This is for anyone running a PC (personal computer, IBM clone, Windows, etc.).

I'm on XP Professional,  not Vista or Windows 7. But I'm pretty sure this
solution works on all PCs, even up to Windows 7 or back to Windows 95.

The problem I was having is slowing programs, Firefox freezing ("Not
Responding") and then responding again, after a few minutes. This waiting
was getting old. I'd be in the middle of some project and then I'd have to
walk away for 5 or 10 minutes before the computer would be working again.
A couple of times, it just blinked off and shut down suddenly.

Sometimes starting can be very slow, because before the USERS selection
comes up, the "Windows is starting up" message screen would just set there
and go nowhere. Without any options to select, and CTRL+ALT  Delete did
nothing, all I could do was to press and hold the Power switch, that is do a
FORCED/EMERGENCY shut down. I know this is hard on the hard drive, so I
do not want to be replacing that any sooner than I have to.

I had been running Task Manager to keep an eye on CPU usage and Page File
Usage. That's when I discovered that whenever the computer was bogging
down and Firefox freezing, it was when the Page File Useage was WAY HIGH,
like around the top one-tenth of RAM and my CPU was near 100% all the time.
I could not find any way of reducing that, because every program or utility I
tried to turn off, it was not allowed by the system to turn it off. I tried running
on msconfig from the Start menu and unchecking ALL of the boxes, for a
no frills Internet experience, and that worked "sort of" but not for long.

I also was having the problem of my mouse arrow/pointer suddenly moving
all by itself up to the top right or top left of the screen, without warning. To
top it off, while I was typing a text, like this one, right in the middle of a
sentence, my characters would start showing up in a new place on the page.
I then found out that the mouse was being "clicked" without my even touching
it. I tested this theory and found out it was true. I suspect there is some kind
of virus or corruption in the mousepad drivers (this is a laptop) that makes
the mouse malfunction like this. The mouse has been doing other undesirable
things, as well. On odd occasions, especially after the computer had been
left on for many hours, even if not being used, the left mouse button stopped
working. I could scroll up and down the page using the up and down arrow
keys (Apple doesn't have those!) but could not do any navigating with the
mousepad. I could POINT the mouse arrow at the scroll bar, but when I
would press and hold the left click button, moving the mouse arrow up or
down did not cause the scroll bar to move. Then, sometimes, the mouse arrow
would not move at all using the mousepad, even though the arrows would move
my mouse arrow. That means, obviously, on CathInfo, I could not observe the
Reputation statistics by "hovering" my mouse, because I could not even move
my mouse arrow.

I restarted my computer in SAFE MODE, and selected "with Networking" so
I could use the Internet in Safe Mode. (I had tried Safe Mode first without
the Networking option, and could not use the Internet -- no server found.)

I logged on to the Administrator user and disabled all the Add-Ons I did not
recognize.

Then I logged out, and logged back in using my own, personal user.

I started Notepad, which came up really fast, and I started Windows Task
Manager (by holding down Alt+Ctrl and then pressing Delete) and found
that my CPU usage was very low and Page File Usage was less than half
of what it had been.

So now I guess I'll be running in Safe Mode all the time! It actually looks
pretty nice. I don't get any desktop wallpaper, but hey, I'm not looking at that
anyway! I'm using the computer for projects, not for artwork.


Questions are welcome.

I'm using Avast! free antivirus, which is quite satisfactory.

Have you considered looking for malware?

Tried Malwarebytes yet? just out of curiosity.

This is the friend of you Microsoft stricken users:

www.piriform.com/ccleaner/

These are all great suggestions. Thanks.

As for me right now, I think I would lose a lot with a wipe and reload OS. My
daughter had an IT friend of hers install some programs that always come
up "not genuine - more info / remind me later" and I always go for "later."

I think those programs would not be there anymore with a re-install because
I don't have CDs for them.

I'm using Safe Mode right now, and it works great, very fast. But I can't run
any videos on YouTube or DVDs, because no sound in Safe Mode.

Also, a weird thing, is every so often, my mouse left-clicks all by itself.
I have to put the arrow pointer on the scroll bar slider while I type so that
when the mouse ghost-clicks, it doesn't move my cursor to another place on
the page.

Another weird thing, every 10 hours or so, after having the computer running
for that long without a restart, suddenly the mouse pointer disappears and shows
up in the top-right corner of the screen, and it left-ghost-clicks there. I get a
popup window asking for confirmation, "You are about to close 5 tabs - continue /
cancel) I hit cancel and finish up what I'm doing quick, so I can restart, because
that's the only way to get rid of that flyaway glitch. I'm thinking its a corruption
of the mouse driver.

I have a friend who was having some strange things going on with his computer
not responding fast, or certain commands were not effective, and he hired a
geek squad guy to come and do a service call. He stayed there for about 2 hours
doing various procedures, and fixed it. He then explained that he had found
several worms, a keylogger, trojans and one sneaky one hiding as a driver for
his modem. It was a virus UNDER DISGUISE as a driver. That was impressive.
He said a virus scan would never find that, because it doesn't look like a virus,
but rather looks like a useful software program.