New Dell PC is pretty darn slow.

The first place to look is memory, it's inexpensive now-a-days. If he has
only 128mb, it's not enough especially with the Celeron cpu no matter what
the speed. 512mb is the minimum amount I'd recommend. Remove any
preinstalled apps he has no use for. Case in point: a lady friend of mine
has a DIM 2350 with a Celeron 2.2ghz cpu that had 256mb of memory. We
upgraded the memory to 512mb, removed the extra apps, (McAfee, AOL,
Dell/PaintShop Pic Studio, RealPlayer etc.) and saw a real performance boost
even after installing NSW '02. You'll hear negative comments about NSW, but
I use it on my desk-top and lap-top without issue. Keep in mind, that not
all the NSW components have to be installed. NAV, WinDoctor and CleanSweep,
(not SmartSweep), should be the only components he will regularly use.
The one big draw back with the 2350 and 2400 is the shared memory for video.
Investing in a decent video card will help tremendously. The ATI 9000 with
64mbs of it's own memory is a good place to start. At a later date, if he's
so inclined, upgrading the cpu to a P4 with the increased memory will make
his system really fly. The P4 doesn't have to be the fastest, a 2.0ghz would
be a good choice.

--
Curt.

I have to disagree. I'm using NSW '02 on a P4 2.0ghz Inspiron 1100, 512mbs
memory, without any performance degradation. Of course, to each his own.
--
Curt.


"BigJIm" wrote in message
news:IKNtb.166602$275.511335@attbi_s53...
Norton is the killer, have an inspiron laptop 2.4 gig P4 processor and it
ran like ****. Removed Norton and it runs like it should. Of course I
installed another AV program.

It must have 256MB of memory.

BUT, if Dell sold him a system with XP, an integrated video controller and
128MB of memory then DELL is at fault for knowingly selling a poor
performing system IMO He should call Dell to take the system back unless
they provide him with another 128MB of memory GRATUS.


"Mike" wrote in message
om...
My friend doesn't want to send it back because he can't wait 1-3 or
however long it would take to get a new one. I think that's a big
mistake. I don't even know what Dell's policy on returns/refunds is.
Anyone know?

I'm not sure but he either got 128MB RAM or 256MB. I think 128 though.
Pretty stupid, huh? I swear, some people have no business even just
looking at computers and he's one of them.



"Lester Horwinkle" wrote in message
. ..
If you still within the 30 day return policy, send it back.

The Celeron is lame. If you can afford a few bucks more, get one with a
P4.

That aside ... I assume your running XP Home? Open the Task Manager and
select the Processes tab. Click on the CPU heading to sort by CPU usage.
What process(es) are using lots of CPU time???

"Mike" wrote in message
om...
My friend just bought a Dell Dimension 2400 with the 2.4GHz Celeron
Processor. Turned it on and it seemed a bit sluggish. We unistalled
all the McAfee stuff that came with it. Uninstalled the AOL 9.0
optimized that Dell had put on and reinstalled with a copy AOL had
sent. Then installed Norton SystemWorks Professional 2002. Now the
computer is really sluggish. It's as slow as my 400MHz Pentium 2.
I did ctrl+alt+del to check cpu usage and it was at 100% so we
rebooted and it mostly stayed between 0-10% with a few spikes up to
22%. But it's still pretty slow.

Does anyone know what is causing this? I've never had this happen with
my Packard Bell or HP. Could it have anything to do with all the
Microsoft patches Dell installed? I know some of those patches/updates
have messed up people's computers so I thought maybe that could be it.
So does anyone have any ideas?

yeah.. sure dell will send him more memory. you got to but it

Subject: New Dell PC is pretty darn slow.
From: "PC Gladiator"
Date: 11/16/2003 8:29 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
Message-id:

It must have 256MB of memory.

BUT, if Dell sold him a system with XP, an integrated video controller and
128MB of memory then DELL is at fault for knowingly selling a poor
performing system IMO He should call Dell to take the system back unless
they provide him with another 128MB of memory GRATUS.

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 08:33:44 -0600, "G. Mark Kelm"
wrote:

SystemWorks is the problem. It is a huge resource hog. The 2400 shares
system RAM with video and audio also. My advice is to make sure that you
have at least 256KB of RAM (512KB is better) and limit the background
applications running to the bare necessity.

No, the problem is that this guy is running a cheap (Celeron)
processor with insufficient memory and is expecting it to run 'fast'.
--
Rich Cervenka
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Desktop: Dell Dimension XPS T550
Notebook: Dell Inspiron 8600
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition running on both

The difficulty with video cards is that the 2400 has no AGP slot. He'll have
to find a PCI version and there aren't too many of them any more (at least
not the newer cards).

--
Regards,
Hank Arnold

"John and Pat" wrote in message
...
128 MB AND a Celeron is the recipe for a slow system any way you slice it.
The Celeron is not a bad processor depending on your uses. The biggest
upgrade he should do, assuming that the system is not going back, is to
install another 512MB of RAM. Then a good quick video card such as an ATI
9600, if he can shell out the cost. Otherwise one of the lower ATI cards
but
one with 128MB of RAM. Then a 7200 RPM drive. He cannot expect to go
budget
on the system but expect it to run like a power system.

Regards,
John O.


"Mike" wrote in message
om...
My friend doesn't want to send it back because he can't wait 1-3 or
however long it would take to get a new one. I think that's a big
mistake. I don't even know what Dell's policy on returns/refunds is.
Anyone know?

I'm not sure but he either got 128MB RAM or 256MB. I think 128 though.
Pretty stupid, huh? I swear, some people have no business even just
looking at computers and he's one of them.



"Lester Horwinkle" wrote in message
. ..
If you still within the 30 day return policy, send it back.

The Celeron is lame. If you can afford a few bucks more, get one with
a
P4.

That aside ... I assume your running XP Home? Open the Task Manager
and
select the Processes tab. Click on the CPU heading to sort by CPU
usage.
What process(es) are using lots of CPU time???

"Mike" wrote in message
om...
My friend just bought a Dell Dimension 2400 with the 2.4GHz Celeron
Processor. Turned it on and it seemed a bit sluggish. We unistalled
all the McAfee stuff that came with it. Uninstalled the AOL 9.0
optimized that Dell had put on and reinstalled with a copy AOL had
sent. Then installed Norton SystemWorks Professional 2002. Now the
computer is really sluggish. It's as slow as my 400MHz Pentium 2.
I did ctrl+alt+del to check cpu usage and it was at 100% so we
rebooted and it mostly stayed between 0-10% with a few spikes up to
22%. But it's still pretty slow.

Does anyone know what is causing this? I've never had this happen
with
my Packard Bell or HP. Could it have anything to do with all the
Microsoft patches Dell installed? I know some of those
patches/updates
have messed up people's computers so I thought maybe that could be
it.
So does anyone have any ideas?

Best Buy has an ATI 9000 pci card with 64mbs of memory for $80.00.

--
Curt.

If Dell is sending out 2400s with 128MB, XP and an integrated video
controller then they know the system will not perform due to lack of memory.
Add to this the slow disk they put in the system and the system is designed
to be a PRIZE WINNING DOG from day one. SEND IT BACK!


"Michael" wrote in message
...
yeah.. sure dell will send him more memory. you got to but it

Subject: New Dell PC is pretty darn slow.
From: "PC Gladiator"
Date: 11/16/2003 8:29 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
Message-id:

It must have 256MB of memory.

BUT, if Dell sold him a system with XP, an integrated video controller and
128MB of memory then DELL is at fault for knowingly selling a poor
performing system IMO He should call Dell to take the system back unless
they provide him with another 128MB of memory GRATUS.

"Rich Cervenka" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 08:33:44 -0600, "G. Mark Kelm"
wrote:

SystemWorks is the problem. It is a huge resource hog. The 2400 shares
system RAM with video and audio also. My advice is to make sure that you
have at least 256KB of RAM (512KB is better) and limit the background
applications running to the bare necessity.

No, the problem is that this guy is running a cheap (Celeron)
processor with insufficient memory and is expecting it to run 'fast'.
--
Rich Cervenka
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Desktop: Dell Dimension XPS T550
Notebook: Dell Inspiron 8600
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition running on both


Either the OP cheaped out by purchasing the Celeron/XP combo with only 128mb
of RAM, or a phone monkey in sales w/o a clue didn't offer good, functional
configuration advice.

If it was the former, the user deserves the tortoise he/she has.


Stew

"PC Gladiator" wrote in message
...
If Dell is sending out 2400s with 128MB, XP and an integrated video
controller then they know the system will not perform due to lack of
memory.
Add to this the slow disk they put in the system and the system is
designed
to be a PRIZE WINNING DOG from day one. SEND IT BACK!




snip


Yeah, the key word here is "if". It could be the user/buyer pinch-pennied
his/her way through buying the system and is getting exactly the "cheap"
system purchased. If that's the case, prolly asked if they could buy it w/o
a monitor, keyboard and mouse also.