Dell Optiplex 260 Extremely Slow

C

computerstu

New Member
When I start my computer, or let it sit idle for a long period of time, it's very sluggish and can take several minutes to get moving. Once I'm browsing etc., it seems OK. I went to the Dell site and dowloaded the latest Bios Setttings, but this didn't seem to help.

One thing I did notice is that under 'Processes', the 'System Idle Process' seems to be taking up a large percent of the CPU, which may or may not mean anything.

I don't have very much installed on this computer.

Any help would be appreciated Thanks.
 
What anti-virus software are you using? How much RAM do you have installed in your system? How often do you defragment your hard drive? Do you have a Pentium 4 or a Celeron processor in your system?
 
AVG Anti virus

Pentium 4

512 MB RAM

Just tried to use the disk defragmenter and got the message 'Volume(C:) has only 3% free space available for use by Disk Defragmenter...'

Not sure what is taking up all that space....
 
Do the following:

Start-->Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Disk Cleanup

Use Disk Cleanup to clean out your hard drive of things you don't need anymore. You will need to have at least 15 percent of your hard drive free to defragment it.

I would also download Spybot Search & Destroy. Download it, install it and clean out your system. Download version 1.6.2.16.

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

Give a report back of what is going on after doing the above suggestions.

Also are you willling to invest in some more RAM for your system?
 
System idle is fine. It's just that...the processor being idle. You WANT it to be a high number, preferably 99% (IE not doing anything ;) )

When you say you have very little installed, what do you have loaded? How fresh is the install? Windows XP (and Windows versions there after) is notorious for grinding the harddrive away when idle. Typically this is caused by the indexing service. You can disable this by going to My Computer, right clicking on the hard drives in the system, properties, then uncheck "Index this drive for faster searches" (or whatever is says in XP).
 
I'll try all of those suggestions. I also looked and there are 2 programs that are taking up a fair amount of space, which can both be removed.

I would be willing to invest in more RAM, just would need advice on what to get an how to install. Thanks again.
 
It's taking forever just to run disk cleanup, and remove some of the instaled software. I'm about ready to format the C: drive and start from scratch...
 
I've done followed all of the suggestions (defragmented the hard drive, run disk cleanup, run Spybot, removed software I wasn't using) and things still are slower than they should be.

The more I look at it, it's fairly slow all over. One particular sticking point is when I select 'My Network Places' it takes forever to load these.

All in all very sluggish. I will add more RAM, but am also open to other suggestions. Thanks.
 
I have heard AVG is not a very good anti-virus. It may be taking up a lot of your processing power. You may want to try a trial version of the anti-virus called Avast!

Also try this:

Start-->Run and then type "MSConfig"

Go into "Startup" and find programs you do not use or do not want starting up when you boot up your computer and uncheck them. Be wary unchecking everything some things you actually do need for Windows XP to operate properly. This will make your startups faster.
 
How's your drive activity look when it's dragging along. Sometimes the speed of the drive, or how fragmented it is causes some pretty substantial system lags. If you're having lots of disk activity not not so much processor activity, chances are you really need more RAM. Or...it could be the signs of a failing hard drive.
 
Where do I check the hard drive activity? I'm only familar with the CPU percentage use under Task Manager 'Processes'. It isn't always using a large percentage of the CPU watching that monitor.

Thanks
 
Check your pagefile use in task manager to determine if you have a lot of hard drive activity. Pull up task manager by using the Control+Alt+Delete keys.
 
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