Brand new Dell Inspiron 3252 is dirt slow, please help

The combination of a bottom of the barrel CPU, insufficient RAM and a slow conventional hard drive is deadly for performance.

It may help to upgrade the RAM to 8G -- and it WILL help to replace the hard drive with a solid state drive, but there's nothing you can do with that CPU.  These CPUs are designed for low-cost tablets, which in turn are designed as Internet browsers - and little more.

Thank you for your reply. I find it unfathomable that an out of the box PC could run this slowly. Why would Dell care so little about this? I can't be the only one who noticed.

ejn63 is probably right , a low end CPU and way too little RAM that's running in single channel mode.

Reboot and IMMEDIATELY press F12. Go to the diagnostics menu and run all the diagnostic tests, including RAM and extended HDD tests.

If it passes all the tests, there's a chance it's an issue with the Windows installation. So consider backing up all personal files on an external HDD first and then do a full Win 10 Reset to reinstall Windows. You will have to re-install any software you added once the Reset is done.

But there's no guarantees a Reset will improve things with that hardware...

Honestly, this computer is for my 70+ father. What he does on a computer is very limited. And he is very slow using it. So when he tells me "this computer is slow", I know something is really wrong.

I think I am just going to return the computer to Dell. I understand that I am getting what I paid for. I wasn't expecting much. But I was expecting more than a very sluggish PC after accessing a few websites in Firefox. In 2009, I bought him the cheapest computer that Dell (Vista) had at the time, and THAT computer is less sluggish today than this new one.

If you're going to return it, do that ASAP because there's a time limit on when Dell will take it back for a refund. And the time limit starts on the invoice date, not on the date you received it.

And be sure to wipe the hard drive so no personal info remains. Best to do a full Win 10 Reset.

How would I accomplish a Win 10 reset? They didn't supply a Win 10 disk with the computer.

I purchased this same computer and agree with you 100%.  This computer is so slow I can't believe Dell would even sell it.  I bought it to replace a 10 year AMD system that I built myself.  I benched tested this new Dell against my 10 year old and the old system was faster than the this Dell.  It's to late for me to return mine.  I thought about selling it but I would feel bad for anyone who bought it, it really is that bad.  Even simple web surfing takes forever.

When I called to return it, I was offered $25 to keep the computer. I said no thanks.

i am using an inspiron 11 laptop with 2gb ram and the worst CPU intel has ever made, the celeron n3050.  i was able to speed it up a bit by going to the "background apps" in settings and turning everything off except calendar and mail.

Within days of buying my Inspiron 3252 I wrote the following call for help to Dell Customer Service and never got a response.

"I bought my Inspiron 3252 on July 16, 2016. When shopping for my new Dell, I thought the entry level Inspiron would suit my needs, since all I would do is email, Facebook and general web browsing. My first warning sign to it's poor performance should have been when it took well over 1 hour for the new Inspiron to download and launch the Norton security suite from my Comcast ISP.

When performing the simple tasks of reading Facebook posts, going through email, or even writing this review, the mouse courser and scrolling actions frequently freeze up, while you hear the computer hard drive processing data.   I don't know if this is due to the 1.60 GHz Celeron CPU, or the 4.00 GB Ram that came installed. It's all quite frustrating, as I would like to return this computer, but discarded all the packaging materials the day I received my new PC, thinking there would be no issues with a brand new computer.  Any assistance from Dell would be greatly appreciated."

Well past any options for return or exchange, I'm stuck with a $280 door stop,

Can any other 3252 users attest if the 4GB to 8GB RAM increase help with simple web browsing?

It should help, yes.  Getting rid of Norton in favor of Microsoft Defender will also greatly improve performance - Norton saps performance as well or better than most of the malware it purports to protect from.

Thanks ejn63!  The Norton security suite was included with my Comcast Xfinity package, so I'll get the RAM and Antivirus upgraded ASAP and report back with my results.