Windows xp at a snails pace

I am so frustrated I am ready to scream! My windows xp is crawling along, taking 4 to 5 minutes to open a program. I have updated my virus scan, which shows no viruses, I have deleted all ad ware and spy ware, run scan disk and defragmented. I have even performed a system restore back to a date when my computer was running well. Nothing has worked. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Shannon

 

Hello Shannon,

First place to look - your startup programs.

From run, type msconfig > ok. Check the Selectve Startup under the General tab and under that uncheck Load Startup Items. W/O any applications starting and only the OS and drivers, how does the system run?

If OK, go into msconfig's startup tab and allow an app to start and check the performance of the system. Keep adding until hopefully the culprit is found. It also can be a combo - conflicts.

Is there any app that you installed after which this started? Is SP2 installed? Did you update a driver(s)?

Regards - Charles

 

Check in the performance TAB in the task manager to see if a particular programme/process is hogging most of your system resources. R click on the taskbar and select Task Manager. Under the performance Tab the CPU usage may be fairly high in the % numerical display. Go into the Processes TAB and check CPU usage against all the running processes. System Idle Process should be running around 99% on an idle system. But something else may be hogging a large slab of your resources?