hourglass takes 5-10 minutes to go away

I have a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows ME, a Pentium III processor, and 20 gb free space. Sometimes when I open up a program, like Word or Adobe Reader, the hourglass takes 5-10 minutes to go away. I haven't had this problem in the past. This is what I've done so far to solve the problem:

Ran AVG Antivirus: It found no bugs.

Deleted junk files: That didn't work.

Defragmented hard drive: Didn't solve problem.

My laptop isn't fast to begin with because I don't have much RAM. But since this problem hasn't occured before I was wondering if you tech whizzes out there might be able to offer me some helpful advice. I'd really appreciate it.

 

the hourglass takes awhile to go away.. but is it actually loading something? or is it like 'stuck' on the cursor, even though the program is open?

how long has this been happening?

i have no idea what the problem is, but i still blame windows ME, IMHO, it is the worst release of windows to date, very unstable, and all i ever do is end up formatting to make my life easier. im sure you arent interested in purchasing another copy of windows, so if you have the win ME cd, i think it might be a good idea to consider formatting if you know how.

anyway, answer the questions above i'll see if i can help

 

I loathe Windows ME but I'd like to solve this problem without upgrading or reinstalling. The hourglass takes awhile to go away when the program is already loaded. Sometimes if I leave the laptop unattended for a few hours I find the hourglass stationless over a frozen desktop; I have to just force a shutdown and run scandisk when I start backup. I wan't to master Linux at some point so I can stop using Widows altogether.

 

lol, that makes 2 of us on linux. linux would be so much easier if everyone would migrate at the same time, but that will never happen.

have you run any spyware removal apps like spybot search and destroy or adaware? maybe you've got a nasty piece nested deeply into your system, no symptoms are too strange for spyware. i think i learned that when i saw a winxp machine that when you told it to turn off, would just restart adn relaunch all of the spyware (140 processes [of spyware] running at boot time!)

 

Something may be causing your CPU to skyrocket. If you noticed sudden dramatic slowdown, maybe you downloaded a program lately causing this? Like an imperfect third-party app? (think free popup blocker or solitaire program) Find out if a program is causing this. Possibly try CTL + ALT + DLT, click Task Manager, select Performance, and monitor the CPU. If it's too high, in Task Manager, switch from Performance to Processes, and click on CPU, to see the top CPU using processes. That may possibly indicate what's wrong.

A little off topic but a test I like when keyboards and mice stop responding is tap the Num Lock or Caps Lock key repeatedly to see if the green light goes on and off. As long as there is green light activity, it tells me a task is bringing the system to its knees temporarily, but sometimes after 1-2 minutes or whatever that task just ends, and the computer goes back to normal. If Num Loc or Caps Lock stops responding something brought the system to its knees and it ain't getting up without a forced shutdown.

 

Thanks Farbib and Dark Horizon. I'll try both your suggestions.