Windows loads slow and crashes

[Guest]

I have had Windows XP pro installed and running fine for over 3 years on a
machine. I just now see when I reboot or cold boot the pc it takes a very
long time to load XP, from before when it was faster. Also it has rebooted
itself and when it comes up it says windows has recovered from a serious
error. I have changed nothing and only loaded the newer Symantec Norton
Antivirus 2006. I have also ran spybot search and destory to see if I have
anything on the pc and it cleaned up 5 things. I also defraged the hdd and
after doing this it loaded back to normal. But now has gone back to the slow
boot, and when I hit my computer it takes 20-30 seconds to load. Can someone
please help on this on what could be causing this issue? Is it a spcific worm
or virus I can search for or something I can change?

Thanks

 

[Michael]

you didnt mention whether you had SP1 or SP2 installed. You really need to
get rid of Norton's. I got rid of it when Norton's 2004 screwed up my
computer. The slow bootup is 100% caused my Norton's. It loads 8 separate
apps.

 

[Rock]

I have had Windows XP pro installed and running fine for over 3 years on a
machine. I just now see when I reboot or cold boot the pc it takes a very
long time to load XP, from before when it was faster. Also it has rebooted
itself and when it comes up it says windows has recovered from a serious
error. I have changed nothing and only loaded the newer Symantec Norton
Antivirus 2006. I have also ran spybot search and destory to see if I have
anything on the pc and it cleaned up 5 things. I also defraged the hdd and
after doing this it loaded back to normal. But now has gone back to the slow
boot, and when I hit my computer it takes 20-30 seconds to load. Can someone
please help on this on what could be causing this issue? Is it a spcific worm
or virus I can search for or something I can change?

Thanks

Actually you did change something - Norton AV 2006 was installed. It
can run ok, but it is heavy on system resources, and then again
sometimes it causes problems on some systems. If that's the case with
yours then look to another AV program. I'm not saying that's the cause,
just one issue to investigate.

Do some clean boot troubleshooting:
How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310560

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=316434