On 18 Dec 2005 at 4:27, Tal Halpern wrote:

> Hi all,
> I have a very annoying computer. It is running awefuly slow, even when one application is running, and the minimum applications are in the background (Norton AV, modem, and Babylon sometimes).  I too often encounter the "white square" which replaces the red X on the explorer upper corner, and it stays stuck like that for a long time, sometimes even 30 sec...
>
> I know my hard-disk is sometimes full (maybe 2% free), but I've tried formating and putting the basics back on but got only a small change, if any.
> This makes me believe I probably have a hardware problem, but I'm not sure of that.
>
> I hope someone could point out some lead or hint.  I am including the summery of the Norton report.
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Tal.

  I would suspect that there's something running on this machine that
doesn't belong.

>   32-Bit Applications
>     SVCHOST.EXE: 3.10 MB
>     SVCHOST.EXE: 2.02 MB
>     SVCHOST.EXE: 20.8 MB
>     SVCHOST.EXE: 1.41 MB
>     SVCHOST.EXE: 1.86 MB

  It's normal to have about three instances of svchost.exe running.  Five
seems excessive -- and I've rarely seen *any* application require 20 MB!

>     BABYLON.EXE: 8.51 MB

  Do you know what this is?


David Gillett

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