Over the past few days, my computer has been getting progressively slower. I am running Windows XP Pro, have all the latest updates, have an AMD Athlon 1.6ghz, 512ram, and a GeForce2.

What could be causing these slow downs? It takes 5 minutes to boot up, sometimes it restarts during boot up. It takes 10 minutes once you log in to an account, to load everything (Nortons, Zone alarm, and audio controls)... I've gone through msconfig startup options, and shut down anything I don't need - but that still doesn't help... I've noticed, through the task manager, that "explorer.exe" is taking up a large deal of memory (30-50mb of memory), but that shouldn't cause the slow downs; or could it?


Is there some sort of program I can run, that will go through and make sure everything software-side is running/starting up okay?

What about hardware-side? I used to have a program that'd give you all of the stats - from CPU temp, to hard drive speed... I just don't remember what its called :(.


I really need some help, I don’t want to have to reformat the hard drive, only to find it was something hardware.



Edit: Also, Opera and IE have been opening ALL files in the browser, which poses a big problem for exe's, zip's, etc. (Which show as broken images in IE, and compiled-code in Opera)... Is there a way to fix this? :(

If it's taking long during the boot-up process, it's likely to be a problem with either your computer's hardware, or the windows installation. I'd recommend to first try installing windows again (without reformatting). If that doesn't work, then you can try to re-format. And if that doesn't work, I'd start to look at the hardware of the computer. The first thing I would check would be the hard drive.

You might want to defragment your harddrive. Also, if you have a lot of icons/folders/large files/ on your desktop, that can REALLY slow do your computer. Clear your internet files folder. Empty you recycle-bin.

RMF

Sounds like spyware/adware and some trojans. If you think Norton, etc. blocking it, think again.
Go here and follow the directions
http://computercops.biz/HijackThis.html
Also check through the forums on the site.
It takes a lot of work to get all the junk out. But once you do, it's easy to keep it out.

this is a good time to backup your valuable files.

after doing that, I would do the usual things.....scandisk, up-to-date virus scan

http://thepcyoubuy.com/scandiskXP.htm

I defragged and error-checked the main drive, but it didn't speed anything up.

And I'll check that site out, madmouser/CD Burnt, thanks.

Er about the trojans, I doubt it - I'm pretty good with keeping all of my systems virus-free (For the past 10+ years), and I have a router as well (Which sadly blocks quite a bit), so even if I did have a trojan - It wouldn't just be a random attack; it'd have to be someone who's set on taking me down/learning something from me... So I doubt that very much.

Originally posted by Deposeni
I defragged and error-checked the main drive, but it didn't speed anything up.

And I'll check that site out, madmouser/CD Burnt, thanks.

Er about the trojans, I doubt it - I'm pretty good with keeping all of my systems virus-free (For the past 10+ years), and I have a router as well (Which sadly blocks quite a bit), so even if I did have a trojan - It wouldn't just be a random attack; it'd have to be someone who's set on taking me down/learning something from me... So I doubt that very much.

Once you do sort it out I suggest you try winxp service pack 2 beta version (SP2) it really does speed thinks up considerably. I have been using it since it was released and find it very good.

Doc

Go to START -> RUN and type in 'msconfig' and hit enter. From there click on the 'Startup' tab and uncheck everything except maybe your virus checker and firewall.

I would then run a Spybot Search and Destroy. http://www.safer-networking.org/

If your computer is still slow then you just need to re-install as something is taking away your processing power.

Originally posted by alvinks
Go to START -> RUN and type in 'msconfig' and hit enter. From there click on the 'Startup' tab and uncheck everything except maybe your virus checker and firewall.

I would then run a Spybot Search and Destroy. http://www.safer-networking.org/

If your computer is still slow then you just need to re-install as something is taking away your processing power.

I DID configure everything in msconfig (I think I even said so in the first post).

And I think I'll try spyboy search and destroy, does it work better then adaware?

my mistake, i missed the part that you tried msconfig. i have not tried adaware, but I have used spybot and it works great.

another thing it might be is your system is indexing your directories making it faster to do file searching. if you download a lot of files or do anything that creates a lot of files this indexing can slow things down. And this seems to get worse and worse as your XP gets older. I personally re-install XP every 6 months just to keep it clean and fast (clean because it might have a virus I do not know about).

To check the indexing right click on your C drive and click properties. It will say "Allow Indexing Service...."

Slowness like this won't be down to adware or directory indexing. This is happening before the shell has even loaded.

Something is either corrupted (windows installation probably) or you have a hardware fault. Try switching disks with another computer and see if that computer's windows will load at normal speed in the machine.

Originally posted by alvinks
my mistake, i missed the part that you tried msconfig. i have not tried adaware, but I have used spybot and it works great.


I run spybot and adaware. Keeps it squeaky clean. It's hard to believe that what these advertisers are doing is legal. It's not that much different from viruses.
Getting the stuff out of the system is like trying to kill off kudzu. It wraps itself in there and defies remove.