Well its been happening for a while now and I dunno what to do, I have pretty much minus all the system stuff 100 gb of space to use and ive pretty much used half but that shouldnt slow it down any... 2gbs of ram and Im running it on Windows XP...I stupidly have 3 kinda antivirus programs, norton, webroot and avg free and the norton has since expired because it came with the computer and the subscription ended... Sometimes, well all the time, the laptop will seem as if to slow down to such slow speeds that my cursor isn't even consistent and skips intead of dragging across the screen and my laptop even seems to have problems having like Firefox, Itunes and AIM up all at the same time... solutions?... I got the laptop in Christmas of '06
Are webroot and avg free reliable virus programs? And even moreso, did you pay for them? Chances are, those are virus programs that can't detect what Norton would have because they aren't programs that are a) paid for and b) weren't pre-installed. So, perhaps without you knowing it, you have a virus running in the background. And really, after a while, Windows XP just tends to slow down, no matter how much space you have on it (at least, from what I've noticed). My guess is that it's a virus or group of viruses, and it's slowing down your computer. My suggestions? Check your running processes, and look up anything suspicious. If you can't get rid of it safely, try buying a antivirus program that is safe, run it in normal and in safe mode, and check for viruses. And I also have something else to suggest: Remove the antivirus programs that aren't Norton. Antivirus programs can be the culprits of slow computers. Uninstall them and work on either renewing your subscription somehow, or buying a new program. Delete unnecessary items and programs you've installed. Those also slow down XP big time. Delete unuseful files, and if you've done anything to pimp out your desktop, undo it. I think those should at least help.
webroot (Spysweeper) was actually a paid program that my dad got multiple copies from Dell, who suggested the program, because his crapped out because of a virus... also my computer will slow down and when I restart I got this message (I hadda take it w/ my digital camera because I couldnt find one online): http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w52/BrentG79/P7210773.jpg I know its kinda hard to see but this might be part of the problem too... and it only does it when I either pull out the power cord to let the battery die down or sometimes if its still plugged in
Where? Like the only kind of computer service place up where I live is maybe Staples, if they even check that stuff out
Never run more than one antivirus - leads to way more problems than it solves. Uninstall norton via add/remove programs in the control panel. Reboot. Kill (uninstall) webroot - it's a piece of crap. Keep AVG Free, update it and run a scan. After that, if you feel like it, run a scan with SuperAntiSpyware (www.superantispyware.com). I wouldn't run norton on my quadcore with 4gb of ram. Norton is a resource hungry beast. Not to mention AVG and Webroot are both taking up resources, and with 2gb of ram, you're experiencing the slowdowns because of all the hard drive and memory access between the two. Of all the antivirus software I've tested, AVG has one of the fastest updates for new threats, and is the most effective.
My mom got that message on her laptop and it turned out her hard drive had crashed. Call dell, they will make you do a series of tests to figure out the problem. Also, uninstall norton. Stick with just avg.
Ive heard it could be like my cd/dvd drive that could be screwing it up, I got a blue screen of death a while ago (4-5 months maybe) and I had someone run the check disc and somehow fixed it and I've been kind of wondering what else could be going on in my computer... I checked out Dell.com and on their support thing they mentioned using the TREND MICRO Housecall online thing to check for malware n such... any idea on how well it works?