Nothing responding, slow startup, cant find certain programs

[pistolpete]

Hello,
I'm having trouble with my computer atm, its been fine until today and i havent installed anything new in the last few days. basically its taking from 10 seconds to start up to 2 minutes, every program i have apart from internet explorer doesnt respond. it cant find or open anything either. i am using windows 7 professional and usually firefox but was told to delete that although when i try that doesnt respond either.. any help?

 

[kenrivers]

Have you run a virus scan? Do things appear to work normally if you boot into safe mode? Have you tried uninstalling FireFox in safe mode? You might try to run MSCONFIG to see what is loading when you start the computer.

 

[gamerk316]

Overheating? Thats my best guess.

 

[dodger46]

If it seems to run OK in Safe Mode, (F8 at boot) try runnng a full Virus Scan. If nothing found, use the Clean Startup method of isolating a possible rogue process that is causing the problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796
If it runs badly in Safe Mode start suspecting overheating, but a virus still a possibility, either use F8 to run Safe mode with Networking to run an on-line virus scan, or use another machine to download Hiren's CD which has a virus scanner that can be run from a bootable disk
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/