New Dell Laptop - Performance Very slow

Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
edited August 2005 in Hardware
Just purchased a new Dell Inspirion 700M laptop for my colege bound daughter.

The performance seems really slow. Thiis is not just internet related. All programs are slow. I have a cable modem. The laptop (2 months old) has:

512MB of RAM
80Gig hard Drive (74G free)

Window XP professional

I have run Macafee AntiVirus, Spybot, Adaware & MS Antispyware, no viruses or spyware detected. Also ran disk clean-up & defrag.

Any thoughts around this before I call Dell support? My other computers, 3 other laptops and 2 desktop system on my home network are all fine.

Thanks,
BB

Comments

  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited August 2005
    McAfee will slow the system. Most likely it has a 5400RPM drive the the performance loss is increased.

    Is this on A/C or battery. Someone at school has a Dell and it lowers the FSB instead of the multiplier like it should. I have the 8600 from Dell and mine lowers the multiplier.

    I would actually uninstall a lot of the crap that comes preinstalled on the Dell. I said screw it once I got mine and reformatted since there was so much crap on it that I didnt need.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    I'm with marc. I have an inspiron 600m and the hard drive is just slow as hell (5400rpm). And he's totally right about mcafee - it sucks and it's slow. Ditch it and use AVG Free (free.grisoft.com)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    If you are using the laptop in a warm room, it's also possible that your machine is "clock throttling". That is, motherboard commands, as executed through the BIOS can turn down 'speed' of the CPU if it gets beyond a preset temperature limit. If your room in say, in the low to mid-70s*F, this should not be the cause.

    Can you do a ctr-alt-del, click on processes, and do a screenshot for us? It does sound like you've got a lot of activity running in the background. The big computer makers love to stuff their machines full of next-to-useless programs.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    primesuspect wrote:
    I'm with marc. I have an inspiron 600m and the hard drive is just slow as hell (5400rpm). And he's totally right about mcafee - it sucks and it's slow. Ditch it and use AVG Free (free.grisoft.com)
    yeah we have a 600m at our house too. After I took all the junk off, it runs pretty well.
  • Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
    edited August 2005
    Ok thanks everyone for the help and support. A couple of answers to the questions posed:

    1. Performance is slow whether on battery or AC (usually its plugged in)
    2. Room Temperature not an issue as its usually in an air conditioned room.
    3. There are in fact a lot of processes running, I have attached a document with the current screen shot (for some reason I couldn't copy and paste it here).

    Please review and let me know next steps. Thanks again for all the help.

    BB
  • Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
    edited August 2005
    Brutalboy99 wrote:
    Ok thanks everyone for the help and support. A couple of answers to the questions posed:

    1. Performance is slow whether on battery or AC (usually its plugged in)
    2. Room Temperature not an issue as its usually in an air conditioned room.
    3. There are in fact a lot of processes running, I have attached a document with the current screen shot (for some reason I couldn't copy and paste it here).

    Please review and let me know next steps. Thanks again for all the help.

    BB
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    hit the Mem Usage column to have it sort it out so we can see what processes are using up the most.
  • Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
    edited August 2005
    Ok here you go. Thanks.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    ok looks like you've got McAfee, RealPlayer, and Evil Explorer. Get Firefox (link in my signature), uninstall all McAfee trash, get Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D and AVG, and get rid of RealPlayer. That might fix some of the problem.
  • Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
    edited August 2005
    Ok thanks, I have the latest version of Ad-aware, Spybot, & MS Antispy.

    BB

    p.s. do you know why I couldn't paste right into the message? I had to send a word doc image?
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    you cant just paste an image into here.. you have to upload it to a site like Imageshack or just attach it.

    If you have those programs, then theres no need at all for programs like McAffee or Norton.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    If you have those programs, then theres no need at all for programs like McAffee or Norton.
    That isn't necessarily so. You still need to run an antivirus program. The anti-spyware programs screen out just that - spyware, malware, and such. For viruses, you need an anit-virus.

    Recommend the free program AVG. Many of us here run it. It is excellent. AVG does not update their virus definition files as often as Symantec and McAffee, but the program is still very good.
  • Brutalboy99Brutalboy99 Elmwood Park, New Jersey, USA
    edited August 2005
    Leonardo:
    Thanks for the reply. Yes, I know that anti spyware software is not enough. I have loaded AVG software and ran it along with Spybot, Ad-aware & MS Antispy. Good news, no viruses.

    I also eliminated Macafee & Weatherbug (comes with AOL) from the laptop. Seems tobe running better but do you think I should upgrade the memory, I have 512MB RAM?

    BB
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited August 2005
    No you do not need Image Shack, you can upload a picture to the forum's server. Press the 'Go Advanced' button and then 'Manage Attachments' button and you can upload pics or other files from there.

    There is nothing wrong with IE. Its fine.

    There are A LOT of files running on your computer. I dont have near that many with a bunch of programs running at once.

    I would suggest uninstalling any programs you do not intend to use that were reinstall on the Dell and stop any others from starting that are not necessary all the time. There will probably be a few things in your 'Start Up' folder in the Start Menu.

    Also if you go to Run, type in msconfig a program will open. Go to the startup tab and post a screenshot with the listing of programs that start with the system. Most likely there will be QuickTime, and Realplayer, and some other junk that is not needed to operate the Dell as intended.

    Weatherbug has some spyware and I couldnt believe that some of that junk came with the Dell Laptop.

    512 is enough, thats what I have in my Dell Laptop and it does anything but play games. WoW lags from the lack of RAM but other than that with my constant use I dont run out of RAM.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    ok I've said all of that. I said AVG was needed along with Ad-ware and SPS&D, and I said you could use Imageshack OR attach an image. It's probably better to use Imageshack instead of fill up SM's server wit pictures, but thats just my opinion.

    Yes you still need an anti-virus program, but AVG is just as good if not better than McAfee/Norton- those programs are so evil. Take up all your mem/cpu usage, and do nothing. :shakehead
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited August 2005
    mmonnin wrote:
    There is nothing wrong with IE. Its fine.
    theres pleeenty of problems with IE. FireFox isn't perfect yet, but a lottt better for spyware, adware, and popups than IE is. In my case, I get faster browsing with FireFox than in IE, its easier to use, and looks a lot better.
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    whats ur HD rpm? mine is 4200 I am about to swap it out to a 5400 since thats the fastest lappys will take ( i think ) it drags when accessing the HD
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    You can get 7200 RPM laptop HDs.

    http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/menuitem.72e3cabd3a6a384ccf1824a0eac4f0a0/

    they ain't cheap, but they exist.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    wow...if I were you i would do a clean install of xp if you have an extra disc layin around. but im not to sure that you do or that you know how to.

    other than that, get rid of all the stuff that you do not need. weather bug being one of them. and abunch of stuff that youll never use. I dont particulary like real player, but keep it if you like. depending on your circumstances, i would try and get a 5400 rpm hdd if not a 7200 hdd. simply because that will most likely give you the most visible performance increase., you said you had 512 mb of memory, am i right? as long as you dont intend to be playing games, you will be just fine with 512.

    Good luck on getting that laptop up to speed.
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