Dell Dimension 4600

[lawson_jl]

After fixing a customers laptop she asked me to take a look at her Dell desktop. Slow booting, runs slows, virtual memory errors etc. I removed about 25 start up items, some toolbars, and did a general clean up with Glary Utilities. I rebooted the PC and after the BIOS screen it took 5 mins (i timed it with my watch) before the Windows loading screen appeared and then another 10 minutes before Windows finished loading and I could use the computer. I'm not surprised it runs slow since it only have 256MB of RAM, even though it has it Widnows XP. I'm thinking a reinstall of Windows (this machine since they have very little on it) and a RAM upgrade.

I'm thinking there may be a HDD issue (possibly cable, IDE controller, mobo, PSU) that makes the HDD stall for 5 minutes before Windows starts to boot. I'd advised the customer that if I were to reinstall Windows other issues may come up. There is no activity on the HDD light nor do I hear the HDD working while it's sitting there for the 5 mintues after the BIOS screen before Widnows starts to load. I didn't do any other trouble shooting since this was basically a freebe at this point but was curious as to if anyone else has ran into this.

 

[Edge Tech NY]

I've gotten plenty of Dells with 256mb ram to run very nice for a internet machine with XP Pro on it.. If you did a thorough tune up and it still runs like crap, I would backup and format before I got ram. If its still slow, then it probably linked with another problem.

 

[Fireddog]

I hate making assumptions but based on what you wrote. you tweaked their machine through msconfig. You tweaked their IE and removed excessive toolbars. And you ran a system utility suite to clean up the registry.

The issue I have with what you wrote is.. I don't see any mention of actually running a Virus scan, a spyware scan.
did you Also do a hard drive check? Did you do a memory check? Which service pack is that machine running?
256 megs of ram is terrible. But it can be ten times worse if the machine has a malware infection. But before you start thinking of doing a wipe on the machine verify everything else first.

 

[abe]

i have a dell OptiPlex gx110 running on 128mb ram and p3 cpu and it works pretty well, you need to do a more in depth check and maybe reformat.

 

[geekhelp4u]

I had a gateway come in with the same specs and issues. I threw all I could at it and even did a reimage.com repair. In the end it was still slower than dirt. HDD tested fine as well as all the other hardware. Decided to low level format and reinstall windows.

Ran like a dream after that!

 

[CPCR]

What is is like running windows PE?
Try uninstalling the hard drive driver in the device manager and reboot before a format, seen this a few times and it has had some great results.

 

[lawson_jl]

As I stated I was quickly looking at the machine for free since I fixed her laptop. I did nothing other then what I said I did. She had avast installed and running. Judging from the behavior I'm sure there where no virus just an old slow install of Windows and maybe a dying HDD. If she does want me to fix it I will certainly be testing the HDD. I was curious though if anyone had encounted a PC that just sits there for 5 minutes between the BIOS loading and Windows loading? And what you did to fix the issue so I can a working list going into this beyond chack HDD, replace IDE cable and reset the BIOS.

 

[Fireddog]

Never assume anything. Just because it has Avast does not give the os a clean bill of health. Either you do a thorough check or you don't. There are no shortcuts.

 

[lawson_jl]

Checking the Avast scan logs it's never found a virus in it's history of running except for tracking cookies. I did forget to meantion that. And no I didn't do a thorough check since it is obvious this computer has hardware issues (and likely OS issues), but it would appear that no one has seen this kind of stalling before. I'll let you all know what it was if she wants it fixed.