My computer has slowed to a crawl and I can't figure why. Need help? See details below.?

Question

I have tried every program in my Norton Systemworks. I found no spyware or virus'. I ran Superantispyware and found nothing. I ran Ad-Aware SE personal and again found nothing.I drfraged. I even tried Norton Go-Back.
Symptoms: when I turn on my computer it is extremely slow in loading Windows XP. It is extremely slow in downloading my desktop, and slow in moving around the internet and my programs.
My mouse is jumpy instead of smooth when moving around. My screen saver, Windows moving triangles is moves jerky and not smooth. After awhile my screen saver will feeze up and disappear. My screen goes blake and i can't get anything to come up and have to reboot my computer my manually turn it off and then back on.
Oh yea, when I intially get on the computer my Norton shows it is refeshing and this takes quite awhile to complete.
This is all a very recent problem. I am at my wits end. Would appreciate any help I can get.
Thank you, Fred

Answer 1

First thing to do is bring up the task manager and see which process is killing your performance. Right click your tool bar and select 'Task Manager' and then click on the processes tab. Look for any processes that are using a lot of CPU. You can then update this question with the process and maybe someone can shed some more light on the issue.

Answer 2

Yes foks,it's another anti Norton answer!
Seriously,get rid of Norton! Their products might be good at what they do but they are VERY processor intensive and in my career I have seen even high end gaming machines slowed to a crawl with Norton products and once they were removed performance returned to normal.
So first get something like AVG Anti Virus,keep your Ad-Aware updated and use something like Spybot Search And Destroy,or Spware Doctor.
Update all definitions,make sure that you are not connected to the internet and turn off system restore and run full scans for virus,adware and spyware.once you have a clean system turn system restore back on and set a "clean system" restore point.
You can also use task manager to see if there is any process that is causing the problem and you could then use the system configuration utillity to stop unrequired programs loading at start up .

Answer 3

If someone were to change your virtual memory settings to manually defined, it would start using the hard drive as the RAM as opposed to the actual RAM. English: If Windows runs out of RAM memory, it will designate a small piece of your hard drive as "virtual" RAM, called a "Page File", so that it can have the RAM space actually it needs when it needs more RAM than it has. The downfall is your hard drive is mechanical, and it takes longer to retrieve the data from it than the RAM. If somehow Windows gets configured to have a specific size, it may spend more time bogging down the hard drive than it needs to, and uses less RAM than it actually could. Go to Start, Control Panel, System, and in there you will find a button for performance, then virtual memory, and set it to allow windows to manage the page file size by itself. Sorry for the broad instructions, Its been a while since i've used XP. It's just a thought, I've seen it a few times.

Answer 4

Ram = velocity. it rather is your undertaking. I additionally run a agency,I frequently have 5 tabs open and Photoshop Cs5 and AI open. I even have 4Gb of Ram and it is nevertheless sluggish each and every now and then. 512mb is historical actually,that's time so you might improve. i'm assuming you're working homestead windows Xp due on your low Ram,because you're working a agency a working laptop or pc improve to homestead windows 7 and 2Gb of Ram would be one hundred circumstances swifter than your caveman pc.

Answer 5

the first two answers are good. but sometimes its better to start over... It may be Norton itself . Norton totally sucks as it gobbles up your memory.. Nothing better than a fresh copy of xp so back up your files, be sure you have or can get driver's and reformat and reload your operating system. ps take your norton disk and use it as a clay pigeon the next time you get your 12 guage out.

Answer 6

This is only a Band-Aid until you can make more sweeping changes, but if your video settings are set to 32-bit color, try lowering it to 16-bit. Also, if you'll be okay with slightly lower resolution, try lowering it as well.

Norton Systemworks may come with a Process Viewer under Extra Features, and while it lets you kill a process you don't need, it also lets you reassign priorities among the processes. If a process that is necessary but not critical is running, you might want to change its priority from "Normal" to "Below Normal," and with a more important process, you might want to change the priority from "Normal" to "Above Normal," "High," or "Real Time."

Whatever the case, good luck.