Slow, slow, slowwwwwwww

[djparis]

For the past few months, i've been noticing my computer running very slow between the time it first gets to the desktop [from me turning on the computer to desktop it's fine] to the time i'm able to open Internet Explorer.
Normal boot up to desktop, then I click my internet icon to sign into my DSL service. From there it's a good 4-5 minutes before Internet Explorer's window opens. Also, anything I click to open also takes a bit to respond.

I'm running an Intel P3, with 1 GIG of ram, 2 hard drives [c being 40 gigs, d being 500 gigs]. Even with about half the 500 gig being used up, it's never been slow, slow, slowwwwww like it has been for the past couple of months.

I scanned with Registry Mechanic's latest program, as well as checked for any type of spyware. All's good.

Also, every little while, while surfing and having a couple of windows open [none of which are displaying any large video content or similar], Internet Explorer 6 stops responding. I click the 'X' to close a window and the hourglass just sits there. If I keep clicking [cause I friggin' irritated from waiting] the END PROGRAM comes up. Ugh!!

Can anyone offer any other ideas? I feel everything is A-OK, but apparently not.

Thanks.

[kunai_master]

have you tryed the basics,like disk clean up, disk defrag and chkdisk . and what anti virus are you using?, and you said you have a p3? thats kinda slow all ready, what vesion of windows are you using? and finally have you moved where it is setup recently, a change in climate can result in overheating and that would happen when your processor is being active, like in browsing the internet or doing anysort of calculations. also you should try a boot time antivirus just in case you are infected during boot, it wouldnt nessisarly slow down boot process but if it launches itself as part of your boot it wont be detected by typical ativirals, try the free avast! home edition it will scan your boot on first instal

[djparis]

Ill try Avast to see if it's something with boot up.

Also, this is real frustrating simply because it's something new. No real program additions or anything, just the past month or sp I have the above problems.