My touchpad will occasionally be sluggish, but at this point it's responding at about 1/5 speed. Oddly it only does it when I'm actually logged onto Windows; that is, if I'm on the screen that asks me for my user password at boot-up, the mouse works perfectly.

Additionally it looks like normal graphics like advertisements on websites are taking a bit longer to load, as are the pages themselves.

I also just got a BSOD which maybe said something like bad_pool_(something i don't know).

The only thing I've done since getting rid of viruses a few days ago was to install a program called "selfrestraint" so I could do long stretches of HW without looking at Facebook. I researched it and it appeared to be reputable, but maybe that did something? I feel like the mouse has been acting up for a few days now though.

If the mouse is OK before you log in to Windows but problematic after, there is most likely something interfering - I've never encountered selfrestraint, so cannot say whether that could be the cause.

Best thing to do is run MSCONFIG - this will let you disable all programs from automatically starting when you start / log into Windows. If the problem goes away, enable programs one by one until the problem reappears.

If the problem doesn't go away with msconfig disabling programs then there could be a hardware / driver problem. Try updating the mouse drivers (if there are any) / try the mouse on another computer if you have access to one.

Edit: could also be a memory problem (that would explain the bad_pool BSOD you got). Run Windows Memory Diagnostic to check.

It seemed that updating the mouse driver was the fix. Though, I'm not sure why that would be; when I went to update it, I got a message that said something to the effect of: "...but you already have this installed on your computer."

Thanks.