I am running ME on an Athlon 1.3Ghz. I regularly (every 5 mins or so) get a slowdown together with a quiet squeak/whine from the PC case. If watching a video clip this makes the clip go into slo-mo for a few seconds, then into fast forward as the PC 'catches up with itself' Any comments/solutions?

Whine? is it a mechanical sound or a speaker sound? It is probably the processor overheat alarm - the computer will auomatcally slow down the processor to prevent damage if it overheats. Open the case and make sure that the fan is still working. If it is mechanical, then same thing - the fan is probably failing causing the processor to overheat. Get a new heatsink and fan.

First of all scan with antivirus and Ad-aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ Online scans : http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp http://security2.norton.com/ssc/home.asp?

Also what hard drive do you have, go to the site say Maxtar or western digital and download the program that checks your hard drive they are very good, mine did this before it crashed and I thought it was my cdrom, but it was the hard drive I could here it spinning but everything sortof slowed down then went real fast......it won't hur to check your hard drive out....put the program on a floppy and check it...