update on system speed

not sure if anyone remembers but i had posted a thread about how to speed up my computer. i was advised to remove a few windows components, disc cleanup, etc. and have done so. but theres still not a sufficient change in speed. ive also defragmented several times.

I was wondering if there is a way to determine hiding spyware, that spybot S&D or malwarebytes, or even AVG wont detect? I went to see what was running in the task manager, then googled each one to see if they were legit. There was a few that said they could be legit services, but could also be registry errors. But it is required that i dont use any registry cleaners.

how would i be able to check this out? would a hijack this log help?

i know formatting the computer is an option, but then i got curious about what formatting does that you cant do manually while windows is already up and running? I know that theres several updates after you format to get windows up to date, so windows itself wouldnt stay much smaller if you had all the updates before. i still have 220 gigs free of 232 total. so i dont think its anything that ive put on myself causing the slowdown, since really all i do is go on the internet. i have live messenger installed, and the addon for facebook to upload pictures. i think the biggest thing i have on there is paint shop pro.

anyway, does anyone have any suggestions?

spybot S&D and AVG never detect anything except for a few tracking cookies. which of course i then delete. once in a while spybot brings up "right media" which ive read is a false positive.

 

Perhaps you would like to know which of the Windows Services you could disable. You might look at the 'Safe' column if you are unsure.
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

 

how can i tell for sure if i need the service or not? sometimes even with the description im not sure. but if it could save memory i dont want to leave it running if i dont need it. its kind of a dilemma. ill check over the services though and see.