please help

[Guest]

I had windows 98 and when i used it to watch a movie or
play or had my son play a video game, there would be a
lot of lag. Originally it was not like that but started
happening after a while. When i upgraded to xp it seemed
fine and after a few days when i ran norton anti virus
and downloaded the virus definitions it found a sound
blaster worm, so i quarantined it but now once again
there is sufficient lag, when i watch movies, go on the
internet, or listen to any music. I have a nVidia
graphics card. Could someone please help me?

my system is not that old and has a lot of free space,
ill try your suggestions but the thing is this happened
rapidly, it occured when i had windows 98 then when i
overwrote it with windows xp it dissapeared and just
reappeared when i downloaded the norton definitions

 

[Guest]

if you need to remove the worm go to this link and take that step first. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...8B-FE98-493F-AD76-BF673A38B4CF&displaylang=en

 

[t.cruise]

If your system came preloaded with Windows 98, then it is old. Computer
years are shorter than dog years. It's been about four years since PC
makers stopped shipping Windows 98 on systems. Are you sure that your
hardware components are up to the task of running multimedia system
intensive files on Windows XP. Windows XP hardware requirements are more
than that of Windows 98. The MS requirements listed for Windows XP are the
minimum, and will not give satisfactory performance, especially with
Multimedia. If you're going to be doing Multimedia, than have at least
512MB RAM, and at least a 7200 rpm hard drive with a fast seek time, and at
least a Pentium III 450 MHz CPU. If you have the above, and didn't do a
Clean Install of Windows XP, I'd suggest formatting your hard drive, and
doing a clean install of Windows XP. Get a decent firewall, and a decent
antivirus program (both the firewall and antivirus software can be gotten
for FREE, AVG Antivirus, and Zone Alarm firewall), and having both
installed, and the virus definitions updated before you go web surfing.
Don't forget to do the Windows XP security updates, to patch
vulnerabilities, and to immediately turn on the Windows XP firewall before
going online.

 

[-xiray-]

my system is not that old and has a lot of free space,
ill try your suggestions but the thing is this happened
rapidly, it occured when i had windows 98 then when i
overwrote it with windows xp it dissapeared and just
reappeared when i downloaded the norton definitions

Oddly a Win98 machine upgraded to WinXP is not going to be a speed
demon.

But... IF things ran find and now they don't and if your machine is
connected to the Internet (for example through DSL?), then my first
guess would be that your son has installed some programs that have in
turn installed some spyware. I've seen your exact problem so many
times that I could scream. There are some free tools out there
(AdAware, Spybot) that you could run to try to clean the problem up.

Frankly, and you'll probably not like this, but the best solution
would be to reformat your drive and install XP again. In my experience
with a home gaming machine,you get better results that way. But have
all your original software CDs handy. Make sure you have all the
drivers for your video card and any peripherals. And prepare yourself
for a few hours in front of the computer. And once everything is
installed off CD and working, go to the windows update site and
download the recent critical files.

Then tell your son that the crap he's downloading (Kazaa and their
like) really will screw him in the long run because it will slow down
the machine.