Why is my computer so slow and freezes?

Hi Cougarpride14
 
Welcome to the Community Forums.
 
Can you tell us how long ago since you updated to Win 8 (I am assuming that you upgraded from Win 7?).
 
Just because your system is slow does not mean that you have malware on it, etc., so the first thing to do is to see if there is anything consuming large amounts of either RAM and/or CPU time.  To do that please right click on the task bar and select '@task Manager' from the content menu displayed.  When the Task Manager panel opens it will most probably be in basic mode and we need to get it into detailed mode so please click on the 'More details' button in the bottom lefthand corner (if the button says 'Fewer details then you are already in detailed mode).
 
In detailed mode click on the header of the column labelled 'Memory', which should sort the file entries into descending memory usage sequence, and then note the top three files in the left most column, together with the amount of memory consumed, and then do the same for the column entitled 'CPU (top 3 files again, please) and post that information back here.
 
That should tell us if there is any process or processes running that are consuming your resource...to start with.
 
Many thanks in anticipation.
 
Regards, Baldrick 

Hello Cougarpride14, welcome to the Webroot Community!
 
EDIT: After writing this out I checked for previous replies, and I see Baldrick has beaten me to it.  I am going to go ahead and post this in case it has any info that can help.
 
What OS did you have on that computer before Windows 8?  I assume you upgraded just the OS and did not purchase a whole new computer?
 
If you kept all the same hardware and upgraded to Windows 8, that is not entirely surprising.  Each version of Windows, generally, takes more hardware resources to run efficiently than the last version.
 
While your existing hardware might meet the "Minimum Requirements" of Windows 8, Minimum is just that: the bare hardware specs (CPU, RAM and drive space) needed to boot the computer.  To run really efficiently one generally needs computer specs in excess of the Minimum, especially once one starts adding software to the computer.
 
My guess offhand from the description of slow and freezes is that your computer does not have enough RAM to run Windows 8 efficiently.  The freezing is possibly when the OS is needing to use hard drive space as "virtual RAM" or Swap File space.
 
You might take the unit to see a computer professional and see if you can increase the amount of RAM on the machine.  Often, if additional RAM can be added, it is an easy fix to make an older slower computer much happier.

Nah, David...not beaten you too it...but rather you have covered, once again, an important angle in the whole process of trying to help Cougarpride14...nice one.  WIll have to stick those points in my kit bag for the future. :D
 
As it is late here and I am off I will leave Cougarpride14 in your very, very capable hands and look to catch up on progress tomorrow morning UK time.
 
Good night to you both.
 
Regards, Baldrick

@ As always, TEAMWORK my good friend!  I always like it when we both end up replying, no matter who replied first, a we always manage, by accident, to compliment each other's post.  Well done and sleep well!