[NICKG]

Originally Posted by gr8fl4porsche

You have 2 gigs of ram which is fine for Vista.
I was just curiuos how many MB of your ram is being used while the computer is idling.
Doesn't really matter much to your problem.

If your cpu is hitting 60% as you watch it for a minute or so, with no major programs running, then you have some kind of program running in the background. This will slow down your computer just like trying to run too many processor intensive programs at the same time.

You have to find out what is running. Google is your friend if you get stuck..

Turn off Norton.
Boot into safe mode with networking if you use a router or just safe mode.
Download and install AVG anti-virus - its free.
Make sure it is up to date.
Run a virus scan. Norton may work but Norton may also be the cause of your problems. I have never had much luck with the big bulky anti virus programs.
Update and run the adaware program.
Download, update and run Spybot search and destroy.
Eliminate everything they find.

Reboot and see if there is any improvement. Lots of spyware and virus' cannot be deleted while they are running - hence the safe mode function.

+1 ! definetly