Windows XP, running slow, and locking up. I have found the solution.

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I share this in the hope it might be of interest.

I have an old desktop PC running windows XP. Yes it's an old dinosoar, but it has a lot of software on it that I use from time to time and I really can't be bothered to start over and re install it all until i have to.

So for some time it's been playing up. The symptoms are a bit wierd, it will just stop, sometimes for up to a minute.  When I say stop, I mean all programs stop responding, it's as though the user interface stalls, e,g an animated gif on the screen will stop animating, the mouse pointer won't change as you hover over a button etc, and the disk activity light is on solid while it's stalled.

The even more wierd thing is I could get no sense out of task manager. You would expect some program to be hogging all the CPU time, but no, task manager was saying system idle process had 98% of cpu time.

I've scanned for viruses and malware many times, nothing found. I've defragged the disk a couple of times, but nothing really made a difference.  I have uninstalled some old softwre but still no improvement.

Then today, by chanc e I found it.  I read somewhere to use Event viewer, and what that showed me is very frequently a program called "Bonjour" is logging errors, and the times of the errors seemed to coincide with the lock ups.

So get onto google, what exactly is Bonjour.

It turns out to be an unwanted program that is put there when you install Itunes.  Yes years ago when SWMBO had an ipod (before she saw the light) I had itunes on this pc.  itunes has long been removed, but of course it never had the good grace to also remove this Bonjour thing at the same time.

So tonight I have got rid of Bonjour.  No more lock ups. No more errors in event viewer.

The cynical part of me says it's malware put there by Apple to cripple your pc in the hope you will replace it with an i thingy. NOT A HOPE. It's even more reason to avoid anything that starts with an i.

So if you have a windoze pc that's keeps locking up, have a look with event viewer and see if Bonjour is there logging errors. If so get rif of it.

I hope you found todays PC clinic useful.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Or, you could upgrade to Ubuntu and TRUMP iShyt e   as well, :slap

So, just goes to show, it's not only microshyt that installs malware on your PC, c rapple do it too, my oh my, what a surprise, :eek:

Yet another reason I don't like having anything to do with  either of them,,, 

 
Cheers for this advice, Dave.

I've got rid of anything published by (Rotten) Apple Inc., and my machine (Win7Ult) has massively improved in performance!

 
I am embarrassed of my Apple addiction but you have to admire their marketing genius. 

 
I am embarrassed of my Apple addiction but you have to admire their marketing genius. 
What, admire their genius at fooling limp minded idiots into continually buying their overpriced, form over function garbage?! :slap

 
Gates is no better,

They just went their separate ways, and decided with an almost gentleman's agreement on how each was going to fleece the general public,

:C

Windoze users are no  less gullible,,,,,,

 
Windoze users are no  less gullible,,,,,,
I haven't paid for an Operating System off Microshyte since I got XP with a PC about 20 odd years ago. I've shamelessly get the latest versions off the web for nowt since.

 
I haven't paid for an Operating System off Microshyte since I got XP with a PC about 20 odd years ago. I've shamelessly get the latest versions off the web for nowt since.
Yep,

Well, I don't personally use Windoze, but the lad 'needs' it apparently for some mineshaft stuff he does, so I also obtained a copy for nowt, running a quad boot PC he has now, I timed it last week, normal Ubuntu boots almost 7seconds faster than W10, KALI is a second faster still, 

 
Canoeboy said:
So whats there boot times then ?
When I changed it to straight boot, as I think that's the only fair way,

Kali comes up immediately after splash screen, 

Ubuntu about 2secs after splash,

The best time I got from splash to Windoze welcome screen was 8seconds,,,, still had to wait for mouse pointer though, :C

 
Glad you found your XP problem Dave. Now you're on a roll type 'msconfig' (without the quote marks) into a run box (start->run) and disable any other old lettuced on your PC that you're no longer using.

 
I have done that.

By the way while I was trying to figure out what was going on, I found a VASTLY superior task manager to the inbult MS one.

It's called Process explorer by sysinternals www.sysinternals.com

 
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