Okay im having a problem with my dell latitude laptop, everything is fine at first but it gets slower and slower the longer i stay on, i go to task manager and it says that the cpu usage is 100%,so i stop a few of the processes running until only firefox and crictical processes are running, 15 minutes late the cpu usage is 100% again, ive run virus scans with norton (used then uninstalled), avg (uninstalled),mcafee(same) and spybot search and destroy. They all got nothing. What could be making my pc so slow

 

 

 

 

 

Graphics card, on random occasions, pink appears in the background on the laptop, it does not cover the whole screen, it can just be seen in the background, and when it appears the computer crashes,the pink is of transparent colour btw.

Ok.

 

First download and run CCleaner (it will make the next steps a little quicker).

 

Download and install Malwarebytes Anti-malware.

 

Run a scan using it and delete any junk it finds.

 

Now do the following;

 

Start -> [search for]dxdiag[select and run]

 

Find out your graphics card, it should be on one of the pages which pop-up.

 

If your graphics card is nNivida go to nvidia.com, ATI go to AMD.com or Intel go to Intel.com.

 

Download and install the latest drivers for your video card.

 

 

 

Now run Windows Updates and ensure your laptop is upto date.

 

 

 

If your PC is still slow post back.

The wierd pinks bits, like Joe said, are related to your graphics card. As for the poor performance, it sounds like you have a memory leak.

running a scan as we speak, really really sluggish btw, it found two trojans so far but it's about 60% complete, i updated my driver last week but the problem still exists.

 

 

 

Will report back when scan is over

Okay got rid of everything, but it's still sluggish, the pink problem has also been fixed

What's your machine's specs, and what programs are you running whenever you turn on your machine?

specs

 

 

 

 

 

Intel core duo 2 duo cpu @ 1.8 ghz

 

2.gb ram

 

windows xp sp2 professional

 

 

 

 

 

i only have these programs opened at start

 

 

 

msn messenger

 

yahoo messenger

 

firefox

Right off the top, kill both of the messengers, and only allow them to start when you activate them. You also forgot to post your graphics card stats as well, run dxdiag and tell us what you've got.

 

 

 

While you do that, why don't you try defragmenting your hard disk? Run the defrag program, and that should get rid of some of the cruft.

I would still try to run scans with good antiviruses. All the antiviruses you used (listed in your first post) are weak and do not detect much, while most of them are very heavy on the CPU usage. Spybot S&D is usually very good though as antispyware =\. I would try Avira Antivir/Avast if I were you, and although malwarebytes is very good, I would still run a shot with Ad-Aware.

okay, thanks guys will report back

Do you have enough available hard drive memory? Anything less than 500MB of free hard drive memory is gonna really slow your computer down.

 

 

 

What process is making the CPU go at 100%? Firefox?

 

 

 

Btw, is your laptop overheating?

Yes, no it's a bunch of other processes that my comp says it is running but i don't see them on the screen. Does that make sense?

Could you look in the process tab which process is taking up all the memory (k)?

 

 

 

Do you have enough available hard drive memory? Anything less than 500MB of free hard drive memory is gonna really slow your computer down.

 

 

 

 

False, it's 15% of free space on the hard drive, as files would be starting to pretty much cross-link. 500MB is very small nowadays for hard drive space.