PC going slow, plz help!!

Not sure if this should be put here or in software but ill try here and see how this goes


first to start out, I am 99.9% that this slow issue has nothing to do with malware/viruses/etc. I am extremely careful with the stuff i get and have great protection.

I was looking around trying to find a solution for my problem but couldn't find one, I did find this one post from another website of an issue that this guy is having which is the same exact problem as mine, im pretty much going to cut and paste what he said b/c its the same thing i am having but no one answered him. Here it goes:

A few days ago my computer has been stuttering. I'll have iTunes open listening to music while browsing with Firefox and maybe I'll have AIM open.(In this case instead of aim running I use Trillian) Definitely not intense computing. And then every once in a while (either randomly or semi-randomly when I click something) the audio will crackle and the mouse will lag. It lasts like .1 of a second but it is very annoying and I've never had this problem until recently. Also my computer has locked up a couple times in the last few days. The computer just stops and everything is frozen including the mouse. Ctrl+alt+del doesn't work, only a manual restart on the computer does. (Those last few sentences did not happen with me in this case, just figured it should be in there to maybe help finding a solution)

Thats pretty much it, when I try to burn DVD's i used to be able to burn with no problem at 8x speed and in 10mins it would be done, 2 days ago, those 10mins when to 40 and it wouldn't go past a 2x speed.

When I extract a video/etc, usually takes me about 1-10mins depending on the video size, now yesterday I tried, the damn thing took almost an hour!

The music just started to stutter again as im typing this! LOL

My suspicion is that maybe my hd is dying which could be related to the slow extracting/burning etc but i thought when a hd is going to die, it makes a weird clicking noise and w/e. My hd sounds perfectly normal so idk if thats the issue, CPU usage never reaches 100% during these actions so i know there is plenty of space for it to do its job.

I know this is a lot to read but plz, anyone out there, plz help me! this is really getting me frustrated that this happens out of nowhere

=[

thanks in advance!

 

As suggested, some antivirus programs can slow down your PC. Norton and McAfee are famous for this. AVG can cause some slowness if it is set to run a full scan at a certain time of day; for example: if AVG is set up to run a full scan at 8:00pm, and you're using the PC at 8:00pm, things will drag, maybe a bit, maybe a lot, and it may vary, and it may last a long time if you have lots of files. I have also noticed that PCs can lag if Windows (or your antivirus) is set to download/install automatic updates. If this kicks in while you're happily computing, things will slow down. However, if you think it's your hard drive going out, download and run the diagnostic from the drive manufacturer. All the drive makers have them as free downloads (except Toshiba). If it is dying, you'll want to know as soon as possible to avoid any down time or data loss. It may not hurt to perform some general maintenance (here's a good guide http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106650) and run a scan or two with your antivirus and antispyware tools. You never know if something may have gotten through. It's better to catch it now before it proliferates.....

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

 

hello, thanks for your responses and help, I've tried the hdd diagnostic for my hdd and it all passed. I got some good news though

ok, i've tried cleaning the reg/temp stuff b/c it was also mentioned that could be the issues but did that and it was still slow

i started talking with my pc friend, and explained the problem to him, right when he wasn't sure what could be wrong, I did also forget to mention this in the post b/c I didn't think it was relevant.

I burn stuff all the time, 8x speed, always no problem, once these problems occured, my burn time never went past 2x and the device buffer always went from 100% to 0 and kept switching back and forth making my burn times extremely long.

Once I mentiond that part, he sais right away, it's the drivers on the pc and somehow it got switched from the bios, something about and stuff on how it switched from DMA to PI0 or vice versa, not rele sure what that means but he knows what he talks about and he will look at my pc later this week, I rele hope this was the problem to my pc.

any of u guys think this is it?