Window 98 sluggish

[vickramperumal]

Dear friends,
I am using windows 98 with 1.7GHZ Pentium IV processor and 256MB SDRAM. I usually save HTML pages which are of interest for web design for viewing them offline. I have accumulated some 150 pages by now. The files were stored in Drive- E. not in OS Drive C . But my computer is now slowing down and my dial up speed too has dropped to half of original( From 45kb/s to 21KB/s ) . As the files are important I thought of keeping them. I zipped them and the problem temporarily solved. But again it has resurfaced. I reinstalled the Drive C through the backup ghost but still the problem persisted. I tried "CACHEMAN" with no improvement. Now I have burned the files to CD and deleted the HTML files from Hard Drive, but still the sluggish nature of my computer continues.I once again reinstalled the Drive C through the backup ghost but still the problem persists. I did disc defragment with Disc Keeper", ran scanreg/fix but all in vain. I had done AD-AWARE and SPY BOT runs on my computer. Still no result.
I also have problem with multi tasking too. The computer freezes out. I had not added any new program . i.e. I still only have all the same program I had been using when the system was problem free and swift. I also have no problem with my phone line. I checked it. Will it be an icon catch problem? Can you guide me to come up with a solution to speed up my computer and netspeed.

[vickramperumal]

I also run norton and Av anti virus

[Kl@w-24]

Check what programs are runnning at startup ([Start]->[Run]->'msconfig'). Uncheck everything except 'systray' and 'explorer'. Reboot. Post result.

[prankzter]

U've got 2 b kidding me!! Running win 98 on THAT CONFIG????
get real man!!!go in for win xp!

[vickramperumal]

Thankyou for your advice. But I dissabled start up as you have requested but it did not solve my problem.
On first hand why I suspected that it may be due to the large number of HTML files in my hard disc is causing the problem?
A few months back similar situation happened and net speed slowed down. By then I had accumulated some 200 programs "EXE files" I had downloaded from net. [ I was planning to write them to the CD. But as writing small chunks of MB to CD will consume more space I planned to write after I had accumulated some 350MB of programs.This has actually caused the accumulation.]. I don't know why the net has slowed down, but fortunately when I had burned the programs to the CD and deleted them from the hard disc the problem disappeared. Then I came to the conclusion that this may be due to the stored bulk of programs. I also learned about icon cache in CACHEMAN and concluded this may have been the problem.
I d

[Kl@w-24]

Do a virus scan. Maybe there was a virus-infected file among ur downloaded exe files and as a result th problem disappeared as soon as u deleted those files.

[it_waaznt_me]

Please post your HijackThis Logfile for better assesment of your problem.