Please help! Comp running slow and I can't figure out why

[PizzatheHut06]

My girlfriend recently purchased a Compaq desktop (I tried to get her to build, but to no avail). Anyway, it was running fine, but ever since she download AIM, Ad Aware, and Windows XP Service Pack 2, the computer has been running really slow. She restarted it after installing everything, so I don't think that is the problem. Sometimes it takes a while to boot up and open webpages, and other times it runs quickly as normal. There seems to be no pattern to the slowdown. I already ran Ad Aware and scanned for viruses, and both turned up nothing. I can't think of anything else to do and right now I'm looking like a n00b to my girlfriend. Can someone help me end the humiliation?

 

[KreleanX]

i would say to check all the processes running, and see if there are any useless ones running

 

[BRoWZ]

^^^ do what he said, get every sofware updated (ad aware, anti-virus),but im thinking it might be sp2 for xp. as i aint got it yet, i wouldnt know, but theres some bugs in that,that still need to be fixed.
edit:: could u give the specs of u girlfriends pc, could need more ram or somthing.

 

[BVR]

Can people please stop blaiming everything on SP2. I konw that it is made by microsoft but still give it a benifit of the doubt. I've installed and have no problem, many others did with the same result. Word on the street and personal expirience is that it makes bootup process even faster. Try running spybot or even better spy sweeper.

 

[PizzatheHut06]

The specs are:

CPU- AMD Athlon XP 2800+
RAM- 512 MB DDR PC2700
Hard Drive- 120 GB

I'll try spy sweeper. Any suggestions in the mean time?

 

[KreleanX]

with me, anytime my pc has been running slow, it was because of memory or processes. I cant imagine what else it could be other than spy/ad-ware

 

[PizzatheHut06]

Yeah I can't imagine what else either. I'll go and run spy sweeper on her computer, and give you an update.

 

[KreleanX]

Scan the HDD with Spy Sweeper to ensure that there isn't any malicious software present. Then you should use Registry Mechanic to erase any uneeded entries. The registry is the heart of Windows, so it is very important to keep it up to speed. The run "msconfig.exe" to remove any unused applications from the startup.

 

[KreleanX]

The final step would be to defrag each of your disks to remove clusters and organize the data.

 

[PizzatheHut06]

Alright the computer is up and running fast again. I checked the processes, and there were freaking 44 running...stupid Compaq. Anyway, I deleted some unecessary crap and ran Spy Sweeper, and the computer is running very well. The biggest problem I found was that Compaq had some Norton trial version which was sucking the resources. As soon as I uninstalled that, everything sped up. Thanks for the help guys.