PC runs very slowly for no apparent reason

PC runs very slowly for no apparent reason I have a Dell Latitude D820 that I've owned for about 2.5 years. It is a Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz, with 2 GB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive and an NVidia Quadro 120M video card.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 197

Total answers/comments: 5

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Guest [Entry]

Call Dell and explain the problem to them, even if it's not specific. The worst that can happen is that they send a tech support guy over to see what they can do. While you're at it, write down whenever it happens, whats running, etc. so that you have some sort of more specific idea of the conditions of when and why it could happen.

Guest [Entry]

"I'd start with a memory test: http://www.memtest86.com/ and altho I do not know a specific app, I would suggest trying to find something similar that can check a whole harddisk.

If neither find a problem, maybe run a 3D benchmark used to test GPU overclocks; that will really stress the system and may make the problem visible.

If any of these show the problem, then let Dell know about which app you used and what failure you found, then at least they have a reproducable hardware problem."

Guest [Entry]

"If it were my computer I'd:

Backup my important data to a USB hard drive.
Reformat the computer's hard drive.
Perform a clean install of Vista."

Guest [Entry]

Not cheap, but I would recommend SpinRite to recondition and check your drives on a frequent basis. It has saved my butt and my data. I recommend it just in case your data is growing into some bad errors of the hard drive over time. This program does a deeper level of checking then just the normal "chkdsk" and scandisk tool.

Guest [Entry]

"It was stated that software can be ruled out as it happens on multiple OS installs. However, it might be your user behavior. This sounds like a virus, and if you have the same browsing habit from install to install, it could be that you're picking up a virus and it begins to affect your system performance after a while.

Also, do you install some kind of software that messes up some registry setting? It might be something you only use infrequently, and you get the problems when you go to use it on the new system (maybe once a year?) and find it's not installed and then install it. It also might take a while before it affects your performance. I would keep track of the applications and utilities you have installed, and when the problems begin to happen."