My computer needs some serious help

[stacer]

Can anyone tell me why Outlook would be running in my processes when I don't have it open? It's taking up 57% of my CPU usage, and hasn't been working right for days. I've scanned for viruses, but found nothing. Speaking of virus scanners, McAfee (well, McShield) is using 20% of the CPU usage. Is that normal? I also had Limewire for some things a while back, but haven't been using it for a while, and it's not open--either actively or running on the side in the taskbar. Yet it's using 7% of my CPU right now. What's up with that?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

have you started outlook since you last rebooted? That's probably what it's doing. No MS product ever believes you really want to shut it down completely, and usually stays in the processes list until you kill it through the task manager, even if you can't see it. If you have anything MS in the startup folder, that's probably doing it too.

As for limewire, are you saying that you haven't used it in days or hours? If you've used it since rebooting, it's probably doing the same thing I described above. If not, it's probably got a registry key somewhere telling it to execute at startup.

[stacer]

Limewire starts at startup, but then I exit it. It continues to run in the taskbar, and I exit it again. Then it's (supposed to be) gone. Yet it's still there. I'll reboot and see if that helps.

[stacer]

Oh, and I'm actually uninstalling Limewire before I reboot, because I might as well not keep it around if I'm not using it. It seems a lot of these problems started after installing it.

[stacer]

So I just went through and hit the update button for every single thing in the device manager. It updated something like 10 drivers, so perhaps it was just a bunch of things conflicting with old drivers? At any rate, things seem to be working a little more smoothly now, so I'm hoping that took care of it. Who knows. It has also downloaded 3 drivers for the same mouse, so it could be anybody's guess. It's working well enough to get back to my homework, at least.

[mulchNator]

I would suggest going over to lavasoft.com and downloading their free adaware software.  It sounds to me like you have a bunch of possible spyware on you CPU?  Also I would suggest buying Norton Antivirus.  McAfee can be a pain in the butt for no reason at random points.  I used to use it and I am now a firm follower of Norton Antivirus.

Another helpful tip would be to run disk clean, and defragment your computer.

[stacer]

I already run AdAware, as well as Spybot. McAfee actually has found and/or stopped more than Norton for me--I had Norton at first and it never found a thing, installed McAfee and found a trojan. This was a long time ago, though, and I've reformatted since then.

I've also run clean disk and defragged. It had been a while, so perhaps that contributed.

Things seem to be running more smoothly now, but I'm still going to try to replace the computer once I get settled in Seattle. Too many things have gone frustratingly wrong in the last six months.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Remember, too, that all the spyware killers and AV software MUST be updated regularly (at LEAST, let me say that a different way, at a MINUMUM once a week).

[Spriggan]

ya if you don't have a current anti-virus program you're gaunteed to have your PC destroyed.

One other thing to do is schedule a scan at start up, this will allow your AV and SW programs to catch the Spyware before it loads itself into the computers memory which is how they reinstall themselfs.

[stacer]

I'm not dumb, guys. It updates regularly, scans regularly.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

hey, jus' sayin. I"m the last here to think you're dumb.

[Oldie Black Witch]

Since this is the "Help my computer!" thread:

I'm having trouble with my browsers. Both IE and Firefox are displaying HTML versions of websites only. I haven't been able to find where I can enable icons, and I'm wondering if I'm missing Java or something.
Help?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Can you rephrase the answer in the form of a question?

I mean....

what do you mean "icons"? Are you not able to see graphics?

[Oldie Black Witch]

Instead of all the nifty buttons and smileys and graphics, I get word links. For example, instead of showing the smileys, I see "Smiley Wink Cheesy Grin Angry Sad Shocked Cool" etc. The New Post buttons show as "New Posts." Does that help?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

ok, this is just on the forum, right?

tell me, do you see any other graphics? like the title bar above and the avatars?

What if you hit refresh?

I would delete the cache (in IE, Tools menu, Internet Options, click the button that says "delete files" on the first page in the "temporary Internet files" section) and restart the browser.