TSGL: Dell Dimension - too slow

[The Computer Whisperer]

chipset driver updates can yield better performance and added features.

by the way :-)

Justin

-- 
http://www.whisperer.com.au

The Computer Whisperer - Your Friendly In-Home Technical Support Consultant

Telephone: (03) 5979 1122
Mobile 0406 467 701



On 13/10/06, Tilman Brandl <t.brandl.2 at tplus.at> wrote:
> Hi Don,
> Hi All,
>
> although I'm not finished with cleaning up, I guess I've solved the main
> problem today.
>
> 1. The DVD was broken, couldn't revive it on a different PC
>
> 2. At bootup there was a huge delay and afterwards one had to press F1
> to continue. It stated it didn't find HDD 1, 2, and any secondary
> drives. The secondary one was dead, alright. But why primary HDD1 with
> the slave HDD2 empty?
>
> I removed the CVD player, and in Bios set all missing drives from Auto
> to None. That did it. Bootup time plunged from 3 minutes to 45 seconds !
> The machnine now seems to be much less sluggish.
>
> Bootvis btw didn't reveal anything new, but at least I now know how to
> put it to use ... just in case.
>
> I'll anyway check & clean the box a bit further, install all the updates
> and hope things'll be fine again then ;-)
>
> Thanks to all of you for your help offered so generously.
>
> Tilman
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: "Don Penlington" <deepend at tpg.com.au>
> An: "Tech Support Guy Mailing List" <list at tsgserver.com>
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 12. Oktober 2006 05:03
> Betreff: Re: TSGL: Dell Dimension - too slow
>
>
> > Tilman wrote:
> >
> >>The bootup process (and possible problems there) may
> >>not have any relation with whatever reasons there are for an overall
> >>slowness.>>
> >
> >
> > But they often do. It's the first place I'd be looking for possible
> > clues.
> > A bad driver, for instance, can play havoc with performance, if it's
> > neither fully open nor fully closed (does that make any sense?). Just
> > sitting there in limbo, forever sucking up power trying to get
> > properly
> > operative.
> >
> > <<her kids have  got games on CD which - on second thought - might be
> > worth
> > scrutinizing
> > more closely.>>
> >
> > That'd be my 2nd choice.  I haven't seen a computer yet (admittedly I
> > haven't seen many) with kids games
> > where performance has been AOK.  I think there are many games poorly
> > written, or just not suitable for XP, where resources do not get
> > properly
> > released, even on reboot. Seems impossible in theory, but it happens.
> >
> > I su[pposxe you've had a careful look thru Task Manager at both
> > Processes
> > and Applications.  Remembering that XP retains settings on reboot,
> > look for
> > any running processes that are unusual.  A very common problem with
> > games
> > is an aborted or failed install continuing to run the installation
> > process
> > Msie.exe.  Often this fails to release, and continues to suck up
> > resources
> > which don't otherwise seem to show except that everything slows down
> > to a
> > crawl or gets stuck.  Often you'll find several instances of the same
> > .exe
> > running as the kids try several times to install something before
> > giving up.
> >
> > Msie, contrary to popular belief, is not a Microsoft process, but a
> > 3rd
> > party installer available to programmers. It is prone to difficulties
> > when
> > it goes wrong, and this can sometimes be seen with many games
> > installations.  I'd therefore rate your "kids games" as prime
> > suspects.
> > Look especially for any failed installations which may have left
> > registry
> > remnants behind, including startups. You might be in for some very
> > tedious
> > manual registry cleaning, unless perchance ERUNT happens to be on the
> > computer and contains some early registry backups.
> >
> > In the end, you might well find it easier to reformat and reinstall
> > XP.
> >
> > Don Penlington
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tech Support Guy Mailing List
> http://www.tsgserver.com/list/
>