VAIO FE-21H (14 MONTHS OLD) - VISTA 32-Bit OS

[ratboyslim32]

Hi all. Great forum. A question if I may; my Vaio FE21H has recently started to make a noise (low hummmm) on the left side. The HDD seems to be always working. Now, the internet and browsers are running sluggish. I have done a clean install of Vista and updated the drivers but no success. Maybe the HDD is corrupt? I am not a novice computer user and have done a lot of house-keeping on the machine. But the machine is not running as slick as it uses too. Help...I am about to convert to the "white-side" and buy a Apple Macbook!!!

[tonybeard]

Welcome to the forum,
have you disabled any programs in start up that are unneccessary using MSCONFIG
Also try Tune Up Utilities and do all it reccommends here If you are experienced ( CHKDSK/F )and your housekeeping is not working then these options are merely a last resort. Hijack this will give a full dianostic if you have anything lurking that has piggy backed in your documents backup. I could go on and on. Good luck and lets hope it is not a hardware problem

[ratboyslim32]

Thanks for your help.

The noise I can now confirm is the HDD. I think I need to change it. I had a similar probably many years ago with a Dell laptop.

For other users, I have been a long term user of Norton Internet Security. However, owing to my current problems, I did a clean install on my VAIO but could not be bothered to download NIS, so I opted for AVG (free anti-virus). It allows you to do a boot-scan on first installation; and it found a Trojan, hence the overworking HDD even when I was not using the laptop was not being used my me!!!

The moral of the story is that Norton NIS is not as good as one would think!