Slow Windows XP

Just yesterday I noticed my programs in XP were opening slowly and also running slowly.  My computer takes a long time to start up too.  I searched on Google and tried CHKDSK to see if the hard drive was ok and it was just fine.  I then defragged and after that the problem was still there.  From googling I found that my problem could be issues with my RAM.  I ran memtest.exe for an hour and it didn't find any errors.    One example of my problem is when I use winrar to extract something it takes much longer than usual to do it.  I noticed in Task Manager the CPU usage is between 0% and 3% when idle and around 50% when it's slowly running a program.

Anyone have any ideas?

Edit:  I forgot to mention I did a virus-scan with Norton 360 and a scan with Malwarebytes Pro.

a virus or a dying hard drive.

Could be a dying virus.

I have a 3 year old Western Digital.  I know WD's are the best.  Don't they usually last longer than that?  

stretch009 said:

I have a 3 year old Western Digital. 

I have a 5 year old Western American...and a 2 year old Western American.

Thanks for all the help Frink. ; )

Any time!

This will probably help too...

Maybe a long shot but could be the CPU is getting overheated and clocks down to prevent that, and thus slowing everything down.

Google around and see which CPU temp software works with your CPU and check the temps both at idle and load. Also see if you can find what the recommended temps are for that CPU.

If you have good cooling for the computer you might wanna open it up and clean away dust if it's been a long time.

You might also wanna check if the reason is a specific service running in the background. You can use the software ProcessExplorer for that.

And make sure Norton 360 isn't running any backup-copy thing in the background. I'm using Norton internet security myself so I'm not familiar with the additions in 360.

EDIT: To check if the CPU is clocking down you might also wanna monitor the CPU clock. Google around for software working with your CPU for this also.

Well it's Windows.

Try putting Lubuntu on it as it will probably go like a rocket.

You_Too said:

Maybe a long shot but could be the CPU is getting overheated and clocks down to prevent that, and thus slowing everything down.

Google around and see which CPU temp software works with your CPU and check the temps both at idle and load. Also see if you can find what the recommended temps are for that CPU.

If you have good cooling for the computer you might wanna open it up and clean away dust if it's been a long time.

You might also wanna check if the reason is a specific service running in the background. You can use the software ProcessExplorer for that.

And make sure Norton 360 isn't running any backup-copy thing in the background. I'm using Norton internet security myself so I'm not familiar with the additions in 360.

EDIT: To check if the CPU is clocking down you might also wanna monitor the CPU clock. Google around for software working with your CPU for this also.

Thanks You_Too for all the advice.  I think I'm going to try cleaning out the dust inside because that's helped me before.  This time it's different though.  The last time I had to clean out dust my computer would repeatedly freeze up followed by a warning 'beep'.