On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 20:49:37 GMT, "Bob" <bobinsfo@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>My 6 month old HP Pavilion with Pentium 4 3.2 GHz processor is very slow in
>opening new applications. When I click on an icon on the desktop, start
>menu, control panel, etc. there is nearly always a 10 second (sometimes
>more) lag before the application opens. This is not new; it has always been
>that way. When I first got it, I complained to HP support, but they
>couldn't do anything, and even went so far on one occasion to tell me that a
>10 second delay was normal. It surely isn't on my laptop (1 GHz or my
>former computer). I don't have a lot of things in the start up program that
>might cause this. And there is no lag when I use the keyboard program keys
>to open an application such as Outlook Express or IE, or when I use the
>"windows"
>key to, for example, show desktop. It's only when I use
>the mouse. I even tried a different mouse with USB connection. Nothing
>seems to work. I'm not sure whether this is a hardware, software, or maybe
>even a mouse problem, but it certainly is annoying! Anyone have any
>suggestions about what I might do to fix this?


- Boot into safe mode to see if the lag persists.

- Do you have elaborate software suites installed that add
lots of items to file or folder context menus? For example,
Norton/Symantec or McAfree software? Any other kind of
realtime system "help" thing like from an OEM?

- Try disabling system restore (only temporarily as a test
if you want that feature)

- Defrag the hard drive

- Scan the hard drive with windows. If all else fails,
also run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics on it.

- Bench the hard drive. ATTO, Sisoft Sandra, HDTach, are a
few (Google will find them).

- Check for Shared IRQs in Device Manager

- Usually the easiest way to regain the
performance/responsiveness your system was supposed to have,
is to wipe the system and install XP clean, NOT an OEM
image/configuration but from XP original installation files
then only adding standard (Non-OEM specific) things like the
newest stable drivers from the chipset manufacturers,
applications, etc, again trying to avoid Notron/McAfee/OEM
suites.

You might also run HijackThis (Google for it) to get a more
comprehensive view of what's loading, not just
spyware/viri/etc but the supposed-valid programs as well.