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I'm absolutely sure I have some form of a monitoring software on my computer, because it freezes every second, on the second, for a split second. Apparently, this was a computer for a company and they had monitoring software on it, and I was told it was taken off when I bought it, but I don't think that's the case. When I asked them about it (before I bought the computer), they said it took screenshots and sent them back to a location on the network where the admin could review them.
I've already talked to the company and they told me the guy who hooked up their system moved to Colorado. So, HELP! I need this crap off! It makes my EVERYTHING freeze for a split second, every second, even my mouse!
well, first, Ctrl Alt Del, go to processes and list all the processes that are running. This way we can just get down to the issue.
Core 2 Duo 1.86
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go to add/remove programs and see what is installed.
Monitoring programs like you describe would not pause your pc. You wouldn't have a hint they were running.
When was the last time your ran a spyware scan?
engage the windows firewall and if something is trying to send something out it will popup and alert you.
Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search
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I'm the computer guy at my job, and I know about spyware and such. I don't mean to shoot you down, but I'm just warning you that I'm far from a novice.
Spybot and Ad-Aware found nothing out of the ordinary.
Maybe you guys aren't understanding this, but EVERYTHING freezes in sync. Animations, video, sound, everything that is typed, etc. FREEZES every 1.0000 seconds, and usually lasts for .1 seconds. What is going on is that the monitoring program is taking a screenshot of my 1440x900x32 desktop and storing the picture somewhere, where later (I believe) it can be sent to the "Security Administrator" for review.
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think about it So_Sli
If you do a print screen does it freeze your computer? NO.
Does it make sense a program would take a screen shot every second? NO.
Admin going to review 1000's of print screens from one pc? NO.
If monitoring software paused a workstation and the work being performed when it was at work, do you think the product would still be there? Of course not. It wouldn't have made it past beta testing at work and the first time a mucky muck experienced this the program would have been yanked company wide.
Did you do as Outlander suggested?
Did you check add/remove programs as I suggested?If you really beleive the program is doing this then a system wide search on the newest files would reveal the screen captures or the file being readied to be sent that contains those captures.
BTW you want to inform not warn. You will also find that in the IT field you need to be aware of tunnel vision when addressing networking and software issues.
For example, to your knowledge, what else can cause the exact same symptoms?
CPU utilization
A major hard disk writeIf you can't find this "program" in add/remove programs you have been on a wild goose chase.
Then you need to ask yourself does this happen when not networked?
Does this happen in safe mode?
Where else would I look?Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search
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If the computer was part of a network, your chances of finding the program and deleting it is small.
Spybot....Palspy come to mind.Odd they let the machine out the door without at least formatting the hd.
The momentary pause....Machine may need a bit more ram.
Warning! Only the Admin here warns me.
"Ok W.l. lets be on our best behavior.
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I agree 100% with Wanderer.
My company uses an application for monitoring Customer Service reps on support calls which records full video and audio from the reps computers and there is no lag whatsoever.
Also, I have experienced the same EXACT symptoms on my home PC. It has been a while and I can't for the life of me remember what program it was, but it was a program running in the background. However, I'm certain it wasn't something malicious.
As already noted above check the running processes and identify each and every one.
Michael J
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What the company you bought it from (are you also the purchasing agent, as well as IT?), was telling you was that it was connected to a webcam. Period.
Un-install the webcam (device and related software). I may even venture a guess that if you go through the files in your root directory, you will find the last "live shot" as a still image.
Not suggesting that this is definitely the cause of those interruptions, but it is likely that a "dis-connected" device attempting to "stream' a still-shot every second to a now-unknown IP address unsuccessfully is not going to run without some occasional indigestion burps (like at every failure).
As far as the comments that you are "the computer guy at work", and the WARNING in your 2nd post that you are "not a novice", well...SOS! Duct-tape my mouth!!
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"I'm the computer guy at my job, and I know about spyware and such. I don't mean to shoot you down, but I'm just warning you that I'm far from a novice."
So, it sounds like your mind is made up, and nothing anyone tells you here will be given any consideration at all. Why then, did you bother posting on this forum?
Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.
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Actually, I'd check AutoRuns before Add/Remove, if just because software can launch at boot/logon without inserting an entry into Add/Remove.
EDIT: Also, why is everyone so preachy lately?
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Yeah, I know, I was just making them aware of the fact that I'm not 92 years old and completely inept!
I already got rid of the unnecessary services/startup from msconfig, and the first thing I did when I got the computer was uninstall any programs I didn't see as necessary.
I looked for a webcam in the device manager, and found nothing. I did, however, find a "LogMeIn Mirror Driver". I proceeded to uninstall that since I had already uninstalled LogMeIn.
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Have you opened up the process window and verified all of the processes running? Just type in each executable name into google and you should find a reference to each telling you if it is benign or not.
Do you get hard drive activity when this happens. You could get a monitoring program that will identify the program that is reading/writing to the disc.
You can also open up Windows Task manager and look at just about any other metric - CPU, Memory, Network, etc. You should be able to identify what is happeinging that is causing the lockup.
Michael J
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I'm one step ahead of you. ;) I started up in safe mode, and everything ran peachy. I opened the task manager and took a screenshot of the running processes. Then I restarted and googled the ones that were new in the processes list.
But it still freezes every second, on the second! Would you recommend a monitoring program so maybe I can catch this thing?
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It's probably a driver/service. Systematic disabling of drivers/services should turn up the culprit.
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Maybe try running netstat -na from the cmd line to see if something's trying to "phone home"
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