Hi all,

Can anyone help?

I have an Inspiron 530.  running XP Pro SP3. 2 days ago it started running extremely slowly at startup.

The symptoms are : When switched on it will reach the Dell Splash Screen, then after 20-30 secs it shows my bios set password box, each keystroke takes 4-5 seconds to be reflected on the screen. If I do not wait for each * to appear before entering the next it will not accept the password, however if I wait for each character to be reflected by the *  then it will eventually, 4-5 secs for each character, accept the password, it then hangs for a time (flashing curser top left) then proceeds to load windows after which it seems to operate ok, load and run programs / applications within windows with no problems.

I have run a full virus scan and a Dell Support Scan, both show no problems.

It seems to me that the Bios has run out of steam?

Can anyone help.

Chris