Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Greetings all,

My Inspiron 1100 (2.3 GHz Celeron) is horribly slow. I've scanned
(multiple AV and spyeare), taken out extra services (services running
went from 39 to 26-28), taken out ALL the fancy effects and XP
niceties and stripped the hard drive down to less than 10 GB,
including taking out a lot of software that I used rarely, but really
would have rather kept. I've defragged, norton windoctored, OBC'd, and
monitor the performance stats all the time to look for an explanation
of why it's running so slow.

I have the current version of Norton SystemWorks, XP Home (all
updated) and have added ram to bring it up to 768 MB. I've taken out
the Indexing service and the restore points. When I added ram, turned
off the restore and the indexing, the very slugging booting, shutdown
and changing from one user to another was greatly improved. But, it
runs horribly slow otherwise.

Sometimes I think it's running almost ok....but then it just goes to
sleep and takes forever to refresh screens, switch between programs
and it really falls apart when running more than 2 aps, even if they
aren't major resource hogs.

It passes the Dell hardware diagnostics.

I am desperate to get the thing operational, but I don't want to be
hasty about reinstalling the OS if it's not necessary....it takes a
long time to get the system back to the point of being usable after a
complete wipe. No problems show when I monitor the performance
(control-alt-delete, click on 'performance' tab). The CPU utilization
is typically very low and nothing uses much ram, the paging file runs
160 to 210 MB, which should be just fine with 768 MB of ram available.

I don't have any aps requiring a supercomputer, so I'm not trying to
do anything very processor intensive.

I do not know of a widely accepted benchmark, which would allow me to
quantify just how slow it is (or isn't).....but my desktop (no-name) 1
Ghz P3 slot 2 motherboard with win 98 runs circles around this
machine, even though it has the old clunker hard drives in it.

I am totally stumped and have come to the conclusion that it is either
Norton or a corrupted OS (needing complete wipe/reinstall).

Can Norton really be the sole cause, or do I have other problems? Does
Dell recommend a specific benchmark test for quantifying the overall
performance?? In dos days, we used PCTOOLS for benchmarking, not sure
what to use these days.

From reading posts about 1100's in this group, it appears the 1100 is
well known to have fairly good performance....mines a slug though and
won't come out of second gear no matter what I do.

Thanks,

T

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

<TRABEM> wrote in message newsvd1h1lr2o3t7n7drineafd2ef3jut54an@4ax.com...
> Greetings all,
>
> My Inspiron 1100 (2.3 GHz Celeron) is horribly slow. I've scanned
> (multiple AV and spyeare), taken out extra services (services running
> went from 39 to 26-28), taken out ALL the fancy effects and XP
> niceties and stripped the hard drive down to less than 10 GB,
> including taking out a lot of software that I used rarely, but really
> would have rather kept. I've defragged, norton windoctored, OBC'd, and
> monitor the performance stats all the time to look for an explanation
> of why it's running so slow.
>
> I have the current version of Norton SystemWorks, XP Home (all
> updated) and have added ram to bring it up to 768 MB. I've taken out
> the Indexing service and the restore points. When I added ram, turned
> off the restore and the indexing, the very slugging booting, shutdown
> and changing from one user to another was greatly improved. But, it
> runs horribly slow otherwise.
>
> Sometimes I think it's running almost ok....but then it just goes to
> sleep and takes forever to refresh screens, switch between programs
> and it really falls apart when running more than 2 aps, even if they
> aren't major resource hogs.
>
> It passes the Dell hardware diagnostics.
>
> I am desperate to get the thing operational, but I don't want to be
> hasty about reinstalling the OS if it's not necessary....it takes a
> long time to get the system back to the point of being usable after a
> complete wipe. No problems show when I monitor the performance
> (control-alt-delete, click on 'performance' tab). The CPU utilization
> is typically very low and nothing uses much ram, the paging file runs
> 160 to 210 MB, which should be just fine with 768 MB of ram available.
>
> I don't have any aps requiring a supercomputer, so I'm not trying to
> do anything very processor intensive.
>
> I do not know of a widely accepted benchmark, which would allow me to
> quantify just how slow it is (or isn't).....but my desktop (no-name) 1
> Ghz P3 slot 2 motherboard with win 98 runs circles around this
> machine, even though it has the old clunker hard drives in it.
>
> I am totally stumped and have come to the conclusion that it is either
> Norton or a corrupted OS (needing complete wipe/reinstall).
>
> Can Norton really be the sole cause, or do I have other problems? Does
> Dell recommend a specific benchmark test for quantifying the overall
> performance?? In dos days, we used PCTOOLS for benchmarking, not sure
> what to use these days.
>
> From reading posts about 1100's in this group, it appears the 1100 is
> well known to have fairly good performance....mines a slug though and
> won't come out of second gear no matter what I do.
>
> Thanks,
>
> T
>



Just for S&G (and provided you have your Norton CD and key ready to
reinstall if needed), uninstall NSW and install AVG 7 Free Edition, being
sure to enable your Windows XP firewall as well.

Compare. Don't like? Uninstall AVG and reinstall NSW.

I would dare say that Norton is not helping your system performance.


Stew

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Other than removing Norton, maybe try a BIOS upgrade?

I really enjoy reading some of Dell's BIOS upgrade requirements.
They demand you create a floppy for a BIOS upgrade, yet they dont
provide a floppy with the laptop (modular or otherwise). Nice job,
guys.

Dan


On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:17:03 -0400, TRABEM <> wrote:

>Sometimes I think it's running almost ok....but then it just goes to
>sleep and takes forever to refresh screens, switch between programs
>and it really falls apart when running more than 2 aps, even if they
>aren't major resource hogs.

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Dell provides both floppy and hard drive versions of their BIOS upgrades.
You must be reading the instructions of the wrong one.

Tom
"Dan" <jasdfosd@asjedfoi.com> wrote in message
news:vga2h1d4h6p70k6j7lmiqi03f91n1u6diq@4ax.com...
> Other than removing Norton, maybe try a BIOS upgrade?
>
> I really enjoy reading some of Dell's BIOS upgrade requirements.
> They demand you create a floppy for a BIOS upgrade, yet they dont
> provide a floppy with the laptop (modular or otherwise). Nice job,
> guys.
>
> Dan
>
>
> On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:17:03 -0400, TRABEM <> wrote:
>
>>Sometimes I think it's running almost ok....but then it just goes to
>>sleep and takes forever to refresh screens, switch between programs
>>and it really falls apart when running more than 2 aps, even if they
>>aren't major resource hogs.
>

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I upgrades the bios, went from an A25 to an A32.

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 03:09:45 GMT, Dan <jasdfosd@asjedfoi.com> wrote:

>Other than removing Norton, maybe try a BIOS upgrade?
>
>I really enjoy reading some of Dell's BIOS upgrade requirements.
>They demand you create a floppy for a BIOS upgrade, yet they dont
>provide a floppy with the laptop (modular or otherwise). Nice job,
>guys.
>
>Dan
>
>
>On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:17:03 -0400, TRABEM <> wrote:
>
>>Sometimes I think it's running almost ok....but then it just goes to
>>sleep and takes forever to refresh screens, switch between programs
>>and it really falls apart when running more than 2 aps, even if they
>>aren't major resource hogs.