XP locks up, then REALLY sluggish?

[KnickNut3]

Hello. I think I was running a few too many things (FTP, IRC, CD burning, etc., etc.--it got ugly), when everything started to lock up, it compounded, and for one of the first times ever I had to reboot from a lockup in Windows XP. Then, when I rebooted, it was a little slower. Programs would respond the first time when I clicked on them on the task bar. My 2.3 GHz Athlon was running like a 300MHz PC, and getting slower. I've rebooted multiple times, run Norton system checks, but can't find anything wrong.

2.3GHz Athlon
512MB PC2700 DDR RAM
Geforce4 Ti4400
80GB HD
Onboard sound, network

Running (tried running with these off): ZoneAlarm, MBM, Norton Antivirus, Cacheman, misc. small programs (weatherbug).

Thanks for the help.

 

[amdskip]

Get rid of weatherbug, resource hogging pos program IMHO. Run adaware on it too. Sometimes too much norton junk can hold a computer back depending on the settings. What brand of memory is it?

 

[Antoneo]

Perhaps you are affected by this Windows Update: link

 

[KnickNut3]

I defragged again and uninstalled that windows update, and it seems a bit better, but I can't tell yet.

What do you suggest instead of weatherbug? Do any similar easy-access weather progs exist? I thought weather.com had one, but I don't think it was as good.