I finally solved this problem.  After sanitizing the computer with a variety 
of spyware and virus programs, it turned out that the Norton Antivirus was 
the culprit!  Programs would take 3-4 minutes to load with NAV turned on, 
about 15 seconds with NAV off. I put Spybot and Avast on the computer and it 
works just fine now.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russ Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 1:46 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] slooow computer


A friend has a Compaq Presario, 2.4 GHz Athlon, 256M RAM that runs very 
slow.  Takes over 5 minutes to boot up, all program loading is similarly 
slow.  The list of programs under Startup doesn't show anything significant, 
but I haven't yet run "What's Running". It is running Symantec NAV.  I have 
run Spyware doctor and quarantined a lot of spyware, but it still runs slow. 
It does have Wild Tangent (spyware?) that I haven't yet removed (just 
printed the removal procedures).  Can that be the problem? What other 
measures should I take to improve performance, short of clearing the HD and 
starting all over.

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