Frequent slow downs in 7

Hi,

I'm having a dilemma! When Windows 7 works, I love it! But when it behaves like I'm about to describe below, I despair and start reaching for my XP disk!

Over the last month or so since having it, there have been occasions where 7 has taken an age to boot.. right from the moment the balls start floating, though it sometimes takes ages to do that too. When it eventually gets to the login screen, it then takes ages to log me in and then is really unresponsive when I hit the desktop and start trying to run things. Looking at the resource monitor, the CPU and RAM are all virtually idle, the disk however is at full tilt with the little gadget I've got showing 100%; the hard disk light seems to agree!

The machine itself is a new HP DC7900 with 8GB RAM and an E8500 processor; the 64bit version of 7 is installed.

I've done the usual of turning Superfetch and Windows Search off but it has made no difference. I've also ensured that DEP is enabled in the OS and BIOS as it does appear to 'black screen' although it does eventually load.

At time of writing, I'm running a memory check and once the machine reboots again at normal operating speed (I can never be certain when this might be!) I'll try and defrag the drives.

The AV is Sophos, but because it seems to be dead slow from the very start when booting, I question whether the AV would be an issue.

I've done a fair bit of searching but have not found anything that isn't solved by switching Superfetch and Search off.

Also, in the resource monitor, it seems that the process with the most disk activity is the system process.

On this occasion, the machine had been left on overnight and had hibernated, but I don't think this was the case on the previous occasions as I generally turn the machine off.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Neil.

Thanks for the reply,

OK, I'll switch Superfetch back on. I read another article somewhere that suggested it might be a factor in slowing the machine down.

I'll take Sophos off and switch it for something else like MSE; I'd be suprised though as it seems to be very slow from the very start with the balls, which when the PC is in normal operation, is super quick.

The memory check, btw, gave no error.

My next item to look at is the hard disk if I eliminate Sophos as the responsible factor.

Neil.

Tews: Unfortunately it's not just my machine and it's a fairly basic build. It's generally OK.

Kari: Going to take Sophos off today and see how I get on.

Cheers for your help thus far.