my computer's being a jerk?

There are a bunch of things that could cause those symptoms. Firstly Defrag the hard disk, kind of obvious but it might work. Listen for any licking noises from the hard drive. If you hear a clicking sound (usually intermittent), then you probably have a dying drive (Western Digital drives are infamous for this problem). Run a full virus scan. I normally recommend rebooting to safe mode and running the scan there so nothing gets into memory. Also run a good spyware scanner like spybot search and destroy. Also make sure your memory matches (same type of DIMM and speeds.) If you installed any software around the time this started happening, remove it and see if that helps. I would also consider upgrading the ram if I were you. 640 is not much RAM nowadays.

Going by your specs, they're decent enough.

First things first, go to the following websites and download the appropriate software:

Spybot Search and Destroy 1.4

http://www.safer-networking.org/

Ad-AwareSE Personal 1.6

http://www.lavasoft.com/

If you don't have an antivirus and firewall software:

Zonelabs Firewall (get the free version)

http://www.zonelabs.com/

Avast Antivirus Home 4.6(register for free updates)

http://www.avast.com/

Install all of the appropriate software, remove all of the spyware and viruses found.

Burn as much music, pictures and movies that you downloaded to a DVD then delete them from your computer, that's if you want for the next process to go faster.

Go to Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Defragmentor.

Analyze

Defragment

Last but not least,

Go to your desktop (place where all your icons are (My Computer, Recycle,etc.). Right click on My Computer, select Properties. Select the Advanced Tab (farthest right). Under Performance, select Settings. Now Select the Advanced Tab. Under Virtual Memory, select Change. Select the Custom Size. Change both values (Initial Size (MB) and Maximum Size (MB)). to 768. Now click on the Set button. Click on the Ok button to exit. Click on the Ok button to exit again. Now click on Ok again. It'll ask you if you want to reboot, say yes.

That'll help tremendously with your PC being sluggish.

i agree with other people get spy ware search and destroy (free) and check fo spyware next you dont have a lot of memory think about getting more also if youre running windows xp use the disk defragmenter in start menu control pannel performance and maintenence then rearange items on your hard disk from there click on the disk probably disk c and then click defragment i do it about once a week on my new computer if all this doesnt work you might want to get an updated system good luck

I'm not an expert, but my computer acted that way once and I had too many programs on it. I had almost all of my memory used up. Check how much free space you have. If it is gone or almost gone, then do what I did. I went through every program and decided what I could get rid of and I got rid of it. Some programs I kept but got rid of some items in the program I did not need. exp: My Documents - I kept only what I needed within that program. Hope this helps.

I`m amazed how may people change their computer without no reason.Your computer is fine phisically,u just need to back-up your data,and reinstall windows.On my computer,wich by the way is a pentium iithe os (windows Xp) works for a month or 2,then it starts to be slower.Win98/Me works best in the firt 2-3 weeks.So,reinstall windows,and then install your programs,and i recomend a antispyware program.Adaware personal edition is one of the best and it`s totally free.Do a search.After reinstalling windows u won`t recognize your computer,trust me.And u can do it alone,u can find on the net instructions.And pls,don`t change your computer just because it needs a reinstall...

Nothing is likely loose, I would suspect software problems first. Probably less likely to be a virus and more likely to be spyware. Although it doesn't sound like any anti-spyware tools will perform well enough on your PC to be of any use, you could try one:

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.h...

start/run/ type in msconfig. click on the startup tab at the top of the window that comes up. i am assuming its windows xp, you didnt say, uncheck everything that isnt your antivirus. apply and ok, it will reastart. when it comes back up you will get another window. check the box on that window and tell it to go away. then go to lavasoft.com and download the free adaware. load it, update it, run it. if you need help with anything just email me.

Rule out spyware first.

Throw it and buy a new one or format.

throw it away