Henz:

with that little bit of differnce in processor speed you shouldnt see that much of speed increase or decrease so its proably somthing running in the background. So i have a few questions for you. How much memory does your friend have? Is it the same as yours or more. What periphals do you have hooked up to your computer(printer,scanner,camera)?  Also has the compuer always ran like that or did it start after you installed some new hardware of software?

First try this and see if improves anything: disconnect all of your periphals except for you keyboard mouse and monitor.Then boot up the computer and see if its any faster. If not once your back in windows go to start->run->type msconfig. If your not sure how to run it use this link http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/ it will walk you through how to use it. uncheck any programs that you can. After you restart windows should run faster. If not post back.

 

Henz, Is this a recent problem?

Have you kept up with your antivirus updates? Run your A/V's live update feature and try a virus scan using the latest virus defs.

Are you running anything like Kazaa or any file sharing application? Spyware is downloaded along with these free programs and can slow your machine to a crawl.

Go to the link below, download, install and run the program. I would delete all the spyware and cookies it finds. 

http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/

Thanx for your reply....We have the same amount of ram....256  We have the exactly the same puters, the only exceptions are, like I mentioned, the processor speed & I got the flat panel monitor instead of the ctr. I don't have any periphals...It always ran like it does...Its just that when my friend recieved his, I was able to compare the two & I am somewhat dissappointed in the performance of mine....Also,..I have unchecked things in the startup folder that I don't want running. Thanx for your time... ~James L~

Thanx for your reply...yes..I keep up on my virus protection..thanx for the link!..I will try that..~James L~

Henz,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

It seems to me that I paid more & got less...
Human perception is not a good measurement tool, run some benchmark
software on both systems to get accurate performance readings.

My friend ordered a 60 gig hard drive & got a 80 gig..wooohoooo!...What is it?...the luck of the draw?..Depending on what mood the "assembler" is in?....
If a certain system component is out of stock or not available, in most cases the next step up is used instead to get the system out the door as soon as possible. Dell tries to get computer systems built within a 3-5 day time period. This is why some customers get upgraded components.

I totally have lost faith in the integrity of Dell.. I would, at least, expect my system to be as fast, performance wise,....
System performance can be affected by a 100+ factors. You may want
to do a little troubleshooting.

1.Defrag your hard drive.
2.Scandisk the hard drive.
3.Stop all background applications.
4.Clean the hard drive of all temp files and cookies.
5.Make sure you don't have any spyware installed.
6.Upgrade to the latest bios file and reset your bios defaults.
7.Make sure all IDE devices on the same IDE channel have the same specs.
A 5400RPM ATA66 hard drive will slow down a 7200RPM ATA100 hard drive on
the same IDE channel.
8.Run a registry cleaner to remove any dead registry entries.
9.Set the hard drive as the first boot device in the bios.
10.Make sure you have more then 500mhz of free space on your HD.
11.Move the paging file to another partition if possible.
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Message Edited by DELL_Karell on 02-14-2003 01:21 PM

Thanx for your reply...I will try a couple of your suggstions.....I defraged & scan disked two days ago..Didn't help. As far as the upgrade bios issue,  my system is too new to be haveing to upgrade anything!..I just recieved it Jan. 8th..The other things that you suggested,..I'am not sure how to do.  Please reply.   Thanx for your time.. James L

If you've tried that stuff to no avail, just buy a stick of 512mb of memory. XP likes at least 512mb anyway, so you should notice a definite increase in performance.

You'll notice that, as you install more software on your PC, your system's performance sometimes slows down. I'm guessing that your new PC is running more software than your friend at this point. Some software that you’ve installed probably "runs in the background" and will use some of your system's resources – slowing down your PC a little bit. An example is Norton Anti Virus - it loads and runs in the background every time you turn on your PC. While it does slow down your PCs performance, the impact is negligible compared to the protection it affords you.

However, if you install a lot of these programs that run in the background, they add up and your PC will become noticeably slower.  Other examples include Real Player, AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft’s Instant Messenger, etc, etc. It seems like every software program you install these days wants to run some sort of application in the background to make that software supposedly work better/faster.

Usually these programs are nice enough to show that they are running in the background by placing an icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen (just to the left of the clock) in the “Notification Area”. If you've got a lineup of icons down there, you're running a lot of applications in the background!

How to stop these applications from loading and running at startup:
If you know what the program the icon is there for, and you don't need to always have its software running in the background, right click on the icons and see if it provides you with the option to disable it. For each of those icons in the lower right - If you can't find the option (some less than honest software manufacturers don’t make the option clear or don’t offer it at all) try the following:

1) Go to Start and select “all programs” and then look in the “startup” folder. Whatever is listed there is loading at startup and running in the background. If you don't really need it running in the background right click on the icon and delete it from the Startup group - or select “cut” and paste it into a folder that you create in case you decide you may want it back in the startup group at a later time. Note that the PC speaker icon and the "safely remove hardware icons" are normal and should be left alone.

2) Go to "Start" and select “run…” In the Run text box type “msconfig” (w/out the quotes). In the pop-up screen, select the startup tab. Here is a list of items that are loaded on startup by your PC. Some of the items in the list may be cryptic, but generally, if you look at the "command" line for each loaded item, you can tell which software program is loading this item and running it in the background. An example is msmsgs - Microsoft's Instant Messenger program. You'll see its icon in the lower right task bar and Microsoft doesn't let you shut it off. You can shut it off using msconfig by deselecting its check box. You'll be prompted to restart - when you do, you'll get a message stating that the startup has been altered - select "don't show me this again" and select ok or next (can’t remember exact wording). From that pint forward your PC will start without loading the offending application. Repeat for all applications listed in msconfig/startup that you don’t want forced on you every time you start your PC! If you find that deselecting any of these check boxes causes any problems, you can always go back to msconfig and reselect/enable it.

Bottom line - there are a lot of reason one PC can be faster than another. My guess about your situation - If you're running a lot of applications at startup and they stay running in the background, it's going to affect your PC's speed! I'm guessing that the speed difference has a lot to do with the software you’re running on your PC vs the software your friend is running!

Dell's suggestion of comparing performance issues via benchmarking software is a good one, but you really want your PC to actually run faster than your friend’s PC right?

Message Edited by Lumpydog on 02-16-2003 09:29 AM

You said that your friend received a 60 gig hard drive & got a 80 gig..

What type is your hard drive compared to his. The 80 gig drive might be faster. It might even be a different manufacturer.

You would have to compare both drive's specifications. such as RPM, cache size, seek time, etc...

-Keith_12345

Thanx fpr your reply. Good point!...Where can I find this info?  ..According to our invoices ,..the hard drives our the same (Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive)  7200rpm , except the size. Once again,..where can I find the other info? THanx for your time!...Please reply... ~James L~