My Dad's pc (Dell Dimension 2200, 384 MB RAM, WinXp SP2) has been very slow lately. His CPU usage is 100% all the time (when looking at it in Task Manager). System Idel processes are at a high 90% range. We unchecked almost all entries in msconfig (all except antivirus & his printer/fax/copier). He's run SpyBot Search & Destroy. He has an outdated Norton Antivirus (v2001?)
When he shuts down it always ask to install the same 3 updates. When we temp diable auotmatice windows updates, the cpu usage stays at 100%.
The firewall won't enable (at least he can't do it, it says "recommendation, enable now" but it then says "sorry... could not turn on". Go to Control Panel, Firewall. When he goes to Control Panel, his choices are main topics, rather than individual list and so he only has 4 choices so he chose "security settings" which then brings up "security center" again! So he is going in a circle.
In Device manager, pri IDE controller: it is set to "dma mode if available" BUT the mode it is running in is PIO Mode.
What can I do to help him? I'm working on getting Logmein remote access so I can do more him myself because he doesn't understand as much as i do. Thanks!
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