Computer

[Larry Reese]

Run the anti-virus and anti-bots, make sure your firewall is up, etc.... There are good freeware programs for much of this, but if you'd like to invest a small amount (instead of spend on the repair, I hope) you might consider getting a complete security suite (Norton is good, for one); usually not too outrageous for internet purchase and download with yearly renewal. However, if that's not to taste, for XP I used to use ZoneAlarm, one of the best free firewalls around. Is Firefox completely up to date with the latest mods?

Hopefully it's just software. My old HP desktop had an undiagnosable intermittent hardware failure and is just a big paperweight. If all else fails, and your system is old, you could probably pick up a good used or even new computer for pretty cheap. They're really commoditized now.

Take it easy,

LR

[Crossroads]

Run the anti-virus and anti-bots, make sure your firewall is up, etc.... There are good freeware programs for much of this, but if you'd like to invest a small amount (instead of spend on the repair, I hope) you might consider getting a complete security suite (Norton is good, for one); usually not too outrageous for internet purchase and download with yearly renewal. However, if that's not to taste, for XP I used to use ZoneAlarm, one of the best free firewalls around. Is Firefox completely up to date with the latest mods?

Hopefully it's just software. My old HP desktop had an undiagnosable intermittent hardware failure and is just a big paperweight. If all else fails, and your system is old, you could probably pick up a good used or even new computer for pretty cheap. They're really commoditized now.

Take it easy,

LR

My 0.02€...

I have used several antivirus software, namely Norton, Panda, and Microsoft Security Essentials (MSSE). While I preferred Norton, I have now swithced to MSSE. It is non-intrusive, comes from the horse's mouth as I mentioned, and it is free. I would recommend you to save your hard earned dollars to Modern Wars instead of Norton.

As for a Firewall, such as Zone alarm, I did use that, but have lately used the firewall that comes with Windows.

Windows always has and I guess always will have a "feature", where the systems just slows down over the years. There are disk defragmenters available, but I have never found them to be of any use.

I am risking two guesses here:

First, it is this damn virus software (whichever you are using, they are all a pain, others more, others less, but still) that is hogging all the resources. Try to set it up in a manner that it does not do any scans while you are using the computer, and if it has a pop-up window to alert you, choose to postpone the scan until you are done.

Secondly, your hard disk is nearing its best-before date. The computer shop should be able to see that, and they can offer a replacement disk instead. Unfortunately, with the cost of PCs being what they are, it does almost never make sense to fix anything, if you have to pay someone to do the fix for you. If it is an old rig, and you are not confident in changing the disk yourself, consider buying a new one instead...

[Pointman]

Good sound advice and thanks for the links.

[K K Rossokolski]

My apologies for not personally contacting those whom I should.
I am still having all sorts of difficulties...this and other postsw from Madame KKR's Apple. I have joined a PC user group which meets on Tuesday. I am negotiating some time and space on a friend's spare old machine to resume gaming.
Thanks for your patience.

[Crossroads]

No worries, hopefully you manage to sort it out :)