I believe i have a worm, trojan, virus... something, I have 1.5k DSL, and sometimes it's like i have 56k.... my hard drive says 100% usage more than enough times, and what the hell are svchost.exe, or vsmon.exe?

I have had adawareSE, as well as EZ firewall LE.


any suggestions?

 

Well I can answer this part.

svchost.exe (Microsoft Service Host Process) is a process that is part of Windows, if you want to know exactly what it does go here.

vsmon.exe is part of ZoneAlarm firewall, so I assume you have that installed?

 

guess so, i can't end the process, so i thought that it might be part of a worm, etc....

as far as the svchost.ece is concerned, is it normal to have several of these going at once? under system, and local service?

 

What do you mean by this? 100% capacity or constantly reading/writing? Or maybe 100% cpu usage?

edit: you could get rid of the ZoneAlarm one by uninstalling ZoneAlarm, the other is part of the system. Neither should harm anything. I believe the ZoneAlarm one monitors network traffic.

It is normal to see multiple svchosts, they handle the other processes.

 

when it gets really slow, i get into the task manager, and it'll be at 100% usage, then change and go down to as little as 5%....

 

Is there any process in particular that's at 100% usage? Or was it svchost?

 

When it's reading 100% - that's CPU usage... that's why the computer is so slow, but it's cranking away as fast as it can but it can't keep up, so it's like it gets bogged down.

I assume you have antivirus software? Are the virus defs up to date? Have you run adaware? What about Spybot (like adaware)? Does it bog down with any regularity - i.e. every time you do this or that? What OS? How much RAM? How much disc space?

 

It didn't used to be like that....only in the last month or two, has it regularly hit 100%. when it happens i'm usually just surfing the web (and yotatech) but it's not like i've got 20 programs going at once or anything.... i used to have spybot, and when i run adaware or spybot i really couldn't do much more than that... i also have eTrust EZ antivirus.

i have XP, 256 Ram, and 40gig HD, and about 19gig free

 

go to www.bitdefender.com its free, best virus protection program to date!!! saved my ass more than once!!! i garantee that will fix your prob!

 

Go grab stinger to make sure you don't have one of the newer virus/worms and its free by the way and works rather well for the latest XP viruses.
Also be sure to got microsoft and get the latest patches that fixes alot of the holes in XP and there have been several in the last few months so update first maybe, if you don't already have the XP SP2 patch in get that and that has a decent free firewall built in and even a popup stoper that works pretty good for free. I really would sugest getting a router between you and the DSL connection it wil help mask your address from some of the viruses that can get on your system just for being turned on and not patched up with Microsofts patches.
Good luck keep us updated.... On occasuon your CPU could spike to 100% usually what I do is let it settle down a few minuites since when you first open it it will spike it up from explorer opening up task manager. Just keep your eye on what processes is spiking the highest.
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

 

I tried that bitdefender, and it found 68 viruses, so I'll run another scan when i'm done for the night. also when my computer acts up, i get a lot of the "the page cannot be displayed" stuff. i have to double click or more to get links to work, and even then it's a long shot whether or not it'll work.... like right now, i can't get the stinger link to come up..

I really do appreciate all the advise and help you guys have given me...

 

k, you say it goes to 100% then drops down to 5%, this is NORMAL, when you first open task manager it goes to 100%, as it obtains all the system data.. then returns back to what it was before you initiated the task manager. IF it stays at 100%, then you have a problem, and you can see which process is taking all your resources.

 

still seems like nothing works.....

 

save everything you want to keep to some sort of back up media. put in your windows disc and format your hard drive then re-install Windows. First thing, download all windows updates, then download AVG Anti Virus (its free)....ta da...I usually have to do this every 6 months to a year...

 

so wipe the HD clean?

 

Thats what I'd do....That would be more easy then fixing your problem, plus it will give you a clean slate and make it safe to use your computer for anything sensitive. Like online bill pay...

 

so just start copying stuff onto dvd+r discs? and when i have everything i want saved, put in my XP disc and that will wipe everything clean?

 

formatting the drive is a bit extreme for what you are experiencing.. have you looked in the 'pc tips' on this forum (my last couple posts in there should be of some use), there is alot of good information about getting your system running right again.. taking anywhere from 30-45 min to do them all, versus reinstalling windows and ALL your stuff (3-4 hours, on the long side)

but if you do opt to do the re-install..
when you put in the disc, restart the computer, go into bios (setup) and set the first boot device as 'cd-rom', then when it says 'press any key to boot from cd..' press a key.. delete the current partition, and then install on the raw data, it will ask you to choose a partition, pick ntfs(quick), it will quickly create a ntfs partition then erase all data, then begin copying windows files to your computer. make sure you haveb all your driver cd's handy..

i recommend going here...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

and saving the patch to your computer (burn it off with your data) and then install this BEFORE you install your network adapters. when i formatted a computer recently, i didnt do this, got blaster in about 35 seconds.. such a pain.