Sounds like some other underlying issues to me. Firewalls and A/V generally don't noticeably impact a system except with more traditional A/V scanners and only when performing a full system scan.
I would open a command prompt and run sfc /scannow to verify the operating systems integrity. Also trying installed the A/V back on then boot into safe mode and see if you still have a performance problem. if you don't it could be that your system is already infected and you may want to run a couple scanners in safe mode such as spybot and malware bytes. It also could be some malfunctioning software or driver. I would check through your event logs for errors.