So Slow.. System Problems ?

[hajach]

I have a relatively small amount of PC knowledge and am hoping someone here can give me good advice.My Son’s computer has for some time been VERY slow in operation. It is normal for it to take 3 minutes or so for things like the Start menu, My Docs, or My Computer to appear after clicking on them. Closing these applications can sometimes take much longer. In addition the computer appears to be unstable, doing strange things instead of moving seamlessly from one function to another. At times however, for short periods it will work normally.

Having used the XP utilities such as Defrag and Disk Check which showed no problem. I then removed all Cookies,Temp files, and Temp Internet files, before scanning with AVG, Ad Aware, Windows Defender, Spybot and A Squared. Nothing significant was found.

I then ran AVG in Safe Mode and identified the following possible problems.

Partition Table MBR………Reading Error
Boot Sector of Disk C……...Reading Error

C:\WINDOWS\System32\Shell32.dll ( Warning ... file increased in size)
C:\WINDOWS\System32\ntoskml.exe '' '' '' '' ''

With regard to the above items I ran a disk check, ticking the box to fix any problems, in both normal and safe mode. Scanning again still produced the same reported issues

I have no idea what to do about these items highlighted by AVG and wonder if they could be responsible for the poor performance of the PC.

Help please or I'll have to buy a new one.

Windows XP Home SP2
AMD Athlon 1.67 Ghz
20 Gb H\D
256Mb RAM
Windows Version 5.1
AVG 7.1.385

[Statica]

AVG will give those errors in Safe Mode because "Windows is loading with a minimum set of drivers" : http://forum.grisoft.cz/freeforum/re...5275#msg-65275
Of course, am assuming that you also post on those forums .. the answer seems right, you seem to be afflicted with a system issue that seems unrelated to an infection. Have you tried running a system restore?
How much free space do you actually have on the hard drive?

[hajach]

Statica thanks for your reply, it has helped me understand the AVG scan results.

There is over 60% free space on the hard disk. I haven't tried system restore, I will try to do so now, but believe I may not be able to because I switched it off when doing some scans, which I believe removes the restore points. If this is so is there anything I can do about it.