Slooooow Computer - advice?

[dietPepsiGuy]

Hi everyone,

I wasn't sure where to post this so sorry if this is not the right place.

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100. About 2 months ago it started to get REAL slow. I scanned for viruses, spyware, nothing. three days ago I re-formatted the drive and rebuilt it. All the laptop has on it now is the basics, Office, IE, etc. It is even worse now than before the rebuild. It take minutes (yes minutes) to open a powerpoint file. Clicking a link in the browser rends the browser frozen for a minute or two. The processor runs at 100% most of the time.

I ran Spyware Doctor, Avast Anti-Virus, Search and Destroy, and Adaware. So unless there is some virus or spyware not known by all these tools...it is clean as a whistle.

I did download a program that measures the tempurature of the CPU and it starts at 50C on cold boot but after a few minutes it climbs to about 75C. Could this heating of the CPU cause such drastic performance issues?

Any thoughts? Please help!

Oh - Dell Inspiron 5100 has 2.66 processor with 1 GB RAM running WinXP with all service packs installed. I'll run Hijack this when I get home.

Mike

 

[Onus]

That is very hot. Perhaps its heat sink and breathing passages need to be cleared out.
Otherwise, if you're sure it's clean, a failing hard drive can cause very slow load times.
You would see a general performance boost by adding more RAM, but it shouldn't be as bad as what you're seeing. Check your virtual memory settings and make sure you HAVE a swap file.

 

[einstein4pres]

Could this heating of the CPU cause such drastic performance issues?

Yes, I would guess that there is a poor connection between the processor and its heat sink. This is causing the temperature to rise, so the processor is slowing itself down to prevent burning.


Assuming the problem isn't simply a gunked up fan, you can solve this by disassembling the computer and remounting the processor/heatsink. Last I checked dell actually offered instructions on their website for accessing these parts (at least for my model). You will want to buy some thermal compound (it assists in heat transfer) and read some instructions on reseating heatsinks on processors. The other possibility is that the fan is broken and needs replacing. This will also involve disassembly of the laptop, but perhaps less.

 

[alvine]

call dell support and talk with some person with heavy accent for an hour to get technician or they will tell you how to fix it.

fun fun i had dell dimension 3000 x.x

 

[dietPepsiGuy]

Here's what I've done so far:

1. Run all the spyware and anti-viral tools (clean)
2. Reformat and clean install of winXP (installed latest Service Packs, etc).
3. Repeat run of all the spyware and anti-viral tools (clean) - just to be sure!
4. Defragged the hard drive (it needed it but didn't help)
5. Used MSConfig to clean up startup (not many since it was a clean install)
6. Took apart laptop and cleaned the fan
7. Bough laptop cooling "system" that's sits under the laptop to draw heat.
8. Scour the web
9. Post on Tom's Hardware 🙂

I did find this "fix". I'm at work so I can't do it until this evening...but any thoughts?

I have solved this problem, it is registry misbehaviour in windows xp.
To solve this problem, u have to do the following:
In windows xp,click start>run and enter regedit and remove the following registry key.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREClassesCLSID{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}InProcServer32"

or

click Start>Run and enter regedit and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSystemFileAssociations.avishellexPropertyHandler

by clicking the + signs beside

Hkey_Classes_Root/SystemFileAssociations/.avi/shellex

then select (highlight) PropertyHandler

>> next Click File > Export and give the file a name. Then export (save) it to a convenient location before deleting it. It can be restored later if necessary by clicking the saved .reg file

>> after saving it, Right click on the PropertyHandler folder in the left hand pane and select "Delete"

and your problm is solved..

 

[Onus]

You cleaned the fan, but did you verify that it actually runs when the machine is powered on? Are the air channels also cleared of dust?

 

[dietPepsiGuy]

Hmmm...now checking to see if it runs...novel idea! Air channels are clear. I'll open it again and see if it runs.

 

[jitpublisher]

50c should be the temp under load, not at idle, and 75c is plenty enough for your CPU to throttle way back.
Fix this problem before you do anything else. As people suggested, clean the heatsink, clean your case fans, make sure all your fans are running, the one in the power supply as well. Even if the CPU fan is running, if there is not good thru-case ventilation, it will still get too hot.

 

[knotknut]

If you just did a HDD Format and a Fresh install of Windows I would rule out registry problems. Changing registry entrys now would only compound your problems.

Have you checked your Memory?
Here is link. It has all the info you need and the download is free.
http://www.memtest86.com/
You could burn the ISO at work and take it home with you.

 

[dietPepsiGuy]

The great ideas keep coming! Thanks guys (and gals). I will let you know what happens so I can close the loop. Hopefully I'll have good news to report.

 

[richardscott]

if all else fails go buy a hs for £10 it will propberly solve ure temp problems.

 

[einstein4pres]

@richardscott -- this is a laptop we're talking about.

I'm not aware of any after-market laptop CPU cooling solutions that fit in a Dell Inspiron 5100, which is really to say that I've never heard of a single one, and if I had, I would be dubious about it's compatibility.

 

[richardscott]

ahhhh hmm you can buy laptop coolers that are placed under the laptop and use a tec to blow cold air into the fan intakes.

 

[einstein4pres]

@richardscott

7. Bough laptop cooling "system" that's sits under the laptop to draw heat.

Thank you for playing, please try again!

 

[richardscott]

hehe im going to stop makeing my self look like and idiot 😛, and not posting stupid replys.