my bl@@dy pc

Hard drives kind of work or dont work. Sectors can drop out, and the SMART bit of it can manage this, and move the data, but I dont think they are going to slow down over time.

You say you reformatted the machine? And that didnt solve anything? No speedup at all?

It might be some of your RAM is conked out, and your machine is thrashing the HD cause it has nowhere to store anything. Do a mem test on it, see what teh craic is with that.

Not necessarily, FYI formatting (depending on what type) may not wipe out a master boot or boot sector virus (even unconditional formatting, low level will mind), it could simply be a badly defragged disk with errors or heaps of other things.
I'd start with a virus check, look at whats apps are running/registry Run/RunOnce entries, what ports are listening/open, run a chkdsk/defrag & run HD diagnostics to rule out all the obvious as a start.
Mem test but I wouldn't start there & something to leave going all night.
HTH

fragged up drive was what I was thinking, but he said he just reformatted the drive from scratch there... so I am all like

Yep it's weird but it could be (I don't know how he installed) he ghosted or used an image (& anyway I always defrag after installing).
Best to tick all the usual boxes off I guess (not being able to run a chkdsk isnt good, even if he has to from recovery console if necessary).

run 2 virus checkers 0 found,
defraged,
installed nearly 6 gig of updates,
i formatted off the xp disk (the full format not the quick)
seems to be not to bad now, time will tell
i'll see what its like tomorrow.

have you bought it anything nice recently like a present... they like that

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

installed nearly 6 gig of updates,

For fecks sake! 6Gb of updates And you think it will run anything but slow?

Suspects:
1) Windows
2) RAM
3) HDD motor/controller
4) Motherboard
5) Processor
6) Power supply
7) Windows
Windows & all the updates.

Solutions:
1) Get hold of ANY LiveCD you care to choose from. Ubuntu is as good as any, but there's many many more. Burn the disc using a mates machine, or the office, or anywhere that you can (even your machine once booted up. I couldn't give a flying... if you intend to keep using it, or even if it boots properly, you're looking for any warning messages, and the overall time to boot to SOMETHING. This could be single user CLI, it could be fully fledged Gnome2, doesn't matter.
2) Get some RAM from somewhere & swap it with yours. If this isn't an option, RAM test (google). There's a crap load of free tools to test your RAM.
3) Is there any loud/strange noises coming from it whilst the HDD LED is on? If not, ignore this one. If there is, then try a different hdd (beg borrow or steal for a few days if you have to).
4) This is new you say, so unlikely, but possible. Try get hold of a board with the same CPU socket as yours, as cheap as possible. But leave this until the last thing as you've just spent money on it (and it should be guranteed).
5) Again unlikely, but possible that a CPU on it's way out could be slow. Again, leave this a while, because it could be expensive depending on the CPU, try the cheaper options first.
6) Try & get a hold of a decent power supply ABOVE the wattage of your current one. The again, could be expensive, so you could try a cheaper one, but they're never anywhere near accurate (think garage air pumps, but WAY less accurate!)
7) See 1!
Get a hold of an official XP SP2 CD, format from that, and re-install. Then DON'T install the updates you need for a few days, see how things go. If there's a speed increase from this alone, then you've got to start looking at the updates to see which is the pain.

HTH

what happens is i get the bios screen at boot up and the blue windows xp screen then it goes black for maybe 8 mins! with the red hdd light on solid, when the desk tops on everything is accessible but really slow.

OK, so what were the changes you made since it was running ok the first day & then really slow? -It's unlikely to be one (or more) of the critical updates, some can affect performance sometimes depending on what vulnerability they're a patch for, but I doubt it from what you're seeing (although software conflict is a possibility). Make sure you run a chkdsk (error checking by right click your C drive in explorer (assuming you only have that) & tick both boxes), then have a look at what it says in the application log in event viewer (source Winlogon), to see if you have/how many bad sectors & also run a HD diagnostic, just have a look at what the model/manu of your HD & download it to see if it gives you any error codes. You may need to format & reinstall again & install things stepwise to trace when your performance drops to pinpoint it. It would be worth checking device manager for any hardware conflicts, &, usually if it was your RAM I would expect to some errors (out of memory reference etc) first, but an overnight mem test would be next.
I doubt it's your CPU, mobo, PSU, etc as when they go they typically just pack in.

HTH

done mem test ok,
new mobo,
new 400w psu,
ordered a hdd off ebay will try that.