My dell is dying??

[Mike G]

Dimension 5100, xp home. For the last week the starting of programs has
taken 5 minutes or more. i.e. ie explorer, OL express, quicken, word, excel
etc. Once ie loads, I can surf the web at normal speeds and the programs
run normally. Actions taken so far: Norton scan, MS antispy, defrag,
disk cleanup, *.tmp files removed, HDD check and memory check from Dell
Utilities, all indicating normal. Any help appreciated.

 

[Leythos]

Dimension 5100, xp home. For the last week the starting of programs has
taken 5 minutes or more. i.e. ie explorer, OL express, quicken, word, excel
etc. Once ie loads, I can surf the web at normal speeds and the programs
run normally. Actions taken so far: Norton scan, MS antispy, defrag,
disk cleanup, *.tmp files removed, HDD check and memory check from Dell
Utilities, all indicating normal. Any help appreciated.

From the task-bar, right click on it and select "Task Manager", then
select "Performance" tab, then look at the "PF Usage" bar graph - that's
how much memory your computer is using - if it's more than you bought,
then your computer needs more RAM.

 

[Don MI]

Dimension 5100, xp home. For the last week the starting of programs has
taken 5 minutes or more. i.e. ie explorer, OL express, quicken, word,
excel etc. Once ie loads, I can surf the web at normal speeds and the
programs run normally. Actions taken so far: Norton scan, MS antispy,
defrag, disk cleanup, *.tmp files removed, HDD check and memory check from
Dell Utilities, all indicating normal. Any help appreciated.

Also:

In Device Manager go to the section on IDE ATA Controllers. In that
section, right click on your Primary Drive and select Properties. Go to the
Advanced Settings tab. Check the current transfer mode. The current mode
should be a DMA mode. If the current mode is PIO, then you have a
controller or drive problem. If the current mode is PIO, check with Dell
support.

Don

 

[Mike G]

Good idea....I will try that... Mike

Also:

In Device Manager go to the section on IDE ATA Controllers. In that
section, right click on your Primary Drive and select Properties. Go to
the Advanced Settings tab. Check the current transfer mode. The current
mode should be a DMA mode. If the current mode is PIO, then you have a
controller or drive problem. If the current mode is PIO, check with Dell
support.

Don