When I reboot my computer, my hard drive continues working long after the operating system has loaded. My computer operates slowly until whatever it is doing completes. I have added some software recently including Cisco software for my new router and adapter, i-tunes, and AVG Security. I did not experience any problems immediately following their installation. For whatever reason, start up is taking a ridiculous amount of time. Anyone have any ideas. Thanks. Ideas:Programs you are having problems with Error messages Recent changes you made to your computer What you have already tried to fix the problem 1 person needs an answerI do too

HDs run when ever the pc has power....Youre pc is probably so slow because its taking the OS a long time to load the new software.You can see whats running by R.clicking the task bar, select Task mgr/processes Also,event viewer would/will probably show alot of OS problems,open the warning/event & see whats going on.

Have a look in the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for Errors and Warnings and post copies here. Don't post any from than more than 48 hours ago. You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description are important. A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double click on the error you want to copy. You will see a button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event Viewer. This places a copy of the report into your Clipboard. Paste into the body your message. Make sure that this is the first paste after exiting from Event Viewer.Hope this helps, Gerry Cornell

Thanks for the advise. I looked in both places, and there are items, but I don't know what any of them mean.

The first step to figure out what the culprit is is to configure a Clean Boot environment:Click Start, click Run, type msconfig, and then clickOK.The System Configuration Utility dialog box is displayed. Make sure the General Tab is selected and then click the Diagnostic Startup circle.Click OK. Restart. Note: You should eventually revert to Normal Startup (once your issue is resolved)!In Clean Boot mode, does the hard drive still show excessive activity? If not, you can re-enable all the services (using the Services tag of msconfig and reboot). If the PC is still running fine, methodically add pack programs (using the Startup tab of msconfig) until you find the culprit. Let us know is you are able to identify it. There might be a conflict with another problem or a recent update might be bad.Also, how much RAM do you have? I believe ITunes uses lots of memory.Finally, you might be able to configure AVG so it doesn't constanly scan your hard drive. It's best to post to their forumto learn the ins and outs.Personally, I stopped using AVG a few years ago because its quality diminished and it started to become a resource hog. Furthermore, I question the need to run any security suite. A standalone antivirus program (like Eset NOD32 or Avira Antivir, the latter is free) used along with the built-in Windows firewall is perfectly sufficient. Of course it's crucial to have SP3 installed as well as every subsequent security patch. For non-viral malware, it's a good idea to occasionally run MalwareBytes' AntiMalware (make sure it is updated!).

Thanks for all your help. My computer only had 256mb of RAM. I upped it to a gig and all of my performance problems disappeared. Computer is running wonderfully. Thanks again.