Help with stability problem!

Monstermunch · 7 Apr 2006 at 22:38

Right, a mate of mine has a laptop, the spec is kind of irrelivant. He's been having problems with it and asked me to look at it for him.

He was complaining that it was struggling to boot up and was not displaying any icons on the desktop after eventually booting. I played with it for a while and removed a few virii and nasty spyware things. Installed a good AV, FW & ad/spy prog for him. All working fine. However I had no problems with bootup etc when he gave it to me. Only thing I could find wrong was that the sys idle process was at 99% (caused by one of the virii, that have since been removed)

All hunky dory I thought - He rang me the next day and said he was having the same problem and that he'd taken it to the shop where he bought it to be looked at. A week later they gave it back to him saying exactly the same as me, that it was working fine.

The only thing I can think of is that at home he uses his next door neighbours internet connection via wireless router.

Could that cause the problem?

I don't know much about them but I have a few other people's PC's I look after who run wireless routers and they seem to be a pain in the ***. 1 of which just stops working every 2-3 weeks and has to be removed from the system and re-installed each time it stops working in order to activate it again.

Jimi · 7 Apr 2006 at 22:54

One way to tell if it is something to do with his wireless connection would be to stop all network activity from his laptop, open task manager and click on the Networking tab and see what that shows. If someone is accessing his network then he should definately be able to tell.

It's very easy to exploit wireless networks.

EDIT: There may still be a virus still on his PC which may need a complete format and reinstall.

Six6siX · 7 Apr 2006 at 23:17

Isn't system idle process meant to run at 99% when you arent doing anything? Mine does, and I don't have any viruses.

acharris · 7 Apr 2006 at 23:23

Hi, yes system idle is always 99% when the CPU is not doing nothing in windows, as the taks ain't running. Only the processes in use like virus scans and stuff uses CPU Time.

I think a reformat and re-install of window might be the order of the day, as I can't see a wireless connection causing that sort of problem in windows causing a boot up problem.

Anthony

Monstermunch · 7 Apr 2006 at 23:34

Jimi said:
One way to tell if it is something to do with his wireless connection would be to stop all network activity from his laptop, open task manager and click on the Networking tab and see what that shows. If someone is accessing his network then he should definately be able to tell.

It's very easy to exploit wireless networks.

EDIT: There may still be a virus still on his PC which may need a complete format and reinstall.

No, it's definitely something to do with the connection because when it's used anywhere else there is no problem with it at all.

Just wondered if anyone else has had this happen, just seems strange that something like a wireless connection could disrupt his laptop that much