My computer freezes up sometime, requiring a manual shut off. Also it has become erratic in speed. I have a good DSL service but my computer has to be restarted alot now. Sometimes it won't shut down when I close everything and click on shut down. It just remains on, and says shutting down. Does nothing. Also how do I know what to take off the startup menu safely? Let me know if you have any ideas, they would be much appreciated. Thanks.

M. Harmon, May 2010

You can take everything off the startup list and the machine will still work - I have just 3 entries on my list...

Spybot's TeaTimer
Apoint - Alp's pointing device driver
Microsoft's Cftmon - which I could easily turn off.

Any security S/W should ideally be left on the list but it's OK to take it off for test purposes

When my system began to behave like yours recently I used task Manager to see what was eating the Machine Resources - You might also consider using a free utility that paints prettier pictures - System Internals' Process Explorer.... (free)...

The culprit was svchost.exe consuming close to 100% of CPU time and dropping sometimes to 93%.

I cured the problem by returning to a restore point - it has been OK for the past 3 or 4 months now.

You really should look to see where all the machine cycles are going - something is very probably gobbling them up. Once you know what it is then you can take the appropriate action - that or just return to a restore point whithout bothering to look.

Good luck...

Peccavi, May 2010