Vista hanging, Safe Mode fine

Hp DV6 Laptop / Vista. Running Norton Internet Security and using Advanced System Care.

Has been slowing down the past few months, but recently (and I can't figure out what changed at this point), Any program I run lags, and if I click a second time in the window, the window turns white (translucent white, where i still see the window contents, but kind of greyed out), and I get a "Not Responding" message in the title box of the window next to the program name. Then it takes another 20 seconds or so, and THEN it resolves.

Prior to this, and continuing now, I've been having curser trouble. In any text field I type in, the curser sometimes jumps around to a different spot while I'm typing, and I have to manually "click" it back into place. Also, the curser sometimes leaves a "ghost" image of the "blinking text curser" that obscures any type around it.

And last... sometimes when I get the "white screen" I described above, the window briefly switches back to an an image or screen of whatever program or window I was previously on... and the images or graphics are messed up and out of place.

I've had this happening in Adobe PS CS3, Adobe Bridge CS3, Firefox, Chrome, and Advanced System Care... pretty much any program I try to use.

No problems running in SAFE mode.

You guys have helped me out of malware trouble before, but this just seems like something else.

suggestions?

thanks
Susan