For you computer (win XP) computer wonks: Any suggestions?

[Hurst2112]

Problem:

When I click on 'my computer', a little flashlight does a search for about 20-25 seconds. Only after that, it shows my hard drive and all the other stuff (optical drive and so on).

It does this when I want to send something to my external HD as well. Basically, anytime I need to access that screen, it does it slow.

Everything else loads fine, works fine.

I have a 100GB drive. I had 50+ GB of music in itunes. add that to 20 GB of programs and other stuff and the drive was 75% full. I bought an external drive and threw all my music on there. The computer drive now has 70 GB of space avail. I thought this would help but it didn't. The search time is still around 20-25 seconds.

I had 1 stick of 512 DDR ram installed. I bought 2-1GB sticks of ram and installed them today. I thought this would fix the issue. It doesn't. The RAM is recognized and appears to be working. Still, when I click on 'my computer', I still get the lag.

I defragged (windows defragger). I checked for errors (windows program). Nothing was out of the ordinary.

I'm confused now. My next option is to do a brown install or even a full install of Windows again. Do I need to do this?

Has anybody had this problem? Is there something I am not thinking of? I don't have Norton (McAfee antivirus suite installed only) so I can't tell if there is a problem that isnt showing up with my C drive. I suspect that there isn't.

Thanks for any input.

Oh, I'm running a Toshiba satellite M65 series. Intel Centrino Mobile 1.7 / win xp home with latest update / 2 GB ram

No goofy programs installed cept for office XP, FOF, EHM, Roxio, itunes. The usual.

[Tim Tellean]

Antivirus or Windows Defender running? All the drivers sound, video up to date? have you scanned for virus, trojan, malware?

[Neon_Chaos]

virus perhaps?

[Drake]

I'd do a Windows re-install/repair. From my experience, the flashlight dealie (when My Computer is involved) usually means that something in my registry has gotten torqued.

[Drake]

dola...

I just want to stress that I'm *not* talking about a HD-wipe/clean install.

[Celeval]

Check what's listed in My Computer - if there's a network drive it's trying to find that isn't there anymore, that could delay opening it up. Make sure that if there's a S: (X:, Y:, whatever) drive defined outside the standard hard drives, that it's connected.

[Hurst2112]

Mc Afee checks regularly and doesn't come up with anything. It could be a registry thing (like I know what I'm talking about).

Everything else works. Drivers are up to date AFAIK.

I did have some trojan shit happen a year ago...bad. Never reinstalled. Got McAfee and the stuff hadn't happened again. Doesn't mean that there isn't something left. I'm familiar with the term malware but not sure what that is exactly.

Drake:

are you talking about a 'brown install'? that's the term i have heard when you just reinstall windows and keep everything on your drive (programs, doc folder, etc.)

[Hurst2112]

Check what's listed in My Computer - if there's a network drive it's trying to find that isn't there anymore, that could delay opening it up. Make sure that if there's a S: (X:, Y:, whatever) drive defined outside the standard hard drives, that it's connected.

OH MY SHIT!

I did have the work server drive accessible on my computer! I don't need that anymore so I right clicked and chose 'disconnect'. Is that all I have to do? Do I need to delete that info anywhere on my computer, so it doesn't look for it again?

I just restarted after i did that because it was doing the same thing. Don't know if it helped but it might have.

thanks:D

[Drake]

Yup. I just do a brown install. Never heard it called that before, but I think it's a term I'll appropriate for the future.

[Hurst2112]

Deleting the network drives didn't help. When I look in my workgroup computers, there are still icons in there. I can't get rid of them.

[Toddzilla]

Yup. I just do a brown install. Never heard it called that before, but I think it's a term I'll appropriate for the future.Dude, I just did a brown un-install. Feel much better now, thanks.

[Hurst2112]

Yup. I just do a brown install. Never heard it called that before, but I think it's a term I'll appropriate for the future.

I'll probably do that tonight. Thanks you guys.

[Hurst2112]

update...

ok, i don't know what i did that was the catalyst for the change but it is working normal now.

in the last couple hours, i:

purchased a $10 registry cleaner program
ran norton win doctor and disk doctor from a CD I had
uninstalled a bunch of programs that were 'suspect' and not needed

one of these things worked. If I wasted 10 bucks on the registry program, so be it.

thanks again for you help guys.