When I first purchased my HP laptop 5 years ago now (wow has it been that long???), the first thing I got was Norton's antivirus for it....wanting to protect myself to the max.....it has been pretty good for the most part. When I first moved to my farm (my laptop was 2 years old) there were several things that crashed on my laptop....hardware things.....luckily I had purchased an extended warrantee on it & best buy fixed it....but it was about a 4 month process as I was going between Kentucky & California at the time & didn't have the time to take it in to be fixed & be there to pick it up when it was fixed....then the first fix didn't fix everything either.....well, anyway, When I was back in California, I decided to bring the desk top with me so I would have a backup computer here....besides, I had bought the desktop computer that my husband wanted.....so it was mine in the first place...I took ownership since my laptop wasn't working & didn't want to be isolated on my farm. That desktop didn't have antivirus on it, so my husband was using some cheap one on his broken down laptop so I went ahead & put in on the desktop....yikes....it kept crashing the computer & was a nightmare to use. When I got my laptop back, I temporarily used in on my laptop before I realized that it was the cause of the crashing. My internet server was flaky also, so I was never sure of what was the cause of my problems at that time.

When I finally got my update at the year point of my Norton program, it was wonderful, they installed it over the internet & got my computer all set up & running.....it was when I got rid of the other antivirus that I realized that it was what was causing the internet crashing problems & the slowness.....no virus or anything else. I started having some slowness problems....found a register clearing program that I got to run & that helped a bit with that problem.

This year when I had to get the upgrade of Norton, I went a day without it & was careful not to get onto the internet.....about 4 months after that, I started having problems that seemed like a virus. My CPU usage would spike at 100% & I couldn't get the computer to do anything.....first thought was virus.....but how it could be with Norton on there was beyond me. I called Norton....yes they could work on my computer....but the cost was $99 with a guarantee. I wasn't sure that is was a virus....not all the signs & had no reason that is should be....Norton should back up their own program & at least detect if it's a virus without charging that much money when you own run their program on your computer (I didn't have the money in the first place)......so I just went on with it. I had just changed over to Firefox also.....so there were a few things that made me wonder if it was actually a virus in the first place. Felt I needed to observe & see if there were some patterns that showed up before I determined it to be a virus in the first place.

Since that time, I have continued to have the CPU problem.....I can be sitting on the internet not doing anything but have several windows open......there is something that goes on with firefox that I don't really understand, but when I take it down & even shut down my computer, it clears everything out & starts back up fine for a few hours before it starts to have problems again......so at this point, I am pointing my finger at firefox as being the culprit causing the spiking of the CPU usage. I also think that if I get more memory in my computer, it will speed it up.

I haven't had the malware stuff happening where I get windows coming up that I can't control....Norton has protected me against that.....but there are so many other strange virus's that can mess with the computer....it's frustrating not knowing what is happening at times.

Glad you got your problem fixed.....know that must have been a nightmare to go through.

Debbie