hello everyone,

i'm running xp pro sp3 on a dell inspiron b130 laptop. it's a bit of an older model, but i'm having slowness issues with it. it's not spywared / malwared at all. one thing i noticed is the sound skips around really bad when i listen to music. i have defragged the drive, configured the boot to use minimal programs on startup (therefore less memory) by way of start - > run -> msconfig. i have used check disk utility, but still my computer runs slower. what else could be slowing down my computer? i would really appreciate the help. i need this computer running faster, so i can use it for my work. it's too slow.

-etidd

It seems to confirm my suspicion of your system playing catch up, when it hit's 100% that means it's maxed out, and the more you try to do the slower it will do it.
Have you clicked on the Processes tab and taken note of the processes that are showing their %age usage ?
when the system is running clicking on the head of the tab as I explained above means they will jump about in order of most activity, so you can see what is running at the highest rate, then it may give a clue, but as well as that all I can suggest ATM is to run a scan at the Pit, then post the link for the results back here and maybe we can advise on what may help, it will also allow us to see your system spec to get an idea of what you have.
You will need to sign up so the test can be save and the link posted back here so we can view it, but it's free and safe, so do these things and we can try and suggest things to try.