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Slow windows 7 machine with several cmd.exe and conhost.exe instances

Trying to clean a 3 year old windows 7 PC. deleted temp files, ran ccleaner for registry and file cleanup, ran malwarebytes, superantispyware, eset online scanner, trendmicro's housecall online scanner, hitmanpro. Deleted a couple things they found. Used autoruns to see what's starting - nothing unusual. several things though - dropbox, skype, etc.

I ran some different SMART hard drive testers and the drive is OK. Turned off aero.

But the machine is still sloooowwww. It's got several conhost.exe and cmd.exe instances running. can't see how they are starting.

what am I missing?

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bas2754

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Ben Hart

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meettechie

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ASKER

THanks. I was throwing all kinds of tools / tricks at this machine with no results. This was all remotely and taking days for malware checkers, etc to run so I kept debating how much more time to put into this vs. beg off.

Went into computer properties and turned off the visual effects (computer, advanced system settings, advanced, performance, visual effects, adjust for best performance) it as likely set to 'let windows decide.

That seemed to make performance like a new machine. didn't bother seeing if setting it back to 'let windows decide' brought back the problems or just toggling setting cleaned up some registry / other issue. I left well enough alone : ) didn't want to rock the boat and after days, I was DONE!

thanks guys. and might I ask as an aside, how do you decide - wipe vs. play with a machine to improve performance? this was a 3 year old machine....

bas2754

If we have to spend more than an hour sitting in front of it doing things, we reload. It is cheaper for everyone in the long ron. Only exception is if there is an app on the system the client does not have the reinstall disks for, but I leave it up to them at that point as it is just time and materials.

Adam Leinss

Sounds like it has a rootkit...you may want to scan it offline with a boot cd. Having several instances of cmd.exe running is not normal.