Computer issue, help required.

[Novasport]

I have an issue with my laptop that is irritating me. I am runing Windows 7 on my Dell XPS L501X.
It started with it getting slower to boot up after putting my password in. It would get to the desktop with my background & icons but the little circle timer would spin for ages. If I opened my email too quickly it would just freeze everything up. I recovered to an earlier good known point which seemed to help for a day or two but then the fault returned.
I ran my Kaspersky Anti-Virus which was all clear and ran Microsoft Malware check and that was fine. I rebooted and did a disk check, again all fine.
I thought it may have been Adobe Flash Player causung an issue as there were loads of updates showing when I chose restore points. I uninstalled it but the issue remains and is getting worse. I removed Windows auto updates and the issue kept re-ocurring.
I have installed all the latest Windows updates/Service Pack and it was OK for a few days but now it has got bad again.
After putting in my password the screen can stay black for 7-8 minutes with not a great deal happening(No fan running or processor heard working) before the desktop loads up and it is ready to use. Once I am on the desktop, after a few seconds the laptop is fine along with all functions.
I do not have a Windows CD to completely restore it, I only had a drivers CD from Dell.

Any ideas guys?

[Edd]

Disc clean up? And defragment? You done that? Can sometimes help

[Novasport]

Tried, still no good :(

When I started the laptop tonight it got to the user account bit as normal so I select mine and put in my password, it shows the blue screen with welcome on it for a few seconds then the screen goes black. It stayed black for upto 10 minutes with the mouse pointer on screen only, then the desktop loaded up OK and it was fine. I shut down, rebooted and logged on as Kate and it did similar but stayed on black screen for approx 5 minutes before loading up OK. I shut down again and logged back on as me, it now loaded up the desktop quite quickly but I could not load anything up, I clicked on the internet shortcut and it took about 5 minutes before anything happened. Then internet explorer opened and it was slow and unreactive for a minute or so then back to normal again.

[Keif]

Have you got any Recovery Discs for your Lap top?

If so, back up everything onto an external HD.

Then go for recovery. Start from new and then put all your Files back on it.

It's a job and a half to do (re-installing programs etc) but it's the only real way i've found to properly sort a slow running computer.

[Novasport]

I have not got a recovery disc unfortunately, only the driver disc.

[Keif]

Can you not make them? My Toshiba Lap top has a "Toshiba Recovery Media Creator" does Dell not have something similar?

[mowgli]

press ctrl/alt/del and see what processes are running.

there could be a rogue process in there eating away

i also have to do system restore to the oldest restore point quite often, but my kids love those 'free' game sites

i find deleting anything to do with apple helps a lot...