It's a long shot, but...

[Blinkin]

maybe someone might have an idea that I haven't tried.

Ok, buckle your seatbelts, this may get   a little bit bumpy.

My laptop is a Dell Inspiron(sp?) that is about 10 months old. I've tried calling both Dell and Microsnot's tech support. Because I'm blind with little access to visual assistance, I can't read them the numbers that they require to even speak to me, so no help from those sources. I've even called Freedom Scientific, the designers of my screen reader and they're stumped. I'm almost ready to not pay the power bill in order to try to take this thing to a repair shop and let them fiddle with it for a couple of months, lose a lot of my personal files and get back a machine that runs even worse than it does now.... Until today.

I lost my connection to the net for nearly 36 hours; no connection at all to the net. During this time, the time to boot, usually a solid 45 to 50 second to get to the sign in screen.  when I turned it on yesterday, took nearly twice as long to see the sign in screen, but the system ran perfectly for the whole 36 hours. I mean, I've never seen it run so smoothly.

I got a new router this evening and reconnected again. Since then, the system has returned to running sluggishly to virtually locking up; my screen reader crashes every 30ish minutes and it takes a couple of minutes to get the screen reader to reload. I have done malware scans with both AVG and Malwarebytes, using the most up to date updates to both the definition files and application.; both comes up clean every time.

However, the Dell System Assistant reports 2 infections. Dell's answer to removing any infection is to reinstall windows. I can't do this on my own because no screen reader works before the installation is completed... or buy the full version of System Assistant from Dell for a price they don't bother to tell you about.

Still with me? You're an incredible individual; I've lost my mind on the last hairpin curve!

SO, here's the $64question, why is my computer running so slow while connected to the net and runs perfectly when not connected?? I'm running Windows 10 and there's more than enough RAM to run everything that is running and most of the time, I'm only running Google chrome, the screen reader and occasionally a word document. This sentence alone has taken me more than a minute to write, to indicate how slow it's running. So, help? Any ideas why it's doing this? If Dell has actually detected real infections, why doesn't either AVG or Malwarebytes detect either of them?

Thanks for hanging on while I've ran you through this crazy ride... please do not release your seatbelt, or your death grip on the "oh Shit Bar" until the vehicle comes to a complete stop and the No Smoking light has turned on

Blinkin

[Vekseid]

Does DSA explain what the infections it finds are?

Is Elliquiy the only tab you have open?

If you close Chrome and try Edge, is there any difference?

Also, if -all- you are using is Chrome, we can look into getting you a Chomebook. Turning on Chomevox isn't too hard on it.

[Blinkin]

Does DSA explain what the infections it finds are?

Nope, it just says that I have 2 infections and a link to remove them. When the link is clicked, it takes me to a form to buy the product.

Is Elliquiy the only tab you have open?

Mormally, no. I usually have an Office document or two open for references and on  occasion, a second webpage to make sure that I can spell some really simple words, look up some information and so forth. I can tell you that the somewhat gradual  decline in speed is often increased when I start to type in a field (like this reply) ora n Office document.  Simply having the document open has no reaction until I start to type.

If you close Chrome and try Edge, is there any difference?

None at all. They both do the same things.

Also, if -all- you are using is Chrome, we can look into getting you a Chomebook. Turning on Chomevox isn't too hard on it.

I actually looked at a Chrome book when I was shopping for this laptop. I do a lot more than just serf the net; I do virtually all of my record keeping, communications, my amiture writing in a long term project of writing a book, , virtually everything on a daily basis on this thing. To set up a Chrome book to do everything, including converting everything over to something that would work on this thing would make Chromebook a really unpleasant process. My old desktop, a HP with Windows 7 ran really well with everything for nearly 11 years. The only reason I stopped using it was because it finally gave up the ghost and went to desktop heaven.When this thing isn't connected to a internet connection, it works great, the 36 hours of use while the connection was down. The minute we reconnected it, it started doing the same things again.

[AmberStarfire]

It sounds like it could be uploading or downloading things when you log on to the net. I wonder if you have any Windows updates downloading.

Windows 10 also can use your bandwidth to send Windows updates to other people on their network. It's called delivery optimization. I don't know if it would use all that much bandwidth, but there's an option for it that you can turn off in Settings. It's not something recent but it's possible it's affecting things now. There's info on this page:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3178472/turn-on-this-new-windows-10-creators-update-feature-to-avoid-data-overage-fees.html

Another thing you could try is Windows Memory Diagnostic. It should be under Windows Administrative Tools in the start menu. A previous one of mine used to have a memory error and slow down. It doesn't explain it only doing it when you're on the net though.

Those are pretty much the only things I can think of to suggest. You could try clearing your browser cookies, because even certain tracking cookies show up as an infection on some antivirus software.

I've used Panda Cloud Cleaner before and it can be useful for getting more advanced malware off a machine:
https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/homeusers/cloud-cleaner/
I don't know if it's free or not but it looks free for that one.

[TheTech]

Malwarebytes gets off really advanced malware and/or finds it. Some of it has to still be manually removed. But the simple fact of you saying while you have a internet connection. Cookies. Website history and temp files. I don't recall you mentioning anything about cleaning that out. CC Cleaner is really good about fixing registry issues too. Dell's not the best for tech support and i wouldn't trust their pieces of junk to be correct and what that pop up might be is malware too.

[Blinkin]

From mberStarfire:

It sounds like it could be uploading or downloading things when you log on to the net. I wonder if you have any Windows updates downloading.

Windows 10 also can use your bandwidth to send Windows updates to other people on their network. It's called delivery optimization. I don't know if it would use all that much bandwidth, but there's an option for it that you can turn off in Settings. It's not something recent but it's possible it's affecting things now. There's info on this page:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3178472/turn-on-this-new-windows-10-creators-update-feature-to-avoid-data-overage-fees.html


I just turned off Delivery Optimazation; it was on, so that's dealt with. I would never of known about it, so thanks. :)

Another thing you could try is Windows Memory Diagnostic. It should be under Windows Administrative Tools in the start menu. A previous one of mine used to have a memory error and slow down. It doesn't explain it only doing it when you're on the net though.

I just ran the memory diagnostic by setting it to run at the next start up, but it didn't report anything, so it must be ok. Again, didn't know that it existed, so thanks again. :)

Those are pretty much the only things I can think of to suggest. You could try clearing your browser cookies, because even certain tracking cookies show up as an infection on some antivirus software.

I haven't done the cookies. History gets cleaned out at the first of the month, but I just did it again. I'll look at the cookies as I don't remember ever doing that before.

I've used Panda Cloud Cleaner before and it can be useful for getting more advanced malware off a machine:
https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/homeusers/cloud-cleaner/
I don't know if it's free or not but it looks free for that one.
I did try Panda to see what it would do, but the whole app is completely inaccessible to me, so I uninstalled it again. I'll look at other cleaners and see what I can find. Thanks for the suggestions!





From TheTech

Malwarebytes gets off really advanced malware and/or finds it. Some of it has to still be manually removed. But the simple fact of you saying while you have a internet connection. Cookies. Website history and temp files. I don't recall you mentioning anything about cleaning that out. CC Cleaner is really good about fixing registry issues too. Dell's not the best for tech support and i wouldn't trust their pieces of junk to be correct and what that pop up might be is malware too.

I'm half believing that the results from DSA are flase positives, or just a way to get me to buy the product. As it does everything else that it says that it's suppose to do, the suggestion that it may be malware is one that I hadn't considered. I do empty the browser history about once a month, but hadn't ever done the cookies. I'll go and check that in a moment. Same for the temp folder. I came from IE 11 straight to google and since it's not so easily seen, I forgot about that one. So, off to check on those as well. The disabling of Directed origazing seems to of made things slightly more stable. I managed to write this post without huge delays waiting for the system to unstick itself and my screen reader hasn't crashed yet, so improvement? lol

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Vekseid]

Nope, it just says that I have 2 infections and a link to remove them. When the link is clicked, it takes me to a form to buy the product.

Yeah I'm suspicious of Dell.

Mormally, no. I usually have an Office document or two open for references and on  occasion, a second webpage to make sure that I can spell some really simple words, look up some information and so forth. I can tell you that the somewhat gradual  decline in speed is often increased when I start to type in a field (like this reply) ora n Office document.  Simply having the document open has no reaction until I start to type.

This suggests something is spending a ridiculous amount of effort processing...

Can you grab Firefox and see if it happens there? Narrow it down a bit at least.

Does it happen if you've closed Office?

Is your computer still responsive when you're not typing, here?

[Blinkin]

The effects do not stop regardless if word or google is open. It just seems to happen more quickly if either is open. I would say that the reduction starts about 20 minutes after Windows loads and within another 30 to 40 minutes, the response time between command and execution is measured in seconds to minutes, but it will stop responding shortly after that and my screen reader will crash. I can restart the screen reader, taking a couple of minutes, and the system is just as slow afterward. I have tried firefox, with the same results, so I don't think that it's the browser itself, but something using up processing power in some way. The next step that I'll try is to download C Cleaner and check the registery. I haven't done it because Microsnot claims virtually everywhere that cleaning the regerstry can damage the system rather than fix it.

[Vekseid]

Well we can try looking at the task manager?

ctrl+alt+del

select task manager

Press tab once

Right arrow two times, it should say a percentage and 'cpu'

Hit enter.

It should automatically focus the top CPU draining item, giving you a name and percentage. You can use the up and down arrow keys to check processes going by what is using the most resources on your system.

[Blinkin]

Well we can try looking at the task manager?

ctrl+alt+del

select task manager

Press tab once

Right arrow two times, it should say a percentage and 'cpu'

Hit enter.

It should automatically focus the top CPU draining item, giving you a name and percentage. You can use the up and down arrow keys to check processes going by what is using the most resources on your system.

well, I have seen some improvement with the things already suggested. When I went to task manager and found CPU, there wasn't a percentage display but, there was  a list of apps, again, the percentages were hidden.

The top of the list was Task Manager at 20%.
Second in line was my screen reader, again at 20%.
the next 3 were a wave-something, AVG and Google. I didn't check the percentages as I've already seen 40% of processing power. It may be that a lot of processing is going on.

Thanks for all the suggestions and I'm not sure to do with the hogs.

[AmberStarfire]

I just wanted to say be careful when it comes to other virus cleaners. Stick with the ones that come from well-known antivirus companies, as there are dodgy ones out there that could endanger your system.

Out of curiosity, how full is your hard drive? If it gets too full it can slow things down too, but it sounds like it's still a fairly new PC.

[Karma]

The behavior of only running slow when the internet is connected makes me first suspect a crypto miner running in the background. If malware software isn't finding it though...

[Blinkin]

I just wanted to say be careful when it comes to other virus cleaners. Stick with the ones that come from well-known antivirus companies, as there are dodgy ones out there that could endanger your system.

Out of curiosity, how full is your hard drive? If it gets too full it can slow things down too, but it sounds like it's still a fairly new PC.

The hard drive hows that I still have more than 80% free. My wife's laptop... it's more like 80% used, most of it music that she now listens to on her phone. lol

The suggestions and actions taken on the advice offered has shown a marked improvement in the laptop. It's now running pretty well for several hours before it begins to show signs of getting bogged down. I think that turning Delivery Optimization off made a huge difference.

Thanks agagain for th help! I really appreciate it.

The behavior of only running slow when the internet is connected makes me first suspect a crypto miner running in the background. If malware software isn't finding it though...

Yeagh, but both AVG and Malwarebytes comes up clean.