A problem with my old pc? or a virus?

[Holysky]

i have been running an old emachines pc for three years now, i dont know what is wrong, all that happens is that it crashed about a month before. When i turn on the screen goes half black half red but then goes to windows. it takes a long time to start up an when i do, something weird happens. When its just sitting there the hour glass flashes about every 1 or 2 seconds. i cant open up the internet, McAfee or basically everythign wont come up. please tell em if you now about this problem. oh yea an also it takes about 15 minutes to shut down, it just goes to the shutting down screen and nothing happens for a long time. the longest was 4 hours. please help!

Windows Xp

 

[Computer Head]

What are the specs? When was the last time you formatted and rebuilt the operating system? When was the last time you defragged or ran disk cleanup? Let us know.

 

[Holysky]

What i did:

1 i did defrag it and it didnt do anything

2 I restarte the pc about 3 times (in closet now) about 1 month ago

and the specs are


2.80GHz celeron D processor

1 gig of ram

80 gig hardrive

Thats all i can say about now

 

[Computer Head]

Could be a virus. Try booting the computer in safe mode and running a virus scan. If that's not the problem, you may have to rebuild the operating system (format and reinstall). It's pretty decent on specs so that shouldn't be a huge factor.

 

[Holysky]

thanks, but i cant open up a virus thing..... they got me good

 

[JogaBonito1502]

Download CCleaner and check for registry errors. Uninstall all the crapware you have on using this program. If speed is improved then download AVG 8.0 and Sypbot: Search & Destroy and run the scans. If you don't want to go through this trouble I suggest a reformat. It will be easy and simple, but will take a while.

edit: I realize you have no internet, but you can use a flash drive or a diskette.

 

[Holysky]

i cant get on the internet.............

 

[Computer Head]

thanks, but i cant open up a virus thing..... they got me good

Not even in safe mode??? Try JogaBonito's approach with CCleaner.

 

[Holysky]

how do i get it if i cant download of the internet.... wow im a pain in the butt

 

[Computer Head]

You're on this site, right? Do you have a flash drive or floppy disk? Download from www.ccleaner.com .