Very slow PC

[Huw Pugh]

I've had a quick flick through some of the older topics for some help, but thought it'd be easier just to post a new one.

My pc started running really slow last week (i'm using XP). When i checked the cpu usage it was at 100% but I can't see any processes that are hogging it - all show 00 but occasionally one will flash up 99 then go back to 00 again - the programs that flash 99 vary but are usually explorer or task manager. I've run norton to no avail and ive also run adaware which only found 7 tracking cookies which i've now deleted.

Im not sure how much ram i've got, but the pc was built to a spec that has happily run XP for the last few years.

Any help please?

[ThePassenger]

Kill Norton, google for guides as to how to remove it from your system when it's uninstaller gives up the ghost (which it will and leave gumf behind). Replace with nod32 or AVG-Free.

Download Spybot Search & Destroy, install it, update it, run it.
Reboot in to safe mode.
Run both your adware killers again.
Reboot in to normal mode.
Defrag.
Set off chkdsk (you will need to reboot again) and let it trundle through the disk repairing any bad indexes.
Download CCleaner and run it.

Run msconfig, look at the things in your startup and google for what they do, anything you don't need... kill off.