computer unresponsive and sluggish in download speed above ~100 kB/s

[santanderfilm]

it's been a while that whenever my download speed in utorrent goes above 100-150 the whole computer slows down to the point of freezing up. mouse movement become jerky and every program becomes almost unresponsive, but as soon as I close utorrent everything goes back to normal.

my laptop never had lagging to this extent, so I did some experiments to see if I can spot what's causing the problem.

I shutdown every program except utorrent and essential Windows processes, and I found out even when the download speed reached ~350 kB/s mouse movement and everything was smooth.

then I opened Winamp and Firefox and started browsing around then after a short while the music sound from Winamp became choppy, and followed by that the mouse and everything else...

see below for the processes that where running at that time (2nd one was taken several seconds after the fist screenshot)

Process PID CPU Description Company Name

System Idle Process 0

Interrupts n/a Hardware Interrupts

DPCs n/a 77.40 Deferred Procedure Calls

System 4 1.37

smss.exe 364 Windows NT Session Manager Microsoft Corporation

csrss.exe 412 0.68 Client Server Runtime Process Microsoft Corporation

winlogon.exe 436 Windows NT Logon Application Microsoft Corporation

services.exe 480 4.11 Services and Controller app Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 652 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 700 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 796 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1168 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1460 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1496 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

lsass.exe 492 LSA Shell (Export Version) Microsoft Corporation

procexp.exe 168 1.37 Sysinternals Process Explorer Sysinternals

explorer.exe 1124 Windows Explorer Microsoft Corporation

utorrent.exe 1324 6.16

winamp.exe 204 3.42 Winamp Nullsoft

firefox.exe 1120 4.79 Firefox Mozilla Corporation

<<< System Summary >>>

> Mainboard : Compaq 083C

> Chipset : SiS 650

> Processor : Intel Pentium 4 @ 2800 MHz

> Physical Memory : 512 MB

> Video Card : Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) SiS650/1/GL/GX,740 GUI 2D/3D Accelerator

> Hard Disk : HITACHI_DK23EA-60 (60 GB)

> DVD-Rom Drive : TEAC DW-224E

> Network Card : Intersil Americas Inc (Was: Harris Semiconductor) PRISM 2.5 802.11b 11Mbps Wireless Controller

> Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RT8139 (A/B/C/810x/813x/C+) Fast Ethernet Adapter

> Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Professionnal 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2

> DirectX : Version 9.0c

µTorrent : 1.6 (build 474)

µTorrent settings:

Upload limit: 30 kB/s

Upload Slots: 4

Connections (per-torrent): 80

Connections (global): 230

Advanced and Disk Cache: defaults

----------------------

I also tried this http://www.utorrent.com/faq.php#I_get_very_high_CPU_use_when_running_.C2.B5Torrent.21

but I wasn't able to find out exactly what's the problem because almost all the files that were listed in the Log had high numbers...

*both my Primary and Secondary IDEs are set at "DMA if available"

any help would be much appreciated

[Switeck]

Can you get HijackThis and post the info about what loads on boot-up?

My guess is a bad DLL that's spyware, or a poorly-written driver DLL.

[santanderfilm]

I'm positive that my computer is crap-awre free, but bad driver is my best guess too

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1

Scan saved at 11:01:27 PM, on 11/25/2006

Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)

MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)

Running processes:

C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe

C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe

C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe

C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe

C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe

C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE

C:\WINDOWS\system32\khooker.exe

C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\YPager.exe

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

C:\WINDOWS\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE

C:\DL\hijackthis\HijackThis.exe

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [siSUSBRG] C:\WINDOWS\SiSUSBrg.exe

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [siS KHooker] C:\WINDOWS\system32\khooker.exe

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [smcService] C:\PROGRA~1\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe -startgui

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NeroFilterCheck] C:\WINDOWS\system32\NeroCheck.exe

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG7_CC] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe /STARTUP

O4 - Startup: Adobe Gamma.lnk = C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Calibration\Adobe Gamma Loader.exe

O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{3300E064-93D2-4FF8-B72D-F4F56148BEC0}: NameServer = 192.168.0.1

O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{E5D60E59-66FF-47D8-968C-E5A5F58589D5}: NameServer = 192.168.0.1

O17 - HKLM\System\CS2\Services\Tcpip\..\{3300E064-93D2-4FF8-B72D-F4F56148BEC0}: NameServer = 192.168.0.1

O17 - HKLM\System\CS3\Services\Tcpip\..\{3300E064-93D2-4FF8-B72D-F4F56148BEC0}: NameServer = 192.168.0.1

O23 - Service: Adobe LM Service - Adobe Systems - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe Systems Shared\Service\Adobelmsvc.exe

O23 - Service: AVG7 Alert Manager Server (Avg7Alrt) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe

O23 - Service: AVG7 Update Service (Avg7UpdSvc) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe

O23 - Service: FileZilla Server FTP server (FileZilla Server) - FileZilla Project - C:\Program Files\FileZilla Server\FileZilla Server.exe

O23 - Service: Sygate Personal Firewall Pro (SmcService) - Sygate Technologies, Inc. - C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe

[Switeck]

This apparently was buried too deeply to show up under Process Explorer:

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [smcService] C:\PROGRA~1\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe -startgui

O23 - Service: Sygate Personal Firewall Pro (SmcService) - Sygate Technologies, Inc. - C:\Program Files\Sygate\SPF\smc.exe

smc.exe is a part of the Sygate Secure Enterprise, more specifically the firewall product. This is what's trying to do packet-inspection and no doubt lags behind as speeds top 100 KB/sec. That alone may explain the sluggishness. It may be possible to reconfigure it so slowdowns don't happen. I don't know regarding that. But if you have a router with only the 1 port forwarded for µTorrent, it should be safe to uninstall Sygate for purposes of testing.

However, also present is ADOBE stuff:

O4 - Startup: Adobe Gamma.lnk = C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Calibration\Adobe Gamma Loader.exe

O23 - Service: Adobe LM Service - Adobe Systems - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe Systems Shared\Service\Adobelmsvc.exe

I won't deny you probably need to run Adobe...but you probably don't need to auto-run portions of Adobe on startup. These too may be interfering with µTorrent somehow.