Laptop running super slow- advice?
 

While my other laptop is in for repair, my older one now seems suddenly very jammed up. It's running on Windows XP Professional. I cleared all the personal history and cache on FireFox and am shutting it down to restart it, but it's still barely responding. Any other suggestions like clearing temp folders and de-fragging? I'd need fairly step by step advice, as I'm not too computer savvy. TIA...

Could be the HD going out, could be heat buildup... You try and blow out the fan?

How do I do that? Blow into the vent with a can of compressed air?

Laptop off, use the can-o-air and blow into where the exhaust air exists (Reverse of how it comes in). Laptops do collect dust and pet hair easily.

CRTL+ALT+DEL to open task manager. Click on the "Processes" tab to see what's hogging resources.

Rtvscan.exe 66,784 K
svchost.exe. 34,500 K
explorer.exe. 27,036 K
LUCOMS~1.EXE 10,032 K

svchost.exe appears 8 other times

You really care about CPU useage. Look for something that is constantly eating up 50% or more...

Get rid of that Symantec/Norton crap IMO.

I'm locked up again. CPU usage is constantly at 100%. I'm trying to uninstall it...

I can't even get the Add or Remove Programs folder to open up.

Boot up in safe mode w/ no networking.

It's taken maybe 15 minutes, but the add/remove window opened and populated. I selected remove Symentec and it's slowly configuring it. Might as well continue, right?

Bad RAM chip.

Now I get a message that says Service Symentec Event Manager could not be stopped, verify that I have sufficient privileges to stop system services. Great.

Why won't "End Process" work on Rtvscan.exe in the task manager?

Seems I succeeded in ending Rtvscan and the CPU is still running at 100%. I ended explore and all my desktop disappeared and the CPU is still at 100%.

Shuie might be onto something...

Sounds like virus/spyware to me. I would just format it to the manufacture stage.

RAM could do that, but bad RAM usually ends in a BSOD or a click, black screen and reboot.

A bad HD can do this... On occasion, a failing HD will cause a pc to run extremely slow

Look at the task manager again... in the Presesses tab, CPU column. What processes show large numbers there?