Slow startup/lag

[m1234]

I bought a HP Pavillion notebook a few months ago. Everything was going fine, but recently it takes it about 15 minutes to start up after shutting down, not to mention that there is a major lag while running any programs on it.

Also, my wireless adapter picks up signals and those that it used to connect to...it won't connect anymore. I cannot access the internet, it just tells me that IE cannot display the webpage even though it shows that I have a good connection. I've even tried using a LAN connection and it won't get the IP for it.

Here are some of the things I've already tried:
- Emptying Prefetch
- Running Ad-Aware
- Checking Task Manager and msconfig for suspicious looking programs
- Defragmenting about 10 times
- Clearing temp files
- Disabling firewall
- Checked registry
- Did system restore

I am clueless as to what's up, but if anyone has any more tips I'd be glad to hear them.

[fry]

here some additional tips concerning your question.

[MidiMagic]

Sounds like you have some stuff running which should not be running.

- Check for malware and spyware.

- Do you have more than one virus blocker, or more than one spyware blocker running simultaneously? That munches a LOT of time, because the blockers keep checking on each other.

- Check to see if you left a session recorder running (copies whatever interactions you do to a logging file).

- Is your startup tray choked with programs?

- Check for programs which installed themselves to run all the time.

- Is your hard disk almost full? If so, the system is looking for temproary file space.

- Defragment your hard disk.

- Your hard drive may be having read troubles. It could need a reformat.