Sounds like you have very stubborn spyware or rootkits wormed into the 
normal mode drivers. Scan and remove them as best as you can, or punch the 
easy button and reload the system from scratch. In the case of a restore 
back to factory condition, you would need to reinstall all the patches to 
Windows and the system drivers, and any programs that were not bundled with 
the machine. Be sure to have a good antivirus and anti-spyware solution in 
place after the fact to prevent reinfection. Grisoft publishes freeware 
versions of AVG Antivirus and AVG Anti-rootkit, and I have used both 
products with results on par with Norton. I use AdAware and Spybot as my 
spyware scanners, also with good results. Best wishes for speedier 
computing. :)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Hachmeyer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 8:50 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] slow responding HP win xp mce


> My HP media center PC takes about 5 minutes to boot up.  Seems to be a 
> software issue, can't find anything with hardware - removed all pci cards, 
> all memory except 1 stick, disconnected cd drives and usb items.  Tried 
> different single memory stick as well.  Onboard video in use instead of 
> video pci card, standard crt monitor, mouse and keyboard.  HD has been 
> scanned by latest symantec AV from website, ran spybot and ad-aware, 
> cleaned and defragged HD, 60% free space.   When booted in safe mode, 
> seems to run normally.  When booted normally, very slow.  Via task 
> manager, shut down everything that wasn't loaded in safe mode, still very 
> slow - we're talking 3-4 minutes to open any program, any type of mouse 
> click.  Reset bios to default settings.  Only thing that seems odd is the 
> pnp setting for the os is set to no, bios configures pnp with this setting 
> rather than the os..
> If I were to try software repair option from the hp recovery console, 
> would I have any problems repairing the windows xp mce software?  Would 
> all the patches and updates already in place need to be reloaded?  Any 
> other suggestions I can try?
> Paul Hachmeyer
>
>                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>
> 

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