Ok Ive only noticed this in IE6 recently, but whenever I go to sites that have an internal search engine - things move ridiculously slow. Load times take forever, etc. Ive even noticed that typing emails sometimes I will type something and it will have to catch up with what I am typing - again really slow. Ive reinstalled IE6 with all of the new patches. Ive downloaded all the recent DirectX drivers. Dont know what else to do.... Thanks in advance!
Not sure what OS you are on, but it sounds like there may be something running in the background that is chewing up some resources. If you are on XP or 2000, then look in your task manager. The easiest way to do this is just hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on Task Manager. Once you're in there, click on the Processes tab to pull up all of your running processes. Then click on the column that says CPU and see if there is anything that is running at a much higher percentage then everything else. You can also sort by the Mem Usage column and see if there is something chewing up alot of memory. If so, try killing that process (as long as you know it's not something important) and see if that helps.
There are a couple of possible causes. Are you running any other program downloading stuff from the web or filesharing? If you are using DSL or cable you should run a firewall at all times to prevent someone from installing software on your system. If you have an active virus scanner, this will also slow down your system. Try downloading Ad-Aware from lavasoft. Update it to the latest version. Then scan your system. Make sure to remove all the junk it finds - I ran it on a friends with the same problem and it found 200 spyware components on his system. Next try ctrl-alt-delete. Kill all instances of iexplore.exe and all subprocesses. Try starting up internet explorer again. Also, try Opera or some other browser to see if it's an explorer only type bug.
Thanks Woofer. My stepsister downloaded AOL instant messenger, Bonzi buddy, and a bunch of other crap onto my dads pretty new system. I got rid of most of it I think. I ran Norton for a virus scan and it didnt have any so hopefully the system isnt screwed. I used Adaware and deleted ALL of the files that it brought up that were suspicious. Unfortunately, IE6 would not load up after I did all of this. I re-installed all the crap Adaware took out and it ran fine. Finally, I removed all the cookies and some of the files (I am assuming it brought up some Explorer files that were necessary to make it run). Its running a bit better, but still slow, and my dads computer is relatively new.
Weird, I've never had to restore anything but haven't used Win98 to surf in a while. You may try deleting files one by one at this point to narrow it down a bit or if it's only a few, just read the descriptions telling where the files came from and tracking down what they do, google them or use google groups to see if anyone has the same problem with those files. I've noticed on my XP home pc the same exact symptoms where it's superslow every once in a while. If i use the task manager it shows one of my internet explorers using 90+ percent of the CPU. And it's just sitting there. If I kill it everything gets better. Also, just try Opera for grins (I think it's about 14 megs), to see if it's a general problem with internet access or just something with explorer.
Drewdog, Download a program called CleanTray, delete everything you don't want loaded up on startup, then re-start. This will definitly help you out.
<a href="http://www.safer-networking.org/">Spybot Search and Destroy</a>. <a href="http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/">Remove unused programs</a> by going to Start, Run, type "msconfig", go to the startup tab, and uncheck what you don't need. Make sure you don't have a virus on your computer -- I'd suspect: (links go to removal tools) <a href="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.removal.tool.html">Klez</a> Sobig - <a href="http://search.symantec.com/custom/us/query.html">lots of variants</a> <a href="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.dumaru.removal.tool.html">Dumaru</a> <a href="http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.beagle.a@mm.removal.tool.html">Bagel/Beagle</a> Those are the most popular of the mass-emailers. They take up a LOT of processing power, and slow everything down. Then, <a href="http://seb.mozdev.org/firebird">Download Firebird</a> and use it.
