My computer is super slow. It was working fine until I got "low virtual memory" warning and sense then it's too slow to do almost anything. I can't even get the anti-virus program running.

not enough hard disc space for your swapfile. clean up your disk: download, install and run Ccleaner http://www.filehippo.com/download_c... uninstall unnecessary software Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

Yeah...how big is your HDD & how much free space is left?

Safest thing to do 1st, slave your HD to another HD/comp ( no need to bolt it in, just cable it & leave it outside the case ) & copy your stuff onto the other HD or other media. You may have a choice of jumper settings on the master HD, such as master with slave or ms. Now, put it back in your comp. Once again, no need to bolt it in at this stage. System Restore Point http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Wind... Start > My Computer > right click & select Properties. Select System Restore & untick > Turn off System Restore. Select the drive with the operating system on, click Settings & set it on Min. Any other drive or partitions, click Settings & tick > Turn off System Restore on this drive. ========================================== If your computer is NOT a laptop/notebook then you can stop Hibernate. Hibernation, reserves disk space equal to your RAM. http://www.tweaktown.com/document.p... The mysterious hiberfil.sys http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/h... Go to Control Panel, select Performance and Maintenance, Power Options, Hibernate tab, and uncheck the Enable hibernation box. http://www.tweaktown.com/document.p... http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/h... =========================================== Another cleaner to use. ATF Cleaner http://www.atribune.org/content/vie... This program is for XP and Windows 2000 only Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program. Under Main choose: Select All Click the Empty Selected button. If you use Firefox browser Click Firefox at the top and choose: Select All Click the Empty Selected button. NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt. If you use Opera browser Click Opera at the top and choose: Select All Click the Empty Selected button. NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt. Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program. For Technical Support, double-click the e-mail address located at the bottom of each menu. This will remove all files from the items that are checked so if you have some cookies you'd like to save. please move them to a different directory first. ======================================= Use HiJackThis to track down or check for possible infections. Read this link 1st, it has step by step. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/show... Important: Create a specific folder on your hard drive called HijackThis to keep its backups. You can do this by going to My Computer (Windows key+e) then double click on C: then right click and select New then Folder and name it HijackThis. Download and unzip HijackThis.exe into this folder. http://www.merijn.org/downloads.html Or, http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/ If possible run HJT in Normal mode ( not Safe ) with all your normal startup's working. HijackThis Tutorial - How to Analyse your own log. http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic... http://hometown.aol.co.uk/jrmc137/h... http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tut... http://www.malwarehelp.org/understa... HijackThis log file analysis ( online ) http://hijackthis.de/index.php?lang... Or, http://startup.networktechs.com/pag... http://hjt.iamnotageek.com Malware Prevention: Prevent Re-infection http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_...

First thing you do is reboot. Usual reason for this is as follows; 1. you don't have enough physical memory {RAM}in the computer. 2. you have not defragmented the drive in some time [ever?]. 3. you are infected with spyware/malware and now your are out of resources. 4. you are running out of disk space 5. you are infected with a virus 6. you have too many apps loading at startup. Every "system utility", ram optimizer, cute things like weather pops or what is in systray [lower right corner] all consume resources. To minimize what loads boot up into safe mode. Run disk cleanup and then defrag your hard drive. Ran adaware and spybot [both free downloads] or whatever spyware scanner you have. Make sure you have updated the detection files. Same for antivirus. Might want to post your ram, disk size and available space after you have defragged for further advice. Knowing the correct answer and giving a correct answer, are two different things

I would definitely be looking at harddrive space for the swap file first. Google search brought up this blurb taken from Microsoft Windows XP - Managing your computer's performance (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/computer_maint_perf_mgmt.mspx?mfr=true "When your computer is running low on RAM and more is needed immediately, Windows uses hard drive space to simulate system RAM. This is known as virtual memory, and is often called the paging file This is similar to the UNIX swapfile. The default size of the virtual memory pagefile (named pagefile.sys) created during installation is 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your computer." If your harddrive is getting filled up with junk, your computer is going to run slower and slower and slower because the memory doesn't have room to increase like it would like to.