thanx irish, will do :smile:

? quoting Orpheus
? quoting Crono
Just download the stuff you want manually from MS's site if you want to update Windows so bad. All you need in that situation is a browser.
hmm, you can download without using update then?
its not as if i want, its more i need.
i almost exclusively prefer IE, and as you are so famous for saying, its flawed. i want the loopholes filled, to block out those troj/virus issues.
so, you are saying i can download without going through windows update?

Yes, they should have HTTP downloads (and Irish put up an FTP, apparently).

But most often MS patches create new holes and bugs, since they don't retest the software. (you can tell they don't retest it simply because of the frequency of updates, there shouldn't be 4 service packs for an OS, I would say even 1 service pack is questionable)

[EDIT]
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/critical/default.asp
They probably have a pre-packed installer somewhere else, but that's the first page I found.

Not that I suggest installing most of those.