First of all, how can you know you've only been hit twice, if you dont have an av installed?
Second, no offence but i think thats BS, ive gone through many computers, and ive never had slowdowns because of AVs it may happen with the likes of norton and mcafee for the simple reasons that they are big programs and try to scan everything that u are using, you should try the likes of avg 6 or kapersky, and you will most surely notice the difference