very slow dell

[geek 0001]

I have an old dell dimension 2400 I am giving to a friend. I installed a fresh copy of xp on the machine and updated it to sp3. Despite being a fresh build, the computer is struggling to process even the simplest of tasks. It just stops and does nothing. The machine is a dell dimension 2400 as mentioned before and has 512mb of ram and a celeron processor. I distinctly remember it being faster than this when I used to have it (even with sp3). Could this be a hardware problem like a bad hard drive or fried cpu or ram?

 

[johnb35]

Sometimes updating the service pack can cause issues like this especially with older pc's like the 2400, it's always best to slipstream the latest service pack into a new install cd and only install once. The celeron will be slow and it doesn't help to only have 512 mb of ram. What programs are installed on it as far as security wise? If nortons or mcafee then you definately need more memory installed.

 

[geek 0001]

I am using f secure at the moment but that is literally the only sofware that matters on there. I also have another 2400 which I am also giving away so I swapped the ram for the 1gb sticks but there was no noticible improvement. The pc I took the 1gb of ram from runs very well and is the exact same machine as the one with problems and has the same software installed.