[Penance]

Hello,

I'm having difficulty with my computer becoming very slow to start programs and also to boot up both from hibernation and when I do a complete restart. It takes almost a minute for a program to even start showing up on the screen and it takes five minutes for it to boot up from hibernation. I haven't even tried timing a full restart. :sigh:

The only program I've installed recently is Belarc Advisor, and that is so I can give you specs. I've followed most of the steps listed here for making your computer faster: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

These steps have helped, but not much. I run two different spyware/malware programs, Spybot and Desktop Doctor, once a week, sometimes twice if there's a problem, and do a weekly virus scan with Norton (would love to get Norton off my computer but I doubt that's happening any time soon). I just ran all three scans and I've found a couple pieces of adware but nothing major.

Belarc Advisor Spec list (I thought pics were easier)








Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Penance

 

[Coolfreak]

If you want to get rid of Norton completely, run the Norton Removal Tool.

A free excellent Anti-Virus program is AVG Free Edition.

As for your problem, try downloading and installing Ad-Aware 2008 and running it. See if that finds anything. If it does, it can most likely get rid of it.

 

[Penance]

Ad Aware seems to be locking up right in the middle of a scan, every time I use it.

Thanks for the Norton and Antivirus advice. Is there another good adware removal tool I can use? I don't know if I'm getting a corrupted file or what. Ad Aware downloads and installs fine, but gets to a certain point and just freezes.

 

[Penance]

I also got rid of Norton and downloaded Avast. If Avast doesn't work out user interface-wise, I will try AVG but Avast already found quite a bit that Norton never hinted at. Figures.

 

[Coolfreak]

Try uninstalling Ad-Aware and re-downloading it and then installing it again. See if that works.

If it continues to lock up, you can try this online scan.

Since you are using Avast, please ignore any alerts you receive during the online scan.

Let me know,

-Coolfreak