Computer advice for someone with recent malware/virus.etc problems?

I will try to make this short and concise. I have never had any problems in the 2 years I have owned my computer but I suspect some free something expired last week so I had major spyware, smitfraud(?) trojans, the works show up on Sunday. I downloaded ATG, Zone firewall, Spybot, Adaware, and smitfraudfix, ran these programs repeatedly and finally things are close to being normal. Unfortunately my start up speed is much slower than it used to be. I ran a program I thought was free which said I had like 1000 problems but wanted to charge me to fix them...I decided to ask on here first. What should I do, other good (totally free programs) to try, or any other suggestions. I am able to surf the net without pop-ups now, I just have a nagging feeling that all is not completely well with my comp yet. My start toolbar fades to blue for a few seconds on start up as well. Also every so often while in internet explorer, the screen starts jumping..(blinking).

Thanks

Computer advice for someone with recent malware/virus.etc problems?stinger

There are a few steps you can take to ensure your computer is running at optimal performance if the malware is gone.

1) Clean up the disk. Uninstall unneeded programs (especially those that run at startup and/or put something in the system tray), run Disk Cleanup, and defragment the drive. This is a good first step that will almost always take a few seconds off boot time and application loads for any computer.