Sticking PC problem?

[BRL]

Hi all. Bit tricky this one to describe. Whenever I start my pc up, the thing is ok for usualy a couple of mins. What happens next is the mouse sort of 'freezes' for a few seconds at a time. This length of time increases the longer I have the pc on. For example, right now, after about ten mins, its a delay/freeze of about 3 seconds. In about one hour, it will be around ten+ seconds. Its a real pain in the bottom as you could imagine. Trying to acurately click on a link is quite difficult.
Recently, I discovered my Norton AV was not running. When i scanned my pc, it came back with 20 files infected and it put the viruses into quarentine. Could it be the viruses still there? My drives are de-fragged to 95% and 96% as of this morning. Any clues before i just nuke the hard drives clean? :confused:

[touch&go]

WD40 :D :D :D

[fobotcso]

Big Red L: might I suggest that you divulge a bit more info about your system as "Buttons" requested in his Sticky post at the top of this Forum.

You probably have a "leaky App". That is an application that progressively uses more and more RAM thereby slowing down the rest of the processes.

First thing to look at would be the latest new software that you recently installed. Delete it/them and reinstall one at a time to see which, if any, makes the system change.

[BRL]

Hello. Sorry for not putting more info here. The pc is a few years old now. Its a Time pc, 333, 196kram 4G and 8G hard drives. 32X cd rom drive and a seperate DVD/copier drive. Scanner, printer, Logic 3 Sub woofer sound system, Phillips monitor(new one) additional 4 port USB hub. The mouse is a microsoft intellimouse explorer. The one with no ball but a red light under it.!! Keyboard is Logitech cordless iTouch thingy with cordless mouse that i don't use. Have not recently added anything, this problem has only just cropped up in the last few days. Its getting on my nerves now as you could imagine, its so frustrating. I am seriously tempted to reformat the hard drives now. :(

[fobotcso]

So assuming that it is Windows 98, you'll know about the neat trick of CtrlAlt/Del to see the Programs running. Take it slowly and stop them one at a time taking note of the warning about two successive Ctrl/Alt/Del restarting the PC. If you do that you have to start over again.

NEVER stop Systray or Explorer, but everthing else can go, starting with your Anti-Virus. After each operation see if things improve and which application it was that did the trick.

Uninstall and re-install that one and it may do the trick.

However, if your set on a clean re-build don't let me put you off. That can be a very rewarding business and give your PC a new lease of life. And you get to jettison a lot of junk that you can't think of a reason for having.

I recently bought Norton Utilities for my Win2K system for a particlar purpose. It lasted two days because it clogged up the works something horrid and wouldn't co-habit with a couple of other Applications. I'll still use it when required but only for short periods and I'll put it back in the box after each use.

[BRL]

:D Sorry, yes its win98.......... :) I have norton utils 2002 and AV2002. Just tried removing all except the 2 you mention in the ctrl-alt-del, still the same but a tiny bit less delay, talking about a second less now. Dont know what it was that caused this.

[fobotcso]

Hmmm...? What's it like in safe mode? (Press F5 (or is it F8?) during boot and select the option.)