Hi, this is just a guess, but I would say there is a big chance some of your
software may well be conflicting somwhere along the line.
I had a similar problem myself sometime ago, which became even more
confusing to resolve, as I had the W32.sobig.F@mm worm at the same time, so
of course I thought it was the worm causing the problems. I had got rid of
the worm, but it kept returning.
To cut a long story short, I had experimented with a different antivirus
program. Instead of using my usual Norton antivirus, I tried PCCillin 2003,
which was fine, but it was conflicting enormously with my Norton Utilities.
I had no idea that it was the antivirus conflicting, and the way I
eventually found out was by reformatting (by then I had become convinced the
worm was causing the problems by constantly re-appearing).
Once I had reformatted and reloaded, I loaded all of my programs, one at a
time, and tested the speed of the system in between loading things.
It was fine until I once again loaded PCCillin, and then the slowdown began
again.
(Of course, I might add that I'm sure that usually pc cillin wouldn't do
this to a system, I'm sure it's just a case of the conflict with Norton
Utilities, which I do tend to load out of pure laziness)
Anyway, I unloaded pc-cillin, reloaded Norton antivirus, and it's been fine
ever since.
This may not be your problem, but just out of interest, I'd look back and
see if anything has been installed recently which may well be causing the
kind of conflicts that I experienced. I sympathise with your sister and I
hope it's resolved soon.
As far as I can remember, when the time alters while the system is actually
running, it also points to a software problem. I may be wrong about that
though.
Hope this helps.
Michele Sayer

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