What are your system resources running at? I would go through and remove as many startup programs as you can that aren't necessary. In particular I stopped my friend's Dell ATTUNE program from running and that freed up 15% of the resources.

I've had my 1.5ghz 8100 for 3 weeks now and LOVE it. I am a serious power-user (graphics programs, animation and gaming) and have been delighted with this machine. In all fairness, though, I DID have to tweak it to get the performance I was seeking. I downloaded the new "Detonator" drivers from NVidia, turned off most of the useless resource-grabbing startup programs, and downloaded a program called "Cacheman" to preset the cache settings. Running 3DMark2000 (madonion.com) my machine is scoring 9232 3DMarks (very fast), up over a 1000 from it's score out of the box. I play even the most graphic-intensive games at 1600x1200, 32 bit color, all textures turned up max, with super-fast framerates. I love this machine, especially for the price. Remember, right now most software doesn't include the SSE2 extensions that the P4 was optimized for, and as a result, performance running most present programs won't be any faster than a 1 ghz P3. New software coming will have these SSE2 extensions, then you will really see serious speed! The Athlon Thunderbirds are fast and cheap but have been overclocked to death - they run VERY hot, while the P4 is extremely undertaxed at 1.5 ghz (they are designed to reach at least 2 ghz). It's your money, do what you want, but I've never been happier with a new computer - and I've owned many. Best Regards, Bob

My 8100 makes a high pitched but fairly quiet noise when the computer is totally powered down that sounds like it is coming from the power supply. Does anyone else experience this? I called customer service and they gave me a bit of a run around.

The noise is coming from the power supply. I had asecond PS shipped, it did the same thing. I had a third PS shipped, it was a different shape, which I assume was a dif mfg, it stopped, but the PS did not have enough connectors . Keep having em send PS's till its fixed!

What did you do about the missing connectors? Were there fewer extras or there weren't enough to run all your peripherals?

BTW, thanks for the advise. Dell is sending me a new PS. Let's hope the new one does the trick.