Dell Laptop (RAM, hd, operating system, icons)

[sailorgirl2007]

I bought an Inspiron 17 series back in Nov 2007. It runs extremely slow. I have run defrag, etc. but it is still slow. I'm not very computer savvy and haven't called Dell to see what can be done (no longer under warranty). Should I have my laptop upgraded or with prices being lower now should I just buy a new one?

[IDASpaceman]

I've had a couple of dells, never again...buy a Mac and rest assured you'll be glad you did.

[Asheville Native]

Calling Dell would be useless.

I guessing your are running XP. How much RAM (memory).

Boot the laptop and start Task Manager to see how many processes you are running. I'm betting far too many (80 - 90) which will seriously slow your system down.

[elnina]

Newer laptop would be nice, but if you don't want to spend $$ then check other things:
Why is slow? HD full? Open to many windows at once? To many icons on desktop? How many processes running? or running at startup?

[Huckleberry3911948]

a 4 year old dell laptop is a very old machine.

[elnina]

^^^ yes, but depends on his needs it could be still useful.

[hoffdano]

Originally Posted by Asheville Native

Calling Dell would be useless.

I guessing your are running XP. How much RAM (memory).

Boot the laptop and start Task Manager to see how many processes you are running. I'm betting far too many (80 - 90) which will seriously slow your system down.

Although this might be true, it really doesn't help the OP at all. Which tasks shouldn't be there?

For the OP:

Is the computer slow on everything? What do you do with it?

Reasons your computer is slow:

1. It doesn't have 4 Gb of RAM (memory)
2. The hard drive is nearly full
3. Too many things are running
4. you have spyware (etc.) clogging up your system

I had a laptop from 2007 until not long ago. It ran very well on Windows 7 with 4 Gb of RAM. Yours could too.

I would start by running updated antivirus and and antispyware software on the computer. Good free products are Microsoft Security Essentials, Spybot, and Malwarebytes.

Then remove/uninstall all crap on your system using the Windows Control Panel. Remove all toolbars and search helpers.

Download and install Ccleaner (crap cleaner). Run it.

If you don't have 4 Gb of memory, add more to your system.

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

Although this might be true, it really doesn't help the OP at all. Which tasks shouldn't be there?

It is the start of a dialogue. If you call your auto shop and say "my car won't start" should they just list off a number of things that "$hould be done" or would you prefer they ask a few question to troubleshoot the problem to the cause?

[NHDave]

Originally Posted by sailorgirl2007

I bought an Inspiron 17 series back in Nov 2007. It runs extremely slow. I have run defrag, etc. but it is still slow. I'm not very computer savvy and haven't called Dell to see what can be done (no longer under warranty). Should I have my laptop upgraded or with prices being lower now should I just buy a new one?

Do you notice the fan running constantly or at a higher speed than usual? If so you may need a sping cleaning of the heat sink fins, on some latops this is easy, others not so much. How much free hard drive space do you have? How much installed RAM? What does task manager show for CPU usage?

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by sailorgirl2007

I bought an Inspiron 17 series back in Nov 2007. It runs extremely slow. I have run defrag, etc. but it is still slow. I'm not very computer savvy and haven't called Dell to see what can be done (no longer under warranty). Should I have my laptop upgraded or with prices being lower now should I just buy a new one?

Don't just buy a new one, not just yet.

I have a 5 year old Dell Inspiron E1705, Core 2 Duo, and it runs quite well with Windows 7.
Only updates I have ever done are to add memory, to a total of 2 GB of RAM and added a new hard drive, from 80GB to 320 GB.

Can you tell us about your machine?
How much memory; how large a Hard drive; what programs you use most often.

How full is your hard drive? Your Defrag results should have told you. If it is over 90% full, it will start to diminish your performance.

If you have been using it for four years, it may be a good time to format and reload your operating system, if you have the disk.
I have done that. a couple of times when replacing the hard drive twice. It makes a huge difference, particularly since I often do not reload everything that was on the machine. Of course, you need a Windows disk and a good back up of your stuff.