As of the end of December after cleaning my machine of a virus, I have
noticed a rather significant slowdown in performance in 2 areas. 1) Between
the time I click on a program icon and its eventual execution (time I see the
hard drive light going) and 2) HD or program access to the HD - for example
when running SpyBot S&D or Ad-Aware the program starts, the "count" of files
search begins to increase then stalls for minutes before continuing (HD light
blinks every so often). During this time, I have noticed that in the task
manager the process is occupying 99% of the CPU, essentially stalling the
machine. (I have run diagnostic programs and found nothing wrong with the HD
or computer in general and have fully run the spyware and ad-aware programs
to clean out any items found.) Any thoughts or programs to try would be
appreciated. Thanks.