What causes a computer to slow down other than viruses/spyware?

[BBCMember]

A friend of mine's computer is running really slow lately (since 3 weeks ago), and he has done scans with Ad-aware, Spybot, and AVAST! Anti-virus (all up-to-date). It even takes about 2 minutes to print one page, and it used to take seconds.

He's running Win2k Pro, so he can't do a system restore.

He said his computer has a lot of dust inside, but that wouldn't really cause it to do this.

Any ideas?

 

[KarenMarie]

defrag?
clear cookies/history?

 

[BBCMember]

Would a fragmented drive affect the overall speed of the PC with every software, including printing?

 

[KarenMarie]

yes

 

[BBCMember]

OK. Will give both suggstions a shot. Thanks.

 

[KarenMarie]

you're very welcome.

 

[anjulpa]

If the computer slowed down gradually it could be due to too much installing an uninstalling of softwares, cluttering the registry.. This could be a likely cause, especially if its an old computer. Try some registry cleaner software, they're very effective.

 

[BBCMember]

Could you recommend any free ones that the average joe can use? My friend has average knowledge when it comes to computers.

 

[anjulpa]

Try this:-

http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/reg-cleaner4.3.htm