[Nightowl]

I recently was given a Dell Inspiron 1100 to poke at because it was running slower than a turtle climbing a tree. The first thing I did was uninstall every prog not needed. It got a little faster. Then I went through every folder there was and deleted the prior owners personal files, it got a little better again. Defrag with no problems.

Then it was still too slow so I bought 1g worth of memory to replace the 256mb. Then I uninstalled EVERYTHING that was not needed including photo progs, anti-virus, office, toolbars etc. No change, and just as slow with 4x the memory.

This is a 2 gb celeron with 1gb memory running xp home, and should not be slower than a 400 mhz system that I use at times for other things!

I gave up, wiped the hd and had a tech install xp pro. When I got it back it seemed fine until I started loading programs. Each prog loaded made it slower. Task manager showed the cpu running at 100% for 8-15 minutes after booting? I took it back to the tech and he "claims" the progs I installed were conflicting with each other and removed them, installed avg, nero, then and gave it back. Note: I'm bugged out because this tech was told the more programs it had, the slower it got along with the time, so he should have done more "tech" type stuff before giving it back.

I installed all the necessary programs like anti-virus, zip, photo, etc and it seemed fine. While waiting for windows to update today for an hour or so, it went back to slo mo, so I shut down anti-virus to get the updates to finish. Got done and shut it down for an hour. Started it back up and everything was fine until an hour goes by, then slo mo again.

Sorry for the long post but the more info the better. What I'm seeing here is a heat problem? The fan kicks up to full after a couple minutes, then cycles every 5 minutes or so when doing nothing, then after an hour you can't run any 2 programs without waiting 4 or 5 minutes for them to load.

Bios is up to date. All power and foo foo modes to minimal, all others set to performance for system, all drivers are correct and current. The only thing that seems fine is being online, but to run any progs after an hour is a no go.

Is it possible the hd isn't spinning at the correct speed? Is it possible the cpu has been heated to a less than par performance state? Or do I have a bad mb and need to chuck this thing?

Any suggestions may keep me from tossing it into the fireplace

[Carbon]

It's highly unlikely to be heat, but download something like CPU-Z and check the temp.

Barring that, install XP yourself, you could use nLite to slim down the installation.

What is the processor on the machine?

[thingie2]

I agree with Carbon, it's unlikely to be heat causing it to slow down, you could try taking a look through this topic, see if that speed it up at all.

[Nightowl]

The processer is intel celeron 2ghz.

Fresh xp pro installed by tech after I completely wiped the hd. I don't have a disc to reinstall because Dell won't acknowledge my ownership transfer and provide it as they claim, which is why I had a tech do it for next to nothing. I can't justify buying an OS if this machine isn't worth it. This xp pro OS is a tech copy.
I have already done quite a bit of what was suggested and the problem persists. I will do the rest after I get it back from dear ole Dad and report on the outcome. The thing I can't wrap my mind around is why does it act the same way as it did before a new xp and more memory was installed? It only slows down after it's on for an hour or so...same as before?

[Carbon]

OK, sounds good. You also might download something like Ubuntu and run it off a LiveCD or USB thumb drive to see if the problem persists in a different OS.

[Nightowl]

You know it was slow and I had xp pro installed on a wiped hd. OK, here's what I have done so far..........
1)Removed unnecessary programs.
2)Ran cc cleaner which gave back 39+mb.
3)Defrag in safe mode.
4)Ran page defrag.
5)Ran Auslogics registry defrag.
6)Ran chkdsk in safe mode, said F parameter not specified and read only, then it just ran and gave no stats when done.
x)Did not run sfc because I have no os disc.
7)Ran cc cleaner with start up option, very little showing and what showed needed to be there.
8)Ran malware Bytes anti-malware. It found one in doc & settings/dell/results.txt which I assume was from downloading dell's "check my configuration" utility, it was quarantined and then deleted.
9)Tried cpu temp but would not work with this cpu.
10)Looked over Black Vipers list and started
disabling things. I disabled 10 and 3 others went to manual. It showed 37 processes running before this and 32 after?
11)Ran speedfan and it showed the hdd at 75 degrees, and an hour later at 130. I put a fan on it till it cooled down. speedfan did not show any cpu temp until I shut it down and ran it again, then the crazy part was it said the cpu was at 81117 degrees F?
12)Visual effects are set to performance only as I always do.
13)Updates current.
14) periodic virus scans using trend micro 2009 pro. Yes, I shut it down and still have the same problems.

The only thing I have accomplished is it now boots faster but some strange things while doing so. When it gets to the desktop, I run task manager quick. It shows from 5% to 100% usage for about 2 minutes then settles down to 4-8% which is normal after starting services, but 2 minutes later it runs at 100% again for 2-5 minutes then settles back down with nothing opened. Much better than the 100% for 10-15 minutes like before!

It still has the same problem running more than 1 program and will not do any 2 at the same time, just hangs until one gets up then the other. The same goes for when it starts the screensaver, you can't get it out until it wants to, especially if something else is running, and it runs very slow (pipes and elbows set to medium speed).
When online after a half hour or so, you click a link then 5 seconds later you here the click, then it goes there. It does not do that for the first half hour. Wired direct to the dsl modem.

Intel Celeron 2.00ghz, 1 gb of memory, and a wimpy 30 gb hdd.

Tonight I will take it apart and clean the cobs out but I doubt thats the problem. I'm at a big loss as to what to do next.

What problems other than drivers will I run into if I adapt this hd to my machine and boot from it?

[hitman0042]

Well i reckon it could be heat i had a problem like that a long time ago and it was because of heat or a hardware fault. Take it to a technician.

[Nightowl]

That's where it's been since the 18th. I was told it could possibly be the bus. If it is I will part it out.