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Is my pc just getting old?
I have a Dell Dimension which I bought nearly three years ago in June 2007. Its worked brilliantly until the last couple of months. Now, if I leave it on with programs open and come back say an hour - or even less - later, then the program is basically frozen and takes forever to come back to life, many times it doesn't and I have to use the task manager to close it so that I can reopen it again. It happens with all programs - Microsoft, Adobe etc.
I have up to date Ad Aware running, also F Secure internet security and have run scans for viruses and spy ware and haven't found anything.
I save most stuff onto an external hard drive so the hard drive is not clogged up with my files.
Otherwise, computer works ok but more slowly that it used to - I don't have the computer specs with me at the moment, but it was a top of the range pc when I bought it, in terms of hard drive, memory etc
So am wondering as its nothing obvious, is it just the machine getting to the end of its useful life? opinions welcome! It's driving me nuts at the moment! I am the only user BTW
ieee488
4 Operator
4 Operator
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11.1K Posts
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February 9th, 2010 18:00
I have a Dimension 4100 that I bought 10 years ago running Windows 2000. It does not display the behavior you are having with your newer PC. Hmmm....
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
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February 9th, 2010 19:00
groovyvectra
It seems, that it's time for a clean reinstall of Windows. :emotion-5:
Bev.
lambdapro
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February 9th, 2010 19:00
3000s are nice workhorse machines. How much RAM do you have in it? What CPU?
When you get on with task manager, can you see what is gobbling up the CPU time? My daughter had the wmpnetwk.exe running 80% load on her 4600. It seems that it got downloaded with a recent Microsoft update and was looking for an Xbox computer. I did some research on the internet. (On a different computer ;-) ), and found a solution for it.
She then had a second problem. Her heat sink compound had dried out a bit and the CPU was running slowly.
She uses AVG and had it scanning her hard drive daily. Since the CPU was slow and the wmpnetwk.exe was bogging down the machine, her machine was almost totally unresponsive.
And this was with a 3.4GHz CPU.
After fixing these three things, she ran great.
So, get task manager up and click on Processes->CPU to see what is using your cycles.
This is very solvable.
BTW, I love the AGP version of the Dimension 3000, the 4600. I think that I may have bought 10 so far. ;-)
On a side note, if you only have 512 MB, spring for the extra RAM to get it filled up.
If you have a Celeron D, spend $30 on ebay for a 3.0 GHz cpu and a 9Y212 heat sink.
David
speedstep
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February 9th, 2010 19:00
Hard drive failing could be a problem, power supply choked with dust could be a problem.
Inside choked with dust and overheating could be a problem.
Spyware,malware could be a problem.
If you boot to the cmos setup screen and leave it overnight and its not frozen then its likely that the OS or
hard drive has an issue.
Drives get filled up over time with junk.
CCLEANER and Defraggler help with that.
Getting a newer Used Dell like an Inspiron 530 desktop will seem to be MUCH faster due to it not being sooo old.