ElixXxeR,

Check to see that your computer is not running in compatibility mode. See this post.

To make your comptuer run faster, you can do 2 things. Remove Software or Add Hardware.

This is typically the case, so let's start by troubleshooting software.

1. Uninstall any un-needed or unknown programs. Anti-Spyware applications that are good include Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, Microsoft AntiSpyware, and some purchased ones. DO NOT just download and run any anti-spyware program advertised on the Internet. Many of them are actually "evil-ware" at least according to the other persons definition.

2. Since you are certain you have no spyware or adware, the next thing to do is scan for Viri via Anti Virus software such as Norton, McAfee, Avast!, Nod32, or AVG. Regardless of what you use, you should have exactly 1 Anti Virus program continusouly running in the background. You should have it running and you should never have 2 anti virus solutions installed at the same time.

3. Firewall the same thing goes, you should have for the most part one firewall. You can have Internet Security, the McAfee thing, and maybe the Widnows Firewall. You can have as many hardware firewalls as you want. Just do not have too many running.

4. If you have anti spyware software that monitors your computer, you should have only run active at a time. In other words, do not setup ad-watch from ad-aware, the spybot imunizations & tea timer, and the microsfot antispyware... If you get more than about 1 anti spyware program running in the background, you are asking for slowness.

5. As stated, you should make sure your computer is operating in Normal mode for SATA operation.

6. You should install all Widnows Updates

7. You should post a HiJackThis log

8. You should check the DMA Mode your Disk controller is running at.

9. You should verify fans are spinning and vents are free of dust. You should then verify Windows recognizes your processor as being 2.8 Ghz. I once knew someone who had inadvertantly bumped his heat-sink loose when working on his computer. He couldn't figure out why it was slow. His problem is his 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading was running at about 800 mhz. Once the HeatSink was re-mounted, his computer ran 4x faster.

You can also reset motherobard to factory settings. If it still seems slow, run Dell Diagnostics too and perhaps try a live bootable CD.

Hi, this sounds bad.

Anyway, there may be a few things you can try before reformatting.

For instance, you can uninstall some programss you do not use any more. General rules is if you don't use it or know what it is, you probably don't need it unless it is a driver.

With that said, you should press CTRL - ALT -DEL and open the task manager then click on processes and order them by CPU Usage. If you see something taking up 99% or some crazy amount of system resources, end the process. Do the same for too much memory usage. This will hopefully get your computer running enough to fix it.

At this point, you should uninstall printers you don't use too... If you have 3 versions of Acrobat Reader installed or anything else for that matter, get rid of the old versions... If you have AntiVirus, Spyware, and Firewall programs running, do not have more than one of each actively running. Essentially having 2 AntiVirus programs running is overkill and will sloooowww you way down...

After this, keep only legitamate AntiSpware such as AD-Aware, SpyBot Search and Destroy, Microsoft, and some you p[ay for. DO NOT download programs that claim to be antispyware, virus, speed up your computer... Do research first to prevent installing nasty stuff.

A general rule is that to make the computer faster, you need better/more hardware, or less/better software.

At this point, you should scan for viri and spyware. You should also make sure your hard drive or hard drives are operating in the fastest DMA mode available for your hardware.

You should check your memory usage to make sure you have enough. You should then go into the Bios Setup Utility and make sure any SATA Drives are running in Normal not combination. You may wish to reset factory and NVRAM too for good measure. Updating the BIOS usually isn't a bad idea either unless you have done something strange to your system such as upgrade it with a PowerLeap adapter.

At this point, you should take a HiJackThis log and post it here. Be sure to only check and remove malicious items. I.e. items that are malware or that take 99% CPU...

Perhaps run the System File Checker. Read the Event Manager Logs and BIOS logs.

If you still do not succeed, back everything up and run Dell Restore, or Image with something like Ghost, Acronis, Tera-Byte, ZENworks, Acronis, Altaris, partimage, partition saving, ... If you do not have an image, format and install from CD. You will need to be sure you have all drivers for your system.

In other words, you should check the device manager and write down all your devices or at least those that are NON-Microsoft provided drivers, and gather all of your software.

Format, Install, Chipset/Video, Communications/Wireless..., and Specialty such as 5 button mouse, TI Cardbus, ...You really don't need a touch pad driver, you don't need the hard drive driver, you don't need a monitor driver... Just make sure the Device manager has a driver for everything Widnows Detects.

-Jbirk