Outlook 100% CPU

[Laimbo]

Hi guys,

I have a clients PC which has Microsoft office 2000 premium. All the other programs in the suite work OK, however Outlook runs at 100% cpu whenever you perform any action (On startup, using menus, opening emails). Once it's open it settles down and you can use it normally until you try to click on an email or menu, then straight back up to 100%. It had 2 plugins installed (Mobile phone tools, and Itunes), which I have removed. Microsoft have an article on a similar problem and a patch to fix it. Office has been updated to SP-3 and the patch has been installed. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled office to no avail.

The PC is a 3.0Ghz Celeron, 1GB Ram, Windows XP Home. SP2

I am not sure however that the issue is relating directly to outlook, as I have also been experiencing issues with windows. Some programs show up in the add remove programs list, but don't have an uninstall button, last used date, or any information..... Running detect and repair from outlook yields windows installer cannot start, it has been updated to the latest version. Windows SP3 installation would stop half way with permission errors. Again Microsoft registry permissions fix failed to fix it. Chkdsk /f /r - no improvement. System restore - No difference.

Ran a windows repair with a slipstreamed XP home SP3 disc. Now sp3 is installed. But still experiencing all other problems mentioned above.

Virus scanned with a bunch of programs. (Malwarebytes, Spybot, SAS, Bitdefender Boot disc, sofos antirootkit), Found nothing major. Didnt help anyway.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated,

Liam

 

[dnt810]

How big is the HDD and paging file? How much free space is left on the OS drive? Has the drive been defragmented recently? What about the Auto-starts?

I don't know why you would get permissions errors while trying to install the SP3 CD?? Has the system been damaged by malware that was cleaned out before you got to look at it?

Try running Acelogix's "Ace Utilities", its got a nice registry cleaning tool as well as its own uninstall manager. Its shareware, but is free to try for 30 days.

http://www.acelogix.com/

If all else fails, check the hardware to be safe. An intermittent PS issue could be causing havoc with the CPU operation. I've seen some electrically noisy supplies cause some mighty weird issues.

-Don

 

[Laimbo]

Hi Don,

The HDD is 75GB with 53 free. I had set the page file to 2048-3072mb so that should be ok. I have cleaned up the startup entries so there is nothing suspicious there. I haven't defraged yet, ill start that now. It did have viruses last time it was in, but that was Nov 2008.

I forgot to mention I ran ccleaner over it, both the file cleanup and registry cleaner, although I might give AceUtilities a shot. I have run memtest86 for 18 hrs with no errors. And tested the HDD with seatools without error. I will test with a new p/s.

Thanks for your help.

-Liam

 

[iptech]

Sounds like a corrupted PST file. Run scanpst.exe across the affected Outlook data file(s). Also disable any Outlook add-ins as these too can cause Outlook to misbehave.

Google if you're not sure how to do this as different operating systems store the pst files in different locations and you'll need to look inside folders otherwise hidden to the end-user.

 

[Laimbo]

Corrupted PST file was one of my first thoughts, but I have tried outlook without the PST file and the same problem persists. I just tried to do a defrag as mentioned by Don, however when I pushed either the analyse or defragment buttons nothing happens. I am now almost certain that all of these issues are relating to a windows problem. So far I have the following problems -

Been unable to install sp3 for permissions errors,
Can't start windows installer when using detect and repair from outlook,
Some programs in add remove don't have details or uninstall buttons,
Defrag doesn't function,

So far I have -

Run a windows repair with slipstreamed SP3 disk.
Run SFC /scanonce
Scanned for viruses or rootkits ect, vigorously
Reinstalled office and updated to SP3
Run Chkdsk /f /r - No errors
Run Seatools - No errors
Run memtest86 - No errors

I have yet to test with a new Power supply. But other than that I am clueless. Any ideas?

Thanks ,

-Liam

 

[Fixedathome.com]

What security software is installed on the PC? I had a similar problem to this a month or so back and the PC had AVG installed. It seems that the AVGs email scanner was corrupted and by uninstalling and reinstalling it the problem was resolved!

 

[Laimbo]

The PC has a newer version of Norton. I have tested with the email scanner turned off with no success. I now think it's a problem with Windows.... See other posts.

-Liam

 

[Fixedathome.com]

The PC has a newer version of Norton. I have tested with the email scanner turned off with no success. I now think it's a problem with Windows.... See other posts.

-Liam

Sounds like nuke and pave time to me!

 

[Laimbo]

Sounds like nuke and pave time to me!

Just talked with the owner. Decided on a fresh install. No point wasting more time on an older PC. Saves me a headache too. Cheers for the suggestions guys.