M40 gettin crapper?

Hi everyone. It's been a while since i posted here. have to say i've been busy with work and all.

Anyways, i was wondering if anyone could help me solve a problem i have with my Toshiba M40 (can't remember which variant)

It's specs are as followed:
1.86Ghz Centrinno Dothan
1024 DDR 333Mhz Ram
60Gb IDE HDD
DVD/CD-RW Drive
Nvidia Geforce 6600 Go 128MB
Windows XP Pro Sp2

Anyways, i have realised my laptop is getting slower and slower these days. I have partitioned my hard drives to 3 partitions where the first partition is the OS and Windows Programs. 10Gb/7Gb/31Gb. I have formatted my C:\ drive (the 10gb OS partition) several times with the back up disk which Toshiba has given me. Mainly due to either an icreasing ammount of spyware/virus infection/os feels too laggy/etc. However, each time i format my laptop, it feels that its getting slower. Is it just me or does this happen normally? Is there a fault with the hard drive? I still have another year and a half on international warranty so i could get it fixed if it turns out my HDD is getting corrupted.

Also, another problem which irks me more is the fact that my DVD/CD-RW drive seems more and more fussy of late. Each time i format, it seems more and more picky with what cds it wants to read? Its as if its throwing a tantrum at me which is absurb! What i could read when i first bought it now no longer even reads. It gives me the message that the CD is corrupt and not recognisable. Now i know the CD is not physically damaged or anything as i have not used it since i bought my laptop. This is not just burnt software which may be mistakenened for pirated discs but this occurs when i have original Music CDs as well. Is there a driver i can download? Maybe a firmware or some sort to fix that. This problem irks me more than the slowing down process as formatiing my OS partition usually speeds thing sback up a little. Or am i doomed and forced to send my DVD/CD-RW drive to the Toshiba Service Centre.

Anyone?

Thanks for all your help.
I'm open for suggestoins.

 

Hmm...

I'd try a defrag/Disk Check and see if that does anything to speed up your system. I'd also run a few Spyware sweeps with programs like Ad-aware SE, Spybot S&D, Webroot's Spysweeper, and MS's Windows Defender if you haven't already. Reguarding your CD/DVD drive: I'd try and reinstall the drivers for it and see if that solves the situation.

 

Thanks for replying so fast.
Uh, i have run ms Windows defender/anti spyware beta, along with Nortons anti virus along with ad-aware SE and to no avail. All updated of course and this is before and after i formatted my OS partition already. Defragmenting does little use. As in it does speed things a WEE bit but nothing much more.

I make sure i dont have too much programs and softwares running behind. And drivers are new 80.40 from laptopvideo2go.com

Still, i cant find anything in the toshiba site about dvd drivers.

Anyone experience something similair to this?

 

Hmm...I've had my m40 for about a year now and I can't say i've noticed any decrease in processing speed.

My dvd drive, however is another story. It's also been acting up: reading disks is is fine, but the burner seems to have crapped out giving me "power calibration" errors no matter what brand of media or burning program I am using.

Perhaps the drive isn't very good quality...

If anyone has any ideas to fix my problem please let me know...as it is i'm probably just going to send it in

 

I've had that power calibration error before on a old desktop cd writer i had... just needed a new install on nero and a firmware update for the CD-drive.

As for Dex... you could try formatting you HDD and 'write zero's' to it and not just a quick format. I seem to think that drives loose speed as they are used and even after formatting, but speed tests say otherwise. Just check your page file size and make sure the disk isnt too full. I try keep my windows partition 75% free. Feels faster for me.

Then get rid off all that useless software that comes bundled with the system along with norton AV. and turn drive indexing off!!


Insane