I'll tell you what I did if you can tell me why this thing is so slow! [View All]

[yy4me]

It's granny again with another "slow computer question. If anyone has a minute.

I keep everything up to date with Windows, AVG 8.5, SpywareBlaster and Spybot.

Two weeks ago, Spybot found some goodies that might(?) be causing me a problem. Don't know why but my machine has a bad case of the slows. I have unplugged my modem and waited for 30 seconds before attaching it again. No improvement. Them:

I have IE6
SP2
HP Pavilion 526X
Microsoft firewall.
Broadband
512 mb Ram (plenty available)

AVG found a couple of trojans(hp\bin\terminator.exe) which it removed.

Then I did a scan with Spybot and it found:

BurstMedia
CasaleMedia (Removed= green check)
HitsLink
Webtrends and

Virtumonde.prx.(2 trojans)said to be removed= green check

I understand Virtumonde is nasty and can hide in places where it can't be found. At least that is what is says on my research. Well, Spybot says it removed it or put it in the vault.

I have cleaned disk, defragged, deleted temp files & cookies, emptied trash, removed some stored junk and whatever else I can find and this thing is still slow.

I know nothing about this machine and had to pay to have the last trojans removed, I cannot do so now. I wish there was some way to block these stupid things from attaching themselves to my computer.

Anyone have a suggestion, in layman's terms, what I might check to see if something lurks?

I am always afraid to do anything other than basic removal since I don't know that to leave checked or unchecked in things like CCleaner.

Any help would be appreciated.