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1614
October 17th, 2004 12:00
Dell2400 very slow (boot, operating, etc)
A friend has a Dell 2400 that has been very slow since out of the box. It is a year old now, but they were using it for a DOS app, and it didn't matter. Now they need to use Win apps and it is so slow, it is not really usable. Bootups take over 5 minutes. Launching something like Control Panel takes 45 seconds! Applied latest BIOS and XP Sp2 with no change in the problem. My guess is hard drive speed.
I wanted to use Delldiag.exe at
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/format.aspx?c=us&cs=6099&l=en&s=eep&SystemID=WRK_NBK_PNT_P4_M50&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=3841&devlib=13&category=13&releaseid=R65246
The description says that one of the versions runs from the hard drive in a graphical interface, but I tried all three versions downloadable there, and they all appear to need installation to floppies. The bad Dell2400 has no floppy drive, so I wanted to run something from the hard drive.
Is there a diagnostic that will run from the hard drive?
No Events found!
Midnight Star
4.8K Posts
0
October 17th, 2004 14:00
[FREE UP RESOURCES]
Ok, let's start do the following:
1) Run "CHKDSK", from a command line, without any options and see if it reports any problems.
2) Run "disk cleanup" and delete any temporary files that are not used.
3) Run "Internet Explorer", then select "Tools | Internet Options... | Delete files (include offline content!) | Ok"
4) Run the "disk defragmenter".
[CHECK AVAILABLE RESOURCES]
Check the following:
1) See if your available memory is running low.
2) If you don't have an 'excess' amount of memory, check your pagefile size.
3) From "Windows Task Manager", check the "Performance" tab and see if your processor is being heavily used. If so, go to the "Processes" tab and deterime which processes is using it the mose.
4) Check the "Event Viewer" available from "Start | Control Panel | Performance and Maintenance | Administrative tools", and check "System" and "Application". See if any errors or warnings are being reported.
[RULE OUT 'BADDIES']
Now, we need to make sure there's nothing on your computer that's causing the problem:
1) Download, install and run "AdAware SE Personal" and run a full system scan. There are a few options we need to set, but let's see if it picks anything up first.
2) Do the same for "Spybot S&D"
3) If your not running a firewall, ZoneAlarm basic is free to download and use.
4) Make sure your using an anti-virus, AVG anti-virus from Grisoft, is free to download and use.
5) Make sure all the Microsoft critical updates, are upto date.
TO use the Dell installed diagnostics partition:
1) Bootup your computer.
2) Start tapping F12 (when prompted) at the Dell screen.
3) Select "Diagnostics", then press enter.
See if that gets you started,
Mike.
rider89
4 Posts
0
October 18th, 2004 12:00
will the diagnostics tell me anything about frontsidebus or harddrive speed (relative to what is "normal" for that machine) ?
can any of the factors in your post effect bootup speed?
Midnight Star
4.8K Posts
0
October 18th, 2004 15:00
Yes, some of them can.
Also "Symantec" products have been known to be resource hogs.
Here are some things i'd check:
My laptop was slow out of the box too, but i'm willing to bet, if I do a 'clean' install of everything myself, it'll run much faster! If you go that route, be sure to back your personal data up first.
You might also want to download and run "HiJackThis", click "Scan", then "Save log". Copy/paste the text that comes up in notepad, and post it back. Don't 'fix' anything, let's just see what running; maybe something there is causing the problem.
Mike.