I am working on a friends Dell Inspiron 8500 notebook. It was previously plagued with viruses, and was 'cleaned' professionally, yet it runs hellaciously slow, very slow boot roughly 5 minutes to full boot, any program or window takes a good minute to load, and cannot multitask at all beyond 2 open windows. Now i had found one issue, damaged ram its runnin on 128 with a 3/4 full HDD, i imagine its a significant factor. I have scanned it with Bitdefender, AVG free, Avast, Search and Destroy and Adaware, with no major results.(tracking cookies etc.) Yet the CPU % is very sporadic, and in many files properties, the size of the file increases rapidly, and within a minute or two it returns to its original size this happens every time I view the properties. MY QUESTION is, is it a sign of a virus or other malicious software? or is it the file being accessed? Furthermore, The user has a massive amount of photos, and music, as well as some guitar tracks, the PC is ready to back up data but I am uncertain if its still inundated with malicious software. Help would be much appreciated. Thank you

As i wrote in another post on this section, formatting your computer is not sufficent sometimes. In fact a lot of viruses log your IP. As soon as you connect your just-formatted computer to Internet new viruses and malware are injected in your hard disk. the solution here is to install a firewall in your computer before connecting to the web. Also, sometimes viruses get installed in the bios. Download a good, freeware antivirus for BIOS and let it scan your pc. Other times instead the quantity of virus is so great that they end up damaging your hard disk. Scan your hard disk to see if any sector or cluster is damaged. WebMaster of WEB TALK

Well franks is right you must be update on the latest virus dude. Check the damage that have been caused to your notebook. Then look for a really reliable Anti Virus, Firewall and Spyware remover. I know a new site that could help you the link is in my signature. That site gives the latest information about the latest computer system threats Like Virus, Spy ware, Worm, Trojan and any other Malware. Just subscribe for free at their Weekly Newsletter and they will provide you with News weekly. Try your best to revive your notebook. Then make sure that won't happen to your computer again alright. Want A Weekly Update on Latest System Security Problem http://www.systemsecurityinstitute.org