Windows 7: PC "Not Responding" - Blue spinning circle

New member so sorry if this has already been discussed.
I've been all over the internet looking at how to resolve intermittent (every 2-3 minutes) slow responses on my Acer laptop that I've had for over a year. 4 weeks ago I had no problems with it. Since then, the internet window I'm on freezes, goes white and says "not responding". I thought it was Firefox at first so I uninstalled but it's the same with Chrome and IE too.
Equally if I browse photos, they take forever to load.
I hadn't installed anything new or updated anything when the problem occurred so I have done the following to try and resolve (all found on the internet)...

• Checked the processes running... max cpu 1%... memory 30% - nothing out of the ordinary at all
• Rolled back to the previous system restore point - no joy
• Updated my Intel graphics drivers
• Checked that there were no issues in device manager
• Run check disk and other tools to confirm drive is sound (it is)
• Defragged the drive
• Done a virus scan and spyware scan
• Run several regfix tools that allegedly speed up your computer (free and purchased)
• Reinstalled firefox and set max network connections to 42 (from 255)
• Stopped everything from starting up in MSConfig (eg spyware and virus checkers, adobe etc etc etc)
• Searched and removed a particular string in the registry (though I cannot remember what that was - sorry - but it did make sense at the time)

Alas nothing seems to work. I have seen reports of this all over and have tried everything I can find. The only thing I haven't done that has been suggested is an install/repair as I haven't the disk to do it with (the OS is OEM on the drive and you can only do a full restore which is a last resort).





Has anyone else got some ideas. I have checked the threads but most seem to point at failing drives which is very unlikely as I cannot find an error.


Many thanks in advance!

Reg cleaners and windows 7 very rarely agree with each other.
That may not have been the best thing to do.

Are you able to use the SFC function to check you windows files?
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Yep... I did the SFC /SCANNOW with no issues or errors!

Okay a quick thought, create a new user account and see if it also suffers the issue.

Just tried to do as you suggested Maguscreed, but it's still the same on the new account.