My Toshiba Laptop has been ridiculously slow for a while. I've tried everything I can including scan disk, registry mechanic, anti-spywares etc. It seems to stay that way. It takes forever to start up, even though I've cleaned out most of the programs I dont need using Msconfig. The CPU usage goes to a 100% and stays there. Youtube or even Windows Media Player cant play any kind of video or even sound smoothly and is very jerky & slow. Need Help! Thanks.

Have you run any AntiVirus software? Are you behind any kind of firewall?

Have you checked the CPU cooling fan? You need to blow it out once in awhile as I had the same problem with my satellite a105 and it was fine after I blew the cpu cooling fan and heatsink out thru the grill on the side and bottome of computer.

I have run a bunch of anti viruses .. not behind a firewall ... DVB: I blew on the fan & got a lot of dust out .. it is a bit better but definitely not fixed yet .. still very very slow & jerky ..

You will find that the ventilation vents on the bottom of the case are clogged with dust/dirt. If you are confident removing the bottom case a thorough cleaning will solve your problem. Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!

Cleaning dust will eliminate the overheat/shutdown that this condition causes, it still does not address the slowdown issue. Some Toshiba's that we service have started showing slowdowns due to failing hard drives and not spyware/virus problems. Try testing the drive for errors. Richard

I had this problem intermittently with a Tecra A6 and was at wits end. Computer had Norton Anti-virus (with all updates) and Spy Sweeper (ditto) since I bought it new. Registry cleaners and defragging didn't help. I was about to format the hard drive and start over (horrid task) when I read in some computer mag about Spy Sweeper's keylogger blocking feature causing this problem. Disabled that feature in Spy Sweeper and fixed the problem. Old Fart