If you are having slow response times on your computer it can be either hardware or software. A CDROM not responding to a parse, or a hard drive having to continuously rewrite a cluster will slow the overall speed up significantly.
You need to go into Event Viewer, and look at the error log in the "system" tab, this is where hardware errors show up (for XP, I am not sure about 7). If you see a lot of yellow and red errors there, especially if they are from the same source device, this device or component needs to be disabled or replaced,
You can see the process on this web page for XP, others are similar, I am sure other readers here can chime in about 7 and vista. If they do I will add this information to my site.
http://stupiddamncomputer.com/how_to_use_event_viewer.html
I also have page there about speeding up your computer using both hardware and software, steps that anyone can take that will help make their computer perform better.
http://www.stupiddamncomputer.com/how_to_speed_up_your_computer.html#.T3dOmdnW6xM
If your computer does not show any errors in the "system" tab take a look at the "applications" tab and see if you have any errors there. This is where program errors will show up. If you see a string of errors from the same program, that program is suspect.
Pay particular attention to any yellow errors that occur before a string of red errors. It may be that the real problem is the yellow error, a warning that a service did not start for example, that will cause critical errors for a program is dependent on that service.
If you have an error that the print spooler cannot start, then you get an error saying the printer cannot print, the root problem is the spooler issue, not the printer, because the printer can only print what the spooler throws at it.
If both of these are clear, you should suspect a malware issue. Believe me right now, unless you use some sort of really spectacular antivirus/anti malware software, you have spyware on your computer, along with trojans.
if you clean your computer properly, you will be amazed at what you will find.
I stake my reputation on this statement. It may not be obvious, but there are very few really clean computers out there.
If you have an XP machine, once again I have a procedure to help you on my site.
http://stupiddamncomputer.com/fix_my_computer.html
Also, there is a thing called a rootkit. Simply described, it is essentially a computer infection in the firmware of the operating system itself. It sits on your system doing whatever it is designed to do along with actively hiding its existence from the actual operating systems.
If your computer takes a while to respond to the Windows button, or start button, I don't mean a few heartbeats delay, I mean a significant amount of time, do this:
Do a control-alt-delete and bring up the task manager. Go to the process tab and look at the bottom of this display box at the amount of your processor in use.
If you watch, 100% of your processor time will be accounted for when you add up the amount of processor time used by running programs and idle processes.
Watch this process and see if it seems to make sense. If your processor is running at 40 %, and you see only 20 % in use, then something is hiding itself in your computer. If your idle processes shows 95 percent idle, but your processor is high, something i going wrong.
It can either be a rogue program or malware. If it is a rogue program, usually you can see it hogging the processor in task manager.
Any time your computer is fast off the internet but bogs down on the internet, you have a bad case of malware, if there are no errors in event viewer.
Sorry for the state of the site, I was doing some updating, and something happened, so I had to restore from a variety of backups. You will notice it is about half revamped, please bear with me.
MODS- although I am actually trying to help, if this is too much of a blatant promotion even though I have not used any affiliate links, feel free to punish me accordingly. I prefer padded handcuffs.
