PC getting slow, should I consider upgrading?

[pa1n]

Recently i've been having some problems with my PC. I've noticed everything is slowing down (the windows startup itself, takes more time to load stuff, especially noticeable when 2+ programs opened at the sime time, which I do often) What i've noticed also and seems kind of weird is the percentage of CPU usage, which is very high most of the time, gets under 40% rarely (used to be around 10 all the time) and as I've said when things start getting slow for ex. opened media player+browser+photoshop it's up in the red showing 100% most of the time . Could this indicate a problem ? The integrated temp. sensors are showing normal temperatures and the processor itself is about 3 years old now .
( Intel core 2 duo E4500 , running on Gigabyte EP4PT - UD3LR )
(8gb Ram, Geforce 8800gt)
I've been thinking about upgrading for awhile anyway now, what do you guys think ? I was considering Intel i7 870 , what motherboard would you recommend to go with ?
I work as a designer and my PC slowing down all the time is getting unbearable.

Thanks a lot for any kind and helpful answers ! =)

 

[EDO219]

Personally, I would just do a clean reformat.

 

[pa1n]

Did it about a week ago.

 

[EDO219]

Oh snaps.

Have you done a HijackThis scan since the reformat?

 

[pa1n]

doing it right away, thanks for the tip

 

[pa1n]

Heres what I got. Not really sure what everything means.

 

[EDO219]

hm ... are you sure you performed a clean reformat and not merely a re-installation of Windows? o_o

The HijackThis log seemed OK until I got down to the services section. Others on this forum are far more studied than I, yet the apparent disappearance of some of the services seems fishy to me: ... ALG ... Isass ... msdtc ... locator ... sppsvc ... WatAdminSvc.

However, if you are running a 64 bit version of Windows, then HijackThis would say these files are missing even if they are not. If I had to take a bet on the cause of your PC's sluggishness, then my money would go on an over-heating issue and no malware at all.

It's probably time for a new machine anyhow, especially since you are doing some form of design work. CS4 can be rough on a dual core let alone CS5 or any type of CAD. I must admit, design work on this new i7 950 machine has spoiled me. haha

 

[pa1n]

thanks. Yeah i'm using CS5