Computer is extremely slow the first 30 to 45 minutes

[Aaron A]

My computer is extremely slow for the first 45 minutes or so after firing it up. The computer comes right up, but when I click the internet explorer icon it takes about 20 minutes for my Yahoo home screen to come up and another 20 minutes or so before my computer gets up to speed. Then it seems to work fine.
I'm running windows XP home edition on a dell dimension 4500 computer with 512 ddr ram. Thanks in advance for any help...

[Flyingcrapaud]

The first thing that comes to mind is one or more virus infections. Do not rely on your installed antivirus to work, it may be damaged by the infection.

The most effective way to remove viruses is to use the Bitdefender Rescue CD available here, instructions here.


Are you running more than one antivirus program? That can really mess up a computer.

[Andrew Diaz]

Hi Aaron A,

Your computer could be slow from a variety or combination of reasons. Have you gone through the quick and easy steps of defragmenting your hard drive or reviewing specific program CPU usage in your Task Manager? Have you tried using a different browser like Fire Fox or Chrome? If you do like IE, are you using the latest version with complete updates? Are all programs up to date with the latest updates? I’ve been guilty of ignoring updates myself, but staying on top of this can really help the speed and longevity of your machine.

Like Flying Crapaud notes, it could very well be that your computer is infected with malware. You should definitely scan your computer, remove all if any malware from your machine, and make sure to change you passwords and usernames just to be safe. As already noted above, it is recommended that you run only one AV product. It is also important to run a firewall if you’re not running one already.

If you’re interested in scanning your machine for not only malware but also software and performance issues I’d recommend using Norton’s free PC Check. I’ve provided a link below. After scanning your machine the tool will provide you some DIY tips to get you PC tuned up.

Norton PC Check UP

I hope this all helps.

Regards,
Andrew

Andrew Diaz
Norton Outreach
Symantec Corporation