XP Dell Running Bad! Help?

[Servalan123]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimensions XP computer that in recent months has
been running very badly.

It has had 3 PC Restores by Dell in 2 years and is now out of warranty.

When I first use it in the day Outlook Express is very sluggish, when you
click on an email it could take 20/30 seconds to appear.Recently when I am
online and want to send an email it won't do it and you have to restart the
computer to send emails.Emails take longer to download than a year ago.

When I log off up to 3 "End Program" windows can appear and generally the
computer is acting bad.

Is it old age? This thing should work fine for 10 years!

I do all the maintenance, defrag, cleaner, removing cookies and use the
McAfee Clean Up tool.I have no bad software installed as far as I know.

Is there anything I can do save another PC Restore?

Thanks!

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimensions XP computer that in recent
months has been running very badly.

It has had 3 PC Restores by Dell in 2 years and is now out of
warranty.

When I first use it in the day Outlook Express is very sluggish,
when you click on an email it could take 20/30 seconds to
appear.Recently when I am online and want to send an email it won't
do it and you have to restart the computer to send emails.Emails
take longer to download than a year ago.

When I log off up to 3 "End Program" windows can appear and
generally the computer is acting bad.

Is it old age? This thing should work fine for 10 years!

I do all the maintenance, defrag, cleaner, removing cookies and use
the McAfee Clean Up tool.I have no bad software installed as far as
I know.

Is there anything I can do save another PC Restore?

A computer - no upgrades, basic consumer/home user - I would personally say
has a lifespan of between four and seven years. Shorter if the consumer
needs change and/or new peripherals are purchased and expected to function
on the computer.

Let us know what processor you have, how much memory and how free drive
space?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimensions XP computer that in recent months has
been running very badly.

It has had 3 PC Restores by Dell in 2 years and is now out of warranty.

When I first use it in the day Outlook Express is very sluggish, when you
click on an email it could take 20/30 seconds to appear.Recently when I am
online and want to send an email it won't do it and you have to restart the
computer to send emails.Emails take longer to download than a year ago.

When I log off up to 3 "End Program" windows can appear and generally the
computer is acting bad.

Is it old age? This thing should work fine for 10 years!

No, it's not old age. The age is irrelevant.

I do all the maintenance, defrag, cleaner, removing cookies and use the
McAfee Clean Up tool.I have no bad software installed as far as I know.

I can't tell for sure based on what you've said, but my *guess* is
that you are infected with malware. McAfee is the second worst
anti-virus program available (only Norton is worse) and you said
nothing about anti-spyware programs.

Is there anything I can do save another PC Restore?

"Another PC Restore" is almost invariably the worst thing you might
do. If you properly take care of the computer, it should never be
necessary.

 

[Leonard Grey]

My 6.5 year old Dell desktop runs as fast as the day I got it.

Malicious software ("malware") could be installed on your computer.

Make sure that your anti-malware software is running, then download the
latest signatures and run a full scan.

If you don't have comprehensive anti-malware software, that's like
driving a car without seats belts or air bags. 'Comprehensive'
anti-malware software scans for all types of malicious software in the
background, on demand and on schedule

For now try scanning your system with /several/ of the better online
scanners, such as:
Kaspersky Antivirus (http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner)
Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan)

Download HijackThis from www.trendsecure.com. Run it, save a log, and
post the log at one of the many sites that support HJT, such as
spywarewarrior.com, bleepingcomputer.com, and http://aumha.net -- but
not here. Within a day you'll have step-by-step advice from an expert on
cleaning up any malware infestations.

Even the best detection and removal software can't fix every malware
infection. If none of the above remove the infection, you may want to
show the computer to a professional. You might need to erase your hard
drive and start over.

 

[Daave]

I have a 6 year old Dell Dimensions XP computer that in recent months
has
been running very badly.

It has had 3 PC Restores by Dell in 2 years and is now out of
warranty.

When I first use it in the day Outlook Express is very sluggish, when
you
click on an email it could take 20/30 seconds to appear.Recently when
I am
online and want to send an email it won't do it and you have to
restart the
computer to send emails.Emails take longer to download than a year
ago.

When I log off up to 3 "End Program" windows can appear and generally
the
computer is acting bad.

Is it old age? This thing should work fine for 10 years!

I do all the maintenance, defrag, cleaner, removing cookies and use
the
McAfee Clean Up tool.I have no bad software installed as far as I
know.

Is there anything I can do save another PC Restore?

You didn't mention performing the usual Outlook Express maintenance
measures, including compacting your OE folders. See:

http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

Before you compact your folders, make sure you create new folders (for
e-mails you choose to save) so that your Inbox and Sent Items folders
are not overstuffed. It's important, too, that these new folders are not
subfolders (at least, they should not be subfolders under the Inbox or
Sent Items folders).

Here is a rundown of the usual causes of sluggishness:

1. Malicious software (malware)

2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up.

3. Too many of *certain types* of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge.

Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
Otherwise, you may want to explore this further by running Page File
Monitor for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

 

[Gerry]

Servalan123

In Outlook Express place the cursor on Local Folders and select File,
Work Offline followed by File, Folder, Compact All. Do not attempt to
interupt or stop the process until it has completed. Close Outlook
Express when it has completed.

After compacting check your Outlook Express folders are as they should
be. Then select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk
CleanUp to Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files.
Also select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk
CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest
System Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Servalan123]

No, it's not old age. The age is irrelevant.




I can't tell for sure based on what you've said, but my *guess* is
that you are infected with malware. McAfee is the second worst
anti-virus program available (only Norton is worse) and you said
nothing about anti-spyware programs.




"Another PC Restore" is almost invariably the worst thing you might
do. If you properly take care of the computer, it should never be
necessary.

Thanks for all your helpful replies.

The computer is a Dell Dimensions 3000, Celeron 2.66 GHz, RAM 512MB and 80
GB Hard Disk (67% free).
I have Mc Afee Anti Virus 2008 Full Edition, Spybot (updated), Spyguard and
Winpatrol (latest edition).
I just downloaded MalwareBytes Anti Malware from MajorGeeks.com and nothing
has come up on any program.

If a computer only lasts 4 years (crazy!) then this thing is suffering from
old age.

I will go through the procedures you all mention and hopefully at least one
will help.

Thanks again!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks for all your helpful replies.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

The computer is a Dell Dimensions 3000, Celeron 2.66 GHz, RAM 512MB and 80
GB Hard Disk (67% free).
I have Mc Afee Anti Virus 2008 Full Edition, Spybot (updated), Spyguard and
Winpatrol (latest edition).
I just downloaded MalwareBytes Anti Malware from MajorGeeks.com and nothing
has come up on any program.

Then you probably have reasonable protection against malware and my
guess that malware is your problem is likely wrong.

If a computer only lasts 4 years (crazy!) then this thing is suffering from
old age.

The thought that "a computer only lasts 4 years" is completely false.
Mine, for example, is something around six or seven years old, and has
no problems at all.

Age is never an issue.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

The thought that "a computer only lasts 4 years" is completely
false. Mine, for example, is something around six or seven years
old, and has no problems at all.

Age is never an issue.

It's not the age of the computer necessarily - but the needs of the user and
applications thus used that usually change over time.

Bought a system with 128MB memory and 30GB of hard drive space when Windows
XP was first released and used Office 2000... Now you have Office 2007 and
Windows XP with SP3 along with the half-dozen or so plugins that have also
grown in size and resource needs over time. It *does* run slower than it
would with just Windows XP RTM and none of those things (or even older
versions.)

You might be fine with nothing more than a memory upgrade in that case. But
let's say you got that new digital camcorder and want to edit video - unless
you are very patient - likely not even memory will keep that computer
running at what one would consider a reasonable rate. ;-)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

It's not the age of the computer necessarily - but the needs of the user and
applications thus used that usually change over time.

Sure.

Isn't that what I said? The age of the computer is never an issue.
Changes like those certainly affect performance. The age of the
computer doesn't.

 

[Anteaus]

The usual problem here is oversize mailboxes.

OE has a limit on mailbox (.dbx file) size. Typically it will work OK with
files up to 250MB, and then progressively gets more erratic, till at around
500MB it starts bugging-out.

The answer is to make new folders and move some of the mail over. THEN you
need to compact all folders.

 

[Gerry]

Anteaus

The ability to handle large dbx files depends on the capacity of the
computer in terms of CPU and memory. Your figures are far too high for
most home computers.


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[mtvet]

May also want to check on the compatibility of McAfee with the other
anti-malware sw you have on your machine. They have a huge list of sw that
their suite clashes with, and that can severely impact performance.