xp service pack 2 slow down

[David]

I just bought my daughter a new Dell Inspiron laptop for University,
512K RAM, 2.6GHz Celeron. Loaded with Office, McAfee (and checked to
be virus free) & Realplayer. Networked with my desktop for internet
access.

The problem came when I downloaded service pack 2, which slowed the
machine right down. When I used System Restore to revert to a virgin
state things speeded up again. When I reinstalled the service pack it
slowed down. Then I uninstalled the service pack & it speeded up
again. As a yardstick, copying a cd to disk using Realplayer is approx
10 times faster without the service pack installed - and everything
else as well - even just opening up my computer.

I used the task manager to monitor the cpu usage which keeps sticking
at 100%. But no rogue programs. McAfee had the biggest useage by far,
but shutting that down made no difference. It feels like the computer
is doing the machine equivalent of wading through treacle.

So now I've downloaded just the critical updates (and will add
Zonealarm) but that doesn't feel right. I'll also try the Dell support
web-site, but searches on the forum there & here haven't given me any
clues what's going wrong. Any ideas appreciated, thanks, David

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

I just bought my daughter a new Dell Inspiron laptop for University,
512K RAM, 2.6GHz Celeron. Loaded with Office, McAfee (and checked to
be virus free) & Realplayer. Networked with my desktop for internet
access.

The problem came when I downloaded service pack 2, which slowed the
machine right down. When I used System Restore to revert to a virgin
state things speeded up again. When I reinstalled the service pack it
slowed down. Then I uninstalled the service pack & it speeded up
again.

Hi

Dell Inspiron slowdown issue with SP2 is discussed in this thread:

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

 

[Richard]

I just bought my daughter a new Dell Inspiron laptop for University,
512K RAM, 2.6GHz Celeron. Loaded with Office, McAfee (and checked to
be virus free) & Realplayer. Networked with my desktop for internet
access.

The problem came when I downloaded service pack 2, which slowed the
machine right down. When I used System Restore to revert to a virgin
state things speeded up again. When I reinstalled the service pack it
slowed down. Then I uninstalled the service pack & it speeded up
again. As a yardstick, copying a cd to disk using Realplayer is approx
10 times faster without the service pack installed - and everything
else as well - even just opening up my computer.

I used the task manager to monitor the cpu usage which keeps sticking
at 100%. But no rogue programs. McAfee had the biggest useage by far,
but shutting that down made no difference. It feels like the computer
is doing the machine equivalent of wading through treacle.

So now I've downloaded just the critical updates (and will add
Zonealarm) but that doesn't feel right. I'll also try the Dell support
web-site, but searches on the forum there & here haven't given me any
clues what's going wrong. Any ideas appreciated, thanks, David

Have a look at
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]
There is also a lot of info on the Dell support forums you just have to dig
around a bit. The favourite solution is to roll back the processor driver or
an uninstall to Sp1 and wait for a proper fix. The worst affected machines
seem to be the Inspiron 1150s

Richard.

 

[Alex Nichol]

The problem came when I downloaded service pack 2, which slowed the
machine right down. When I used System Restore to revert to a virgin
state things speeded up again. When I reinstalled the service pack it
slowed down.

Installing SP2 leaves files scattered around and undoes all the
optimisations that have gone on - it accordingly deletes the PreFetch
folder, and that has to be rebuilt. Defrag the system, and then reboot
two or three times during the next week, so that data on boot
accumulates in PreFetch along with that on programs you load, and the
every-three day optimisation will start to improves things pretty soon

 

[David]

Thanks for the replies - extremely helpful. I hadn't noticed the clock
speed was reporting 311MHz instead of 2.6GHz. And yes it is an
Inspiron 1150 - I'm amazed that Dell have made no attempt to let us
know there would be a problem, or even to make it easy to find the
solution on their site.

Anyhow rolling back the driver worked a treat.
Dave