Here is the situation.

I built my own computer last year and it was beautiful, ran perfectly with totally no problems.

About a month ago my computer kind of all of a sudden started going VERY VERY slow.

I only had 5 gig worth of space left so deleted stuff to give me 30, defragged and disk cleaned.

when i turn on my computer when i press alt, ctrl, delete it says that explorer.exe is running at 99% ALL THE TIME.

It basically crashes all the time and i have to keep constantly restarting it. However i installed max payne 2 and when i get it up and running it worked completly fine?? It is just when i run programmes that it is MAJORLY slow and to be honest it is driving me insane. :evil:

I trtied reinstalling windows over the top (by the way i have windows xp with service pack 2) and it STILL does nothing.

If i have to i am prepared to format and start again (however i dont know how to so advice would be appreciated if this is needed) but if there is anyway i can sort this without doing so then i would do this instead.

I dont think it is a virus but i will have to do a full system scan to check this.

Any Experts come across this before?

Any help would be greatly Appreciated.

Many Thanks
Spida

did you install any new software before the problem arose? downloaded any new files that may be the cause?

Try and think back to when the problem reared its ugly head and what you did in the days or hours preceeding....

To eliminate dodgy software as the cause, backup all your programs and uninstall the lot......try your O/S barebones and then add them back one at a time till she goes **** up again.

Slow and painfull i know, but it is a process of elimination!!

This is on the proviso that you do not suspect malware as the cause....

That definitely sounds like malware. I'd post in the HJT forum...