Computer Running Slow. Help..

[Yveyant]

Hello all,
I am new, this is my first post. I am happy to be here. A friend recommended me from a GTO site I belong to.
I hope I am posting in the right section, forgive me if I am not.
My computer is fairly new, about eight months or so.
I run Windows XP, have two Pentium 2.66 GHz processors and 1.00 GB of RAM.
I connect by way of high speed cable.
I do most of my web browsing through AOL, but IE 7 is the primary I believe.

The problem I am having is when I go to click on a page it often gets stuck it seems and takes a minute to open up. Sometimes I wait so long I X out of the page and start it up again, then it will come right up. Very frustrating to say the least. This computer was lighting fast when we got it.
I tried running Lavasofts Ad-Aware which I often use and it does find malware and worms, sometimes up to 200 of them and one or two Malware that they say is very dangerous.
I am not sure if I am getting it all. Sometimes when I go to delete the Malware/Worms it will start deleting and stop half way through and tell me it was unable to delete them all (which is about half of them).
Lately it has been deleting all of the one's it finds, so I don't know if that is my problem.
McAfee does not detect a virus or anything. I also ran Spy Bot and it does not detect a virus. Any worms it detects it erases. I find the Lavasof Ad-Aware to be more thorough though as it always finds more in comparison.
I tried defragmenting, disk clean up, MSCONFIG, all the AOL one click fixes.
I usually try to keep my computer with nothing running in the backround other than McAfee anti-virus. I alway go into IE, TOOLS and delete the cookies, history etc..
Am I missing something?
Thanks in advance,
Anthony

[jdotsr1]

Good Day Anthony, Are you familiar with a utility called CCleaner? You can get a free copy of it from Filehippo.com. It cleans up the generic "Crap" (what the "C" stands for) in your Temporary Internet Files section so you don't have to go into IE and perform that individually. You can also run a registry cleaner activity that will clean up dead end registry entries for uninstalled programs. I find it very useful. Also, do you use any other browser besides IE? Have you ever tried Firefox or Netscape and if so, do you get the same results? The answers to these questions could lead you to the root cause of your problem.

[mackone]

One more thing could be, over time, as you add more and more programs to your computer, many of these applications automatically add themselves to your Windows Start-up folder.

Additionally, these applications can add themselves quietly to a hidden area of your Windows Start-up system (accessed via the MSCONFIG run command). In extreme cases your PC will appear completely frozen.

Limiting the number of applications loading themselves at start-up can speed boot times considerably and increase overall system performance.