IE6 and Windows SLOOOWWW

[Guest]

hi all from sunny (yeah right) cornwall, UK!

after a recent clean install (xp pro - non sp1 - all critical updates applied), something ive installed is slowing things down:

hard drive "always" fragmented (e.g. an hour or so after running diskeeper lite it tells me its fragmented again). same thing if i use perfectdisk.

ie6 runs slow (click on a favourites link and its now a couple of seconds before it goes to the site ive selected), also highlighting (click and drag) objects in windows is jerky and slow. general windows operation is slow. start-up is frequently slow, other times average.

another very noticeable thing is when i use ad-aware now, the splash screen fades into view very slowly (say 6-7 seconds; it used to be instantaneous) - whereas if i try ad-aware in safe mode it launches ok like it used to. so something is running thats dragging the system down...

recently installed stuff:

realplayer 10 - the only thing really... (not yet tried uninstalling it)

ive tried/run:

ad-aware - no issues - latest update
avast av - no issues - latest virus pattern
spybot s&d - no issues - latest update
zone alarm - no issues - latest update


obviously im thinking spyware etc., but cant track anything down.

thanks in anticipation.

 

[R. McCarty]

Grab Bag for "General Sluggishness".

Check Event Logs for Errors
Turn off Indexing Service, Uncheck Index option from each drive
Chipset Drivers, DirectX - Latest Video Drivers
Offline Defrag for Perfect Disk (Set Options 1st)
Check Device Manager for "Other Devices", IDE channel options
Trim-Back unnecessary Services
Double-Check BIOS settings (ensure UDMA enabled)
Run TaskMgr with additional Columns (Peak Memory, Delta) and
monitor PF usage (~150 up to ~240 w/normal loading)
Check Network settings - DHCP or Manual Gateway,DNS
Run PCPitstop Test to isolate "Problem Area" Drive,Video, Memory