A friend telephoned me to say her computer slows down after being on for 30 minutes or so.When using Word it takes a few moments before a letter appears on the screen, and the mouse movement is slow, and downloading E-Mails seems slower. The computer is about 4 years old running 98SE and nothing has changed on it for some time, no new programs or anything. I have heard of a number of problems with a slow mouse but they normally occur as soon as the computer is turned on. In this case the computer works fine for 30 minutes then slows down. Could it be a hardware problem, with something going faulty once it gets too hot say? Any ideas anyone?

There are a number of basic things to do first off: Clear Temporary Internet files. Update and Run virus checker. Run some malware checker like Ad-Aware. If there are a stack of icons next to the clock these are running background programs. If any are not required all the time see if they have an inbuilt disable, or type msconfig in the Run box and untick any that are not necessary. This might help: START UP LIST Defrag. There are more to add to the list but that lot is about the minimum. Once all this has been done then it can be pursued further. Derek.W

I forgot an important one. Take the case off and clean all the vents and fans, overheating is also a possibility. Derek.W

Spyware can bring a system to a crawl just like you described. Two good programs to use are Spybot Search and Destroy or Ad-Aware. Best Luck, Bob

Thanks for that. I'll get her to do all you have suggested.

Just to let you know what happened. It was a coincidence that things went slow after 30 mins. The computer worked fine for me for an hour until it was connected to the Internet. Minutes later everything slowed down. She had a couple of virus', Magister, and NetskyD, as well as some spyware. Managed to remove it all and computer now works fine albeit that some files had to be quarantined and replaced from original disks. Thanks for your input Derek and Bobthearch.

Glad to hear you fixed it and thanks for popping back to let us know. Derek.W