Computer is unusually slow and everything is 3 fps

[Internet Badass]

Alright so my friend has a m17x that is a couple years old. It runs games and video at 3 fps, and is just all around slow. Ive defragmented the drive, run a security scam and nothing seems to work.

Sorry for being so broad but i really have no idea what is going on.

I am thinking a clean install, but i want to try and avoid that.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 370 @ 2.40GHz


Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Graphics (Vista) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730
Gaming graphics 2778 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 248GB Free (451GB Total)

 

[Corazon]

Security scam? *chuckles*...Sorry.

Well, not much to work with here, but the obvious thing to check for would be the videocard drivers. Maybe uninstall and reinstall, run dxdiag and see if it reports anything amiss.

Does your friend know when this first started happening, and what changes were made to software/hardware just before that?

If videocard drivers check out OK, then a /sfc scannow from an administrative command window may help. If that doesn't improve anything, then a repair install which will completely reinstall Windows but leave your existing files alone.