Need Some Help From Some Of You Pc Experts

[🪦 Martoch ●]

I'm also an IT technician full time and I agree that you probably have malware on your system. Although using system restore sounds like a good idea, malware can also be saved in restore points and on 99% of infected machines I work on, the system restore points are infected as well. You will want to delete your junk files with a free program called CCleaner (formerly called CrapCleaner)...it's a great program that I've been using for years. <a href=\"http://www.ccleaner.com/\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.ccleaner.com/</a>NOTE: During the install, you will be prompted with a few option boxes...one of them installs Yahoo toolbar, so you'll want to uncheck that box before proceeding. Once CCleaner is installed, you can customize what it deletes, but the default settings are completely safe and will not delete any of your personal files. You can click the 'analyze' button to have CCleaner scan your system and show you what it will delete when you click 'run cleaner' button. You might just be surprised at how many temp/junk files it can find. If you have multiple users on a computer, you will want to run CCleaner under each user account. I recommend that everyone here give CCleaner a try as your computers will thank you.Also, you will definitely want to tweak your system startup by clicking start--run, typing in msconfig and hitting enter or clicking OK. Click the 'startup' tab and it will list the files that run every time your system starts up...I can guarantee you have items in there that do not need to run at startup. A lot of it might look confusing or foreign to you, but if you're willing to post up some of the entries you're unsure about, I'll (I'm sure Warlock will be too) be more than happy to help you sort it out. You simply uncheck the box of an item that you want to remove from your startup configuration and restart the PC when prompted. When it starts back up, you will see a dialog box that looks like this: <a href=\"http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/Images/MsConfigStartupBox.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/Images/MsConfigStartupBox.jpg</a> You simply check the box and click OK. Also, don't bother with XP's built in defrag as it just plain old sucks. You can download a fully functioning trial version of PerfectDisk...run it, let it get your drive all nice and defragged...then uninstall it.Get the PerfectDisk Professional version: <a href=\"http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/pd_download_home.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/p...wnload_home.cfm</a>Also, update your version of Java to the latest: <a href=\"http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp</a>Make sure you have the latest Windows updates and Office updates if you have that installed.What antivirus are you using, if any? I've been an Avast Home Edition (free) user for years and in recent testing, it outperformed AVG...download/install...use the 'free registration' link to have them e-mail you a code to enter into the program when prompted...you simply copy/paste it from the e-mail they send.<a href=\"http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html</a>Have you tried using safe mode? Press F8 repeatedly while the system is booting and select 'safe mode' from the list of choices...see if your computer locks up on you while scrolling through folders in safe mode.I'm currently using Firefox 3 (I'm a long time Firefox user) and so far, I haven't experienced any issued with videos...nor did I with Firefox 2.Don't forget to back up your important files to an external media on a weekly/monthly basis to avoid data loss in case of failed hardware, bad virus infection, etc. <img src=\"style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":thumbsup:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"thumbsup.gif\" />