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February 3rd, 2005 03:00
Hardly works
OK, Dimension 1100. XP Home. 384 RAM. Service Pack 2. Am current with Norton Antivirus. Use three ant-spyware programs. I defrag, and dump temp files and cookies regularly.
I've owned it about a year and a half. The overall performance has slowly degraded. Both browsers (Explorer and Firefox) are painfully slow - as in walk away and make a sandwich while it loads - when they work at all. Most third party programs randomly freeze up; if I had a quarter for every "Program not Responding" message I could buy a new machine. Sometimes when it boots up the sound board works, sometimes I get a "No Waveout ..." message when I try to play recordings. I disabled most of the start up programs. Interesting twist - It got better for a while after installing Service Pack 2, then slowly reverted to the dumbest machine made. I have an old Dimendion Desktop running 98SE with 256RAM and it runs the third party programs fine and surfs like a champ. What do I need to do? Buy a Mac?
Arjuna
I've owned it about a year and a half. The overall performance has slowly degraded. Both browsers (Explorer and Firefox) are painfully slow - as in walk away and make a sandwich while it loads - when they work at all. Most third party programs randomly freeze up; if I had a quarter for every "Program not Responding" message I could buy a new machine. Sometimes when it boots up the sound board works, sometimes I get a "No Waveout ..." message when I try to play recordings. I disabled most of the start up programs. Interesting twist - It got better for a while after installing Service Pack 2, then slowly reverted to the dumbest machine made. I have an old Dimendion Desktop running 98SE with 256RAM and it runs the third party programs fine and surfs like a champ. What do I need to do? Buy a Mac?
Arjuna
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mjfon
16 Posts
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February 3rd, 2005 05:00
fireberd
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February 3rd, 2005 09:00
Dell has two forum sections for "Slow" PC's. Suggest you check them out.
Also a "Dimension" 1100? I don't see a "Dimension" 1100 listed in the Product Support Section. I do see an "Inspiron" 1100 (laptop).
big-wave-dave
21 Posts
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February 3rd, 2005 15:00
It's very possible that you are experiencing the effects of disk fragmentation. When's the last time you defragmented your drives?
Executive Software Diskeeper is a very good utility if the Windows one gives you trouble. They should have a free evaluation available for download. I've had issues where the Windows defragger kept restarting because it kept detecting Disk changes. Presumably these were in virtual memory, and probably caused by the Windows defragger itself!
-- edited after learning how to read --
Silly me... you do defrag. Someday I'll learn to read. Next thing to look into is the registry. Do you have / use a utility that optimizes your registry?
-bwd
Message Edited by big-wave-dave on 02-03-2005 11:51 AM
arjuna13
5 Posts
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February 4th, 2005 03:00
Sorry, It's the Inspiron laptop
arjuna13
5 Posts
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February 4th, 2005 03:00
No I do not. Have always been afraid of altering it. Do you recommend a specific application?
arjuna13
5 Posts
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February 4th, 2005 04:00
My old desktop runs fine with 256 RAM with the same third party applications including Norton System Works. I realize that XP is larger than 98SE, but at 384 I had an extra 128 - my Inspiron laptop was delivered with 128. Gee, it's not like I'm editing video or gaming or anything, and I keep an eye on startup.
arjuna13
5 Posts
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February 9th, 2005 13:00