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Slowed Down My PC

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bob99:

Somehow or another I happened across the SC page a week or so ago and viewed the demo.  I liked what I saw and downloaded a copy to try.
I loaded it two days ago and started trying it with a couple of different programs I would like to get screen shots of.  After a while of that I closed down SC and started doing other work.  I noticed that my other programs were running slower.  I re-booted to see if that would help but it didn't.  Each program I tried loaded slower and ran slower.  Outlook, Adobe, Word, etc.  Toolbars are opening slower, searches taking longer, etc.  And when I would shut down in hibernate mode it even took longer.
So I un-installed SC using SC's un-install to see if I could get everthing back to speed.  No luck.  Everything is still running noticeably slower.  I am even hearing some distortion out of the speaker at times.  Hibernate is now taking over a minute to shut down and longer to start-up than when it was pre-SC.  This is a laptop running XP Pro.
I really like the SC program and would like to donate and continue to use it.  Any suggestions on what could have caused this?  And how I can get things back to the way they were?   Thanks.

mouser:
It can't be Screenshot Captor that is causing this problem.  The program simply does not install any system files or services or anything that could possibly do it.

I don't doubt that you are having the problem but it can't be related to Screenshot Captor.

See if you can't figure out if there is a single process causing the slowdown (hit ctrl+alt+delete and sort the Processes list by the CPU column and see if you spot something using up a good chunk of the cpu).

It could also be your antivirus or firewall, since these are programs that are always running and tend to auto-update and so problems can start spontaneously.

One thing you could try if you suspect its a firewall or antivirus issue would be to disconnect from the internet and uninstall your antivirus and firewall, then see if the speed problem is fixed, and then try installing different ones.

Also make sure you allow your laptop plenty of time to start up before you start expecting it to behave at top speed -- windows needs some initial time to load everything into memory, etc.

bob99:

Thanks for responding.  I've been involved in other things and not been able to get back to you sooner.
I wasn't sure if there may have been anything added or tweaked to assist in creating the captures.  I've heard of, & had it happen to me before, of slight conflicts between different programs when a new one is installed.  Not intended... just happens.

I checked the system performance as you mentioned (have it running now), and I my CPU usage isn't bad.  So "slowed my pc down" maybe isn't the best description?  But my programs are taking a LOT longer to load and at times process.  Even though the cpu usage never indicates over about 53%.  In one instance I tried printing a pdf document and after about 10 minutes of waiting for it to print, just cancelled it out. I was monitoring it through the task manager and it would keep toggling between no response and running.  My printer operates fine.  I had printed just before the the pdf and just after.  And the pdf is one I've printed before.

Does that make any sense, the cpu usage is normally low to a max of just over 50% and it is taking longer and longer for programs to load?
I need to try and figure out what's happeneing.  Seems like this thing is slowing more and more every day.  At times it is even slow to switch between 3 open programs/windows.

Anyway, I know this isn't the place/forum to try and diagnose the problem with my machine.  Just that the problems started after loading SC and I wanted to find out if it may have made any changes to any settings.  Ends up it is just coincidence.  If there is another site you can suggest that may help me sort this out it will be greatly appreciated.  Once I get this back up to speed I'll definitely be using SC.

Thanks!

f0dder:
On a normal system, CPU usage of 50% is a lot - especially if it's a dualcore, since that means an entire core is maxed out. Normal idle CPU usage, even on a machine with a lot of background apps running, generally shouldn't hit more than 5% or so.

Is there any single process using up all those CPU cycles?

bob99:
F0dder,

Thanks for the info.  It is a dual core.  I ran sysinternals Process Explorer but don't see anything hogging the CPU on a continuous basis.  At times I'm seeing interrupts of some type that will get up to 20 & 30% for a short while.  Not sure how to determine what they are.  And occasionally deferred procedure calls.  Any way of determining what the hardware interrupts are, if it is the same one every time, etc.  I AM running Norton IS 2008.  2006 was a pain and caused some problems but 2008 has been running fine since I installed it over a month ago.  I've already turned off auto-update to make sure it wasn't a conflict.

Thanks again!

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