[PC WinXP]Computer is laggy/slow, Please Help~

[GweeYupDa]

hi.. this my first time asking for help
and i dont know here to start but to say that

i have a pentium4 2.8ghz comp with windows xp professional and sp2 pack

this just happened to me recently and i didnt install any new software or hardware

at startup my computer is at the loading screen for like 10 minutes... which is unusual since my computer usually starts up fast..

and what i noticed was the red light on my comp was constantly on when i wasnt telling it to do anything so this slows my comp soo much

i cant even open up firefox, only I.E
i tried virus scan and defragmentation but the comp is so slow that the scans take forever and once they finished, it still didnt help

i can still open up some music files and video and check my MSN
but when i start browsing through my HD, it gets soo laggy..

the feel of my comp just isnt the same...

 

[Osiris]

Have you checked msconfig?

 

[GweeYupDa]

what is ms config?

 

[Osiris]

start, run, type msconfig, go to startup, click disable all, but leave your antivirus on and firewall if you have one, reboot...

 

[GweeYupDa]

dosent work..

still slow~

i tried spybot s&d, adaware and did 2 virus scans, one found a virus and deleted it but im still having the same problem, nothing changed

i could look at my hardware but i wouldnt know what i'd be looking for..

someone on another forums say it must be my harddrive thats busted and i should get a new one but my computer isnt that old..

made in 03-04, p4 2.8 ghz
and also, i can still go through my c drive, although it does get laggy when im going through folders..

 

[Osiris]

Delete your prefetch folder. delete your cookies, delete your TIFS, defrag, disk check, reboot, then scan with hijack this and post a log

 

[BASSMASTER]

A quick way to tell sometimes to is to go to you task manager and sort your processes by memory usage, see what is hogging up all your memory