LinuxQuestions.org - Computer suddenly running really slowly

Hi,

About 3 weeks ago I was using the internet on my computer (Toshiba laptop, running Fedora Core 2). I was playing poker using a java applet. The computer basically crashed, I could move the mouse but I couldn't click on anything. I restarted the computer, and since then my computer has been running ridiculously slowly. Before this I had no problems for about a year with running Fedora.

I tried reformatting because I needed to do this anyway. I basically wiped out the OS and reinstalled from scratch, however this had no effect, which has brought me to the conclusion that I have a hardware problem.

This is what I've noticed from watching top over the course of the last few weeks:
My load average is normal if I am not running any processes. It stays about .4. If I run anything xmms, mozilla, etc it jumps to 2.00-3.00. The more I run, the higher it goes. If I have mozilla and xmms open, the computer is too slow to do anything. The strange thing is that memory and cpu usage stay reletively low.

Very recently I ran Memtest86. An application that runs tests on memory and is supposed to detect errors with RAM. No errors were detected, so I don't think my problem is failed RAM.

Please, if you have any idea what could be causing this problem let me know. Also, if there is anything I can do to lead me in the direction of having this fixed, please let me know.