What do you use for VirusScanning and also spyware removal? I have McAfee, and I can't stand it. Talk about slowing my computer down. I also use Ad-A-Ware.
Hint: You can 'significantly' speed up McAfee (actually lessen its slowdown affects) by changing one of the properties of the On-Access Scanner.
Under the All Processes - Detection tab: Uncheck the 'When reading from Disk' selection. (Leave the When writing to disk selection checked)
That made all the difference in the world to my computer. Since, 'When writing to disk' is still selected, whenever something/anything is written, it is still Virus checked.
That has worked for my setup for years.
Other tools in my toolbox:
- Zone Alarm (Firewall- Blocker alerts things coming and AND things trying to get out w/o my permission)
- AdAware (On demand Adware scanner)
- Spybot S&D (Search and Destroy) (on demand Spyware scanner)
- Spyware Guard (Resident vulnerability guard)
- Spyware Blaster (Vulnerability blocker)
For A/V products, Avira and Kaspersky are superior, IMHO, but I use McAfee because I get it free. I could also get Norton free also, but swore off it years ago, because it was bloated and had tentacles everywhere in my system. Never again....
Try the McAfee setting I noted above and see don't you get some restored speed relief.