I have had this laptop about 3 years. Recently it started having times where it slows down to a crawl (literally). It may take several minutes to open a program or file. You can hear it laboring. Every once in a while I hear a single "pop" noise as it labors. It seems to be getting worse, almost continuous now. I can't get anything done.

I have de-fraged and disk checked. Do not know what else to do. Can anyone help?

What O/S are you running?

When was the last time you purged the junk/temp/cookies/history/etc files from the system?

Could the "pop" noise be the system touching the CDROM or floppy drives?

Do you run Symantec (Norton) AV?

I am running Windows XP.
I purge all the junk weekly.
The pop occurs randomly and with no connection to running the cd or floppy.
I do not use Norton. But I do use Spybot and CWS Shredder.

Can you ID your hard drive manufacturer?

This scan should ID it:

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

& here is a list of the major diagnostics:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

I would test the drive first. Does the popping appear to come from the hard drive?

____________________________

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...uct&rule=57241

Notebook F10 Setup Hard Drive Self-Test
HP has enhanced the Hard Drive Self-Test routine which is accessible via the notebook’s F10 Setup
Tools menu. The new routine of the hard drive self-test increases its ability to detect a fault and fail the
hard drive. The short and long versions of the hard drive self-test have been combined as one test
option. Initiating the enhanced hard drive self-test includes the following:
1. The short test runs. If no errors occur, the long test automatically runs.
2. If no errors occur, SMART attribute checking automatically runs.
3. If a failure is detected in either of the tests, the process halts and failure occurs.
Note: Either test may be aborted at any time by pressing the esc key.


______________________________________

Thanks - I conducted the hard drive tests from the set-up menu and nothing turned up. I installed belarc and it did not identify the hard drive manufacturer. it only gave me the size of the drive and several numbers that resemble serial numbers. How else can I i.d. it?

Of course it has taken me half a day to accomplish these few simple tasks. That's how slow this thing is running!

As far as where the popping sound is coming from, I assume the hard drive but can't say for sure. I know it's not the cd drive. What else is moving that might create such a sound?

For the hard disk I.D., try Everest Home Edition. (Freeware)