Slow and studdering

I give up. A couple months ago my computer started acting up. It seemed to be about the time I installed IE8. When ever I open or close a program or minimize or maximize a running program there is a slow motion effect I can best decribe as studdering, jerky transition. Also a delay in connecting to my home page on IE. Keystrokes are normal but there is definatly a lag and erratic mouse movements like when I try to select a website from favorites.
I have used Malwarebytes, Bitdefender, Advanced System Care and made adjustments to proformance settings with little to no results. I have flashed the bios, updated chipset and controller drivers and nothing is flagged. The boot drive seems very active at idle but this may be just cause I'm watching it. The only process using CPU resourses at idle is System Idle Process and I have read that this is normal. It does back off when the system is not idle.
Any thoughts?
Athalon XP Barton 1.87G, 2G, 160G Sata for Boot and programs with 2 500G in Raid0 for fast writes during video editing. Everything was great 2 months ago.
Does this sound like a hardware issue?
Thanks in advance
Dan

 

Hi Dan.
I haven't had experience with this, but I'll throw in some ideas.
Could be hardware... or software, as far as I can see. It looks like the problem is occurring when the video card, RAM and hard drive are in action though.
Since you suspect IE8, have you tried uninstalling it? Easy to do in Add Remove Programs, and it will just roll back to the previous version you had.
Other possibilities are numerous:
RAM ok? (Try Memtest, or take out one or more RAM sticks)
RAM maxing out?
Page File big enough?
Enough storage space?
CPU ok? (Don't know how to check this other than switching it to another PC - someone else might know more)
Drivers all good and up to date?
Video card Ok?
All wiring, card and RAM connections good?
Check hardware temperatures, etc. (Maybe run Everest to see if diagnostics are OK)
Any overclocking - maybe too much?
Motherboard getting old?
Could it be antivirus or malware programs running a (slow) check as you open and close programs (minimising and maximising problem probably wouldn't be explained by this though), and not running properly?
Dust in the case messing things up? Needs a clean out?
Is there some Windows setting that controls speed of opening and closing of windows, etc. I have a vague memory of something like that (eg. performance vs. appearance) - maybe it's set wrongly or not working properly. Maybe you could try a repair off your Windows disc to make sure everything is OK there. Might be worth doing anyway.
That's about exhausted my ideas. Hope something works, or maybe someone else can assist.