programs stop responding , pc running slow

myself321

hi all

having problems with programs once launched , they stop responding ( win xp) eg firefox word etc..

i have protection, such as avast, zonealarm, spywareblaster, spybot, adaware, which i run and keep up to date. recently run smartdefrag as well.

what can i do to resolve this issue , many thanks

Frozenace

might be worth reducing your start up programs (go to run + msconfig, then select useless start ups')

Also, no point in having multiple spyware things running at the same time.

If the computer is over 2 years old, give it a vacuum inside and see if the power supply is really dusty or so (would be helpful to see what specs you have).

el_gringo_3

odd question - do you have both SATA and IDE drives attached to the mobo?

I had the same problem, which would go for a week or so after clearing cmos and re-ordering the boot sequence, then it would come back. Then did a complete reinstall and it still did it as soon as i'd connected the storage hard drives up but was fine with only the c drive and a dvdrom drive on the 1st IDE.

Looked on loads of forums and found this was quite common when people were using several IDE drives and SATA drives on the same MOBO. Disconnected my SATA drives (which are about to be transferred to a new build anyway) and voila, problem solved.