Is this a HD problem??

My system is about a year old, and while I realize it's not top notch, it seems much too slow at times. I especially notice it's lack of speed in the following areas:

1) Opening up Windows Explorer - It's extremely slow opening up larger folders (i.e. my video file). I click to open and there is a long lag before I can see the files. A few seconds after I open the folder, I hear my WD HD starting to spin and it takes 10-12 seconds for everything to show up.

2) Surfing the web - I have high speed cable internet rated at 10 MB/s and the pages render much slower than my parents PC which has DSL service rated at 2MB/s.

At first, I thought that my processor was the problem, but after reading some reviews on web complaining about the speed of this specific WD HD, I thought I'd ask the experts in this forum. Is this a problem with my HD? Any input is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.



MB:Gigabyte MA-790XDS4
CPU:AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 3800+
Sound:Integrated
Memory:OCZ 4GB (2x2GB)
HD:Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB
OS:Vista Home Premium 64 (SP1)
Browser:Firefox 3.0
VGA:Sapphire Radeon HD3870
Monitor:Samsung 22"

 

I'm not one of the experts but I would run a complete virus scan and spyware/malware and get rid of those. And then I would get a good registry cleaner such as Ccleaner. I was going to suggest upgrading your memory but with 4GB I think you have plenty.