PC issue

[weeba]

Wonder if anyone has an idea on this one. I have an older PC (2007), running win7. It has been running fine until recently, when all of a sudden, apps are launching slowly. I can see the process start immediately, but the GUI won't launch for a few minutes. This only happens on some apps though - iTunes's and defrag are two examples. Firefox launches with no issues, PC generally runs fine (start menu loads with no issue, browsing speed is the same etc)

My FIL used it over this past week, but I can't see anything that he's done to it (no new apps, antivirus and spyware comes up clean).

Could this be the HD finally going?

 

[The_Powa_of_Seiji_Ozawa]

What are the specs? RAM, HD capacity and amount of available storage, etc.? One thought is that some of your RAM died (not sure if this would give you a parity error message) and the system is relying on a slow swap file for RAM intensive programs.

 

[weeba]

I'm not receiving any error messages - nearly 175gb free on a 500gb HD and 4 GB RAM. When viewing properties of my computer, all 4 are listed (3.25 useable).

Most non-application files are on a 3 TB external. Main C drive is mostly program files. The main HD does spin loudly at times, but is not making any clicking noises.

 

[weeba]

Another example - I started iTunes around 5 minutes ago. In the task manager, the process is running, with 82k of memory being used.  But the GUI itself hasn't launched in that time.

 

[AlNipper49]

It could be a thousand things. Virus or , ironically, anti-virus are most likely culprits

 

[weeba]

I may have figured this out - I have an 500 GB external that has been having some issues - once I unplugged that, defrag is opening faster, as is iTunes.  I was also using "clean-up!" at times, this was hanging when it tried to empty the recycle bin.  With that external removed, it's running as it should.  It appears anything that was trying to access that drive was getting held up.