Gateway Laptop runs slower than slower. Never seen a machine run this slow. Tried to run MS MRT and it didn't get a quarter of the way through the scan before it auto shut down. Running security software will not complete because of auto shut down after 5 minutes. Tried over and over to run programs, but nothing finishes. So I decided to do a clean install of MS XP. However, after about 5 minutes it still does an auto shut down and could not complete the clean install. However, the drive has been reformatted by running the clean install and it copies 60% of the files and then shuts down. I have tried this numerous times to keep it on, but with no luck. I elevated the laptop about 2" off the desk and have a 9" desk top fan blowing on it to keep it cooler so it doesn't over heat. It still auto shuts down after about 5 minutes. Can't complete the clean install or system restore. I checked the BIOS and was writing all info down and it still auto shut down after 5 minutes. With the fan running it doesn't feel very hot at all. Do you think the hard drive may have bad sectors and I need to replace it? It probably does have a virus or malware, but I can't run anything to get rid of them. It hasn't been used in a while. HELP! Hope this makes sense.

Remove the hard drive and boot to bios to see if it will run for any longer.

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