Web access is slowing down

My kids (20 and 17 years old) share a Dell 2.4 Mhz desktop that is about a year old. In the house we have cable modem with a wireless router (Netgear). They have a D-link wireless card in their compute. We run XP.

When the computer was new, the internet loaded very quickly. But according to my daughter the contection time has been slowing down. She claims that it did not just happen. Last night she was attempting to go to a local university web page and it was taking minutes to bring a page up.

I do not believe that either of them have every played with the hardware settings, but I know that they will turn off Virus Scan and other updates. So I ran McAfee and found a bunch of Trojans and then I ran Ad-ware and found a bunch of malware and dialer files. I deleted everything that was not suppose to be there.

I have re-booted, but the computer still accesses the web very slowly.

Using the same wireless system, I have a Dell laptop that is several years old, but I do not experience any of the same problems.

I am open to suggestions for how to get the machine in gear.

 

Please follow the steps below:

- Run ALL the steps in this Sticky thread READ & RUN ME FIRST Before Asking for Support

Make sure you check version numbers and get all updates.

- Very Important: Make sure you tell us the results from running the tutorial...was anything found? Were you unable to complete any of the scans?...Were you unable to download any of the tools?...Did you do the on-line scans as suggested? etc.

After doing ALL of the above you still have a problem make sure you have booted to normal mode and run the steps in the below link to properly use HijackThis:

Downloading, Installing, and Running HijackThis

Then post back in the Spyware Specic forum with the results; when you have finished with the above.

 

Thanks for the link to virus removal steps. I followed them very closely, but in the end nothing seemed improve the speed at which the computer accesses the web. I got frustrated and simply back-up all the meaningful data files, reformated the hard drive, and re-loaded Windows.

At this point all I have on the computer are window programs and the drivers for the wireless card. I can connect to the web, but it is just as slow as before. Before I run out and buy a new wireless card, I thought I would share this and ask if it is possible that the card itself is going bad slowly.

My laptop with is using the same wireless conection but works just fine.

I am puzzled.