I'm not sure I understand what's going on here.

I've had my computer for a few months now and it's starting to slow down. Now I understand that having a lot of data on a hard drive can slow down computers because it has to load everything up to make it accessible, but my internet is slowing down... I am getting noticeable lag on video games, my ping has gone up, and not only that but my overall computer speed is starting to slow. It's not a huge dip but being the gaming connoisseur I am, I notice even the slightest dips in performance.

I've been doing a bit of... Downloading. I'm careful what I download but by "a bit", I mean a lot. I run noscript for firefox, I use avast antivirus, and I also run anti-spyware and adware programs frequently. Any idea what's going on with my computer?

 

Computers tend to slow down with time - both because of Hardware and Software issues.

You obviously can't do much about the hardware ones, but reinstalling the OS will certainly make a big difference if you haven't done that recently.

Windows 7 doesn't require that as often as XP, but still ...

 

I was considering reinstalling but I have a ton of data to backup with limited storage outside of my hard drive...

 

A good moment to buy a Backup drive then! Storage media do eventually go bad you know...

 

That's kind of not an option right now...

 

Well all you need is to free up and back up C: .... move everything to D: etc. and you'll be fine if you know what you are doing...

 

You didn't mention what type of maintenance routines you run to keep things tidy. Mind filling us in for a better picture? (Ccleaner, defrag, chkdsk /f /r, etc)

Also, depending on what type of W7 disc you have, you can do an in place non-destructive reinstall.