Extremely Slow

Question

The pc is a Optiplex GX 150 running Windows 2000 operating system and attached to a Novell network. At times this pc performs beautifully then all of a sudden it starts to run very slowly. Matter of fact from the moment it is fired up until it reached the windows desk top can take up to 10 minutes. In the past, Dell had me replace the hard drive, which I did, and it worked fine for awhile. Then I was to run defrag, which I did, and it worked fine for awhile.

It’s BACK! It runs extremely slow but it runs. Opening any software takes just as much time. Everything which is not necessary when firing up the PC has been removed, such as a couple of programs in the Start up folder. But as I said earlier, even when it is up and running everything you do takes a long time.

Any thoughts?

droid256 · Answer

Next time it starts running slow, try opening the system without disconnecting power. If it speeds up with the system open, you may not have a good ground on your hard drive. Try removing the drive and bending the metal ground clips on the hard drive rails out a little so it will make a better ground contact.

Droid

haygis · Answer

i dont think grounding is the problem...i had a new dell in february (sent it back after two weeks) and nothing i tried would help the problem...sometimes yes sometimes no....i had some geek friends try to figure it out but no....contacted dell...but no....all they said was to send the error logs whenever anything screwy happened......hrm...so no more dell for me because i think (and maybe i am crazy for thinking this) that if one buys a brand new pooter with all the latest s**t then that pooter should work...everyone i know with a new dell reports similar problems.....in fact the school i attend right now is decked out with spankin new optiplex GX240's that still smell like the frickin factory...yet the loads are SLOW! even for things like word etc.......hotmail does not respond at all on these pooters (believe me i have checked on other systems and pooters) sometimes it works great and then it gimps up and nothin' doin'.......i dunno peeps dell has been very disappointing thus far pretty but messed up as hecks

haygis

droid256 · Answer

Nice to see an open mind Droid

NVRambo · Answer

Try incrementally:

1/ boot with system physically disconnected from the network

2/ boot with IDE2 disconnected from the mb

3/ boot with all expansion cards removed from system (except video if you're using other than onboard).

Your previous attempts at drive replacement and defragging suggest that this problem may be software, however.

villanim · Answer

I feel for you. My firm has 55 of the GX150's and they exhibit the same problems you mentioned - 10 mintues to log in screen, then another 10 to log in to windows after entering you password. It can take an inordinate amount of time for applications to launch up to 5 minutes or longer. If I reimage a PC then it is good for a bout 2 weeks max, before the problems startup again. Dell tells me it must be my software, but I have 500 GX110's running the same software that don't have any problem, so then they tell me it must be a software incompatibility problem with the 815 chipset. I have been fighting this problem for a year now, and I just finally was able to get the problem escalated to level 2 and my firm is a Preferred Account and this is the treatment we get. We are running win98 and Novells Zenworks for Desktops version 3. Makes me think very seriously about switching hardware vendors when we upgrade again again in 2 years to COmpaq if Dell doesn't take support issues seriously.

Normnroy1 · Answer

Thank You!

Yes it becomes an easier problem to fix if Dell tells you it is software related. Because it is not their software.

The only way I have been able to correct it is if we shut down the machine and refire it. We do this seven or eight time and then shut it down for good (like the end of the day). The next morning everything is working fine. Also Defrag seems to help.

Here is my “technical analyses”. It’s like the PC looses all of its memory or is running low on memory so it is struggling to operate. Someone told me once that the hard drive is used sometimes as additional memory (not sure if this is true or not). So the pc is using it hard drive to fire up and it is being taxed also with memory duty. I am sure I am way off base here, but there it is.

Thank you all for your replies!

marlondc · Answer

i have a few Dell GX150's and i am having slowness every few weeks with this particular machine ..

i have read trough all the newsgroups and have found the smilar problem but not even one solid answer from Dell !! that means some thing to me .. may be that particualr GX 150 Batch is a S**T batch !!

spent more than a few days on this problem .. i have confirmed that this is hardware related since i have swapped the Hard disk on an identical PC to the one with the Slowness and it did not make a diffrencre.

if anyone is curious it is running Win 2k

droid256 · Answer

In my case it was some type of funny grounding problem. If the system case was open slightly everything would run fine. I was able to fix the issue by bending the metal clips on the drive rails out slightly so the drive would get a better ground.

Droid

gingerr · Answer

My company have also had this problem with a number of the Optiplex 150's. For each of the machines it has happened on we have gotten Dell to come out and replace and the motherboard. It seems it might have something to do with the onboard NIC?? When the new motherboard is installed it works great!

joemorgan · Answer

Our company has used dell for about 4 years now. We have had GX-110 both tower and desktop, gx-150's and more recently gx-260's.

Frankly the gx150's are the worst of the lot. There are at least two per week that demonstrate the symptoms being discussed in this forum. My question is Why hasn't Dell owned up to its responsibilities admitted a problem and coped it sweet. It seems very sneaky to continue denying a problem and suggesting its the S/w that's running on it.

We have tried all of the suggestions, but one fix that work regularly is flexing the motherboard or playing with the ram slot. On every machine this works for a small period of time. If the MB is the problem, then they could all be replaced. Simple as that.

joe

Noewon · Answer

Just thought I'd throw something else into this. We also run Dell machines about 400 of which are GX150's. Windows2000 SOE and we also can't get a straight answer out of Dell as to how to solve the slow pc issue (specially now that they've moved the call centre to India ). We thought initially that the common thread was the type of RAM used in the dodgy machines as not all are slow.  Taking the RAM out of the slot and putting it back in appears to fix this slowness... for awhile. Then it returns....   We finally convinced Dell to replace the motherboard, and so far in the two machines that this was done, the performance has returned to normal.   Could be the reason Dell are trying to dodge the issue, the cost involved in replacing a dodgy batch of motherboards would be huge

alelv452 · Answer

Interesting diskussion. By the way imaging = making an image of the hardrive, formatting drive and coping the image back !? Is that it? Could you tell me what software do you use for doing that if you dont mind?

/Alex

Noewon · Answer

its gettin off topic but.. we use Symantec Ghost. There are others out there, but this meets our needs.

rjreyes · Answer

We are having the exact same problem with all 30 of our GX150s on our NT network. They were originally shipped with Win98, and then the gradual slow down in performance occurred. We tried troubleshooting, and ended up wiping out the hard drives and re-installing Win98 with the Dell recover CD. After this, the systems ran well.

As we neared the completion of the batch, we decided to just upgrade them all to Win2K, instead of reinstalling Win98. At first the systems ran fine, but then they started to slow down as well, putting us in the same predicament as earlier.

I noticed that this problem is inherent in the GX150s. Does ANYONE know the true cause of this decrease in performance? Is it memory? Built in NIC? What? How do we fix it? Any Service Packs available?

I am almost relieved to discover that ours are not the only GX150s acting up!

a_giannetti · Answer

I have been seeing this issue for about 9 months now with the first one. I know have seen the same issue on 6 to 10 gx150 out of about 200 that we are using. Below is a right I have done and I am getting ready to send to my coworkers about this issue.

User complains about slow response with regards to everything they attempt to do including booting up the pc. Restart computer without shutting it down. Time boot process. Time from when windows 2k splash screen appears (one with the blue progress bar at the bottom) till the log in screen appears (ctl-alt-del screen). This should be between 20 to 30 seconds. On problem pc’s this boot up time can be 45 seconds to 3 minutes and have seen some take as long as 10 minutes. This problem can be intermittent. Sometimes powering off pc and powering it back up normal operations will resume and or disconnecting network cable. Have seen normal operation continue from just one day to problem not returning on some pc. Have reimaged pc’s and upgraded bios from A06 to A10 with no effect on the problem. Recently on the one pc I have been struggling the longest with the problem returned and could not be cleared. Reimaged the pc and the slow boot continued even with new software and power cycling pc. Replacing the system board has resolved this problem.

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Extremely Slow

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