Windows slow down. No malware.

[daylight]

My system started to run very slow recently. Boot and shutdown are also very slow. I tried defragmenting my drives and running CHKDSK with no luck. Windows operation is very laggy although CPU is NOT utilized at 100%. CPU acts normally like it should.

For example, extracting files from RAR archive takes extremely long. Same with other operations which require high HDD activity. Another example, opening whatever file or application causes mouse pointer to lag a little at that time.

I have never experienced this before.

Pc specs: Intel Core2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, Windows XP Pro SP2

HJT and ComboFix logs are attached. I didn't attach AVG Anti-Spyware log because it only found trackercookies with medium risk and nothing else.

Please help me fix this problem.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

You log files are clean, so I don`t think your problem is malware related.

I suspect a corrupt registry or OS files may be responsible for the slow down.

Thew best advice I can give you, is to backup your important data and reformat and reinstall.

Regards Howard

 

[daylight]

I'd like to avoid reformat but I see there's no other way. Too bad.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

You could possibly try a Windows repair as per this thread HERE and see if that helps.

I had a very similar situation myself a few weeks ago. On one of my Windows intallations, the system became unbelievably slow. Tried everything I could think of to no avail. A reformat and reinstall solved the problem.

Regards Howard