Strange reg entry on slow PC

WinXP Home SP3 - Pentium3 1.1ghz - 512mb SDRAM PC133 - 80gb HD less than half full. Yeah, not great specs, but I've seen plenty of PCs with half those specs run 3 times faster than this PC. I have done all the maintenance stuff, all the virus/malware scans (nothing serious found, just some MyWeb stuff and tracking cookies), defrags, CCleaner, you name it. I've run full HD diagnostics, full RAM diagnostics, cleaned out a bunch of crapola (like a corrupt expired McAfee and 8 separate Java updates which I discussed in a different thread) and the PC is still really slow, slower than it should be. Everything runs OK, and it surfs really well considering how slow Windows runs when you're just poking around or opening the Control Panel. I was poking around in the registry just looking for something, anything that could be causing this slowness, and I found the reg entry which is attached as a screen shot below.... any thoughts or ideas on this entry? or the general slowness?

THANKS!
:-D

 

Hmm, That is weird. Um, backup your registry, and possibly see if removing it will fix the issue. Seems quite weird. Run an Autoruns (Sysinternals.com) and see if its starting at boot. Also, do you have any language packs installed?

Could that be the cause? Just a thought.

 

Ya know, I didn't even think about that! That's why I come to MG; for a different angle, a different view at something.... thanks.... I'll look at it tomorrow.

That was one of the first things I did after finding it. (also see below)

Yeah, me too. That's why I posted here at MG. It resembles malware, but nothing seems to be 'calling' it, and nothing is linked to it in any start ups anywhere (that I could find).

 

How about motherboard driver issues. I have seen older systems run like molasses until specific motherboard drivers are installed. I suspect corrupted or incomplete drivers may do the same. perhaps even without showing a mark in the Device Manager. Have you looked in the hidden section of Device Manager for Star Force drivers?

 

I'm fairly adept at removing malware, and I follow the steps listed in the README guide on a regular basis, and everything is coming up clean. So I did back up the questionable key and manually remove it, and so far nothing bad has happened. The PC is still slower than it should be, but according to the PCs owner, I made it "much faster than it was". This is odd, because if it's faster now, it must have been PAINFULLY slow before. Anyway- he took it home, and was happy with it. He needed it for the weekend to do some business and taxes and whatnot but will be bringing it back soon for a full format and OS reload.
Thanks for all the input and great suggestions! :-D

[dlb]