My computer feels slow

[WOUboy]

Hi everyone-

For some reason my computer feels really slow. I don't know there is something wrong or I need to do something about it. Every I open a program or load a movie through WMP the computer slows down with the mouse cursor all slowing and studdering over the screen. I'm not even opening mutiple programs. Just one program at a time. Or a movie.

I've done some basic things like:
-turn off background running programs
-Defrag
-Scanned disk
-Reg check and fix
-Checked RAM resources and have 700 mb free space.

It didn't use to do this before. If anyone has any advice it would be great. Thanks

Computer spec.
Athlon XP 1800 xp
1 gb of DDR 266 Ram
40 gig Maxtor 7200 rpm drive (11 gigs lefted)
30 gig Maxtor 5400 rpm drive (650 Mb lefted)
Win XP Pro
Nvidia 5200 Video Card.

 

[mechBgon]

Try these checks next:

1) Go to Device Manager and expand the ATA/IDE controller listing, then double-click the Primary and Secondary controllers and go to the Advanced tabs. Confirm that your drives are not running in PIO mode.

2) Download and run Spybot Search & Destroy 1.3 to see if your computer has spyware beyond the normal selection of tracking cookies, etc. You can find that and other anti-spyware tools in Schadenfroh's Anti-Spyware Thread

3) If you haven't already, disable System Restore and discard the System Restore files (how?), update your antivirus definitions to TODAY'S set, arm every possible type of detection (heuristics, scanning within compressed files, etc), and have your AV software do an exhaustive scan. If you have no AV software, check out Grisoft AVG Free Edition and see if you qualify for a free license.

4) If you don't have a firewall, download and install ZoneAlarm Basic.

 

[huesmann]

Reformat and reinstall will cure all your ills.

 

[WOUboy]

huesmann Reformating is my last option, just wondering if people had any ideas of what's causing it.

MechBgon I have done all that and it's still slow.

Anyone else have any tips or advice?

 

[mechBgon]

What kind of motherboard do you have? Maybe a reinstallation of its driver package would help. How about PCI cards, what do you have in there (if any)? Also, do you see any programs in Task Manager that could be bogging things down? Maybe watch the CPU usage in the Processes tab and see if that reveals where the hangup is.

 

[L1FE]

The same happened to me on one of my builds. Windows XP Pro (like all other versions of windows) has a tendency to build up a lot of unnecessary things throughout its lifetime. I think the only 100% fix to your problem is to reformat and reinstall. That's what I had to do at least after all the other means failed. Gluck.