Expert: James Filmer - 6/24/2011

Question
QUESTION: My sister gave my mom her old Dell computer(DELL SS150 D Intel (R) Celeron CPU 1300MHZ 1.30 GHZ 128 MB RAM with 18.6 GB HDD ). It runs with Windows XP (i think it's 32 bit) She can only afford netzero and It is soo slow!

I'm not much of a computer whiz and am financially struggling,so I can't afford a new computer for her but my sister left that thing in questionable use. I suspect viruses/spyware but can't use KIS Internet security on it because of it's memory,I guess. What antivirus/malware software can I use with such a low power system? Anything free?

A friend suggested I use Linux mint (as a OS)because it doesn't have viruses,but I'm not familiar with linux.

Help!

ANSWER: There might be many other reason why it's slow. If you're not using an antivirus app. now, Avira and AVG both have free programs. Try one for a while. If it appears to slow down the pc significantly, remove completely via Add/Remove programs, reboot and install the other one.
As far as other possible reasons why the PC is slow (besides it being old and using NetZero), has to do with cleaning temp files, defragging and checking the disk for errors, and what programs automatically start up with your computer. Can you provide any info about your knowledge of these things and what (if anything) you've done about them?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi,
thanks for the answer, I've tried Clamwin (portable) yesterday and it didn't find anything,so that's a good sign. I will try cleaning the temp files, defragging and checking for disk error tonight. I'm not sure how to determine what programs come up(the windows XP logo starts up followed by the desktop, which has a lot of icons on it).

She also told me for some reason, wednesdays and mondays seem to be consistently the days that the computer goes black screen,usually after 8PM, and comes on after 5 minutes or not at all. I have no explanation for that, so I suspect something odd with the system.

Hope that helps ,
tony

Answer
How's it going after the maintenance work you've done? If possible, you might download and install a small program, Hijack This - Version 2.0.4  http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis
and run it (scan) make a copy of the results and post it here. I can tell what starts up that way too. If you have problem just let me know.